Re: Ecology of Systems Thinking • RS • TM

My previous comment summed up my observations of a general drift toward “absolutist and dyadic ways of thinking” in various communities of inquiry of interest to me over the past 20 years.  I traced its cause to “the stubborn pull of unchecked reductionism” and a corresponding failure to grasp the relational structures of complex phenomena.

A preference for simple models and theories is natural enough so long as the chosen models and theories are up to the task of explaining the phenomena at hand, but when a preference for a particular class of structures persists in the face of steadily mounting anomalies it becomes a hidebound and dysfunctional bias.

That is my description and my diagnosis of the situation as I see it.  I could be wrong about either or both.  But the reason for addressing the case in these terms is not simply to point out a dysfunctional state of affairs.  The purpose of a diagnosis is to indicate a remedy.

cc: Systems Science • Structural Modeling • Peirce List • Ontolog Forum • Cybernetics