Shall we dance?

Today I’m sharing a long excerpt from something I need to reread more frequently, Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems. I continue to revert to efforts to control one or more system. If I don’t soon behave better, I may need to make myself copy the entire essay 500 times.

People who are  raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are  likely  to make a terrible mistake. They are likely  to assume that here, in systems analysis, in interconnection and complication, in the  power of the computer, here at last, is the key to prediction and control. This mistake is likely because the mindset of the industrial world assumes that there is a key to prediction and control.

I assumed that at first, too. We all assumed it, as eager systems students at the great institution called  MIT. More or less innocently, enchanted by what we could see through our new lens, we did what many discoverers do. We exaggerated our own ability to change the world. We did so not with any intent to deceive others, but in the expression of our own expectations and hopes. Systems thinking for us was more than subtle, complicated mindplay. It was going to Make Systems Work.

“But self-organizing, nonlinear feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They  are understandable only in the  most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what  you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never  fully  understand our world, not in the way our reductionistic science  has  led us to expect. Our  science itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos,  leads  us into irreducible uncertainty. For any  objective other than the most  trivial, we can’t optimize; we don’t  even know what  to optimize. We can’t keep  track of everything. We can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each  other, or the institutions we create, if we try  to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.

“For  those who stake their identity on the role of omniscient conqueror, the uncertainty exposed  by systems thinking is hard to take. If you can’t  understand, predict, and control, what is there to do?

If you want to answer that question, follow the link above and read Meadows’ entire essay for a start.

how many systems do you see here?

Photo by J. Harrington

Intellectually, I continue to acknowledge that our world has become (always was?) too complex to attain success through a command and control scheme. These days I have a hard time keeping track of my smart phone, let alone “everything.” I’m again reminded of a joke that emerged from a computer game I used to play. The game was Sim City. The punch line of the joke is “The reason god gave us free will is she got tired of reminding us to go to the bathroom.” Or something like that.

Anyhow, through the course of much reading and cogitating, I’m starting to wonder if the kind of mindset or attitude we I need is to be found in the reciprocity reflected in the world views of many Native American nations. This is another theme to explore in times to come.

Remember

by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.