The Radical New Reality of Systems Science

 

 Worldview Assumptions Frame Our Understanding of 'How Things Happen'

 

Cultural Worldviews as Necessarily Diverse, Layered, and Self-Contradictory

In a larger sense, cultural worldviews involve assumptions about everything from causality to social structures, gender roles, and cuisine. These references provide the basis for a myriad of values which guide human behaviors toward a sustainable existence. Inevitably, some of these are inconsistent or even contradictory, from a strictly logical perspective. Because the conditions humans must confront to survive and prosper are so diverse and complex, this contradictory character of worldview assumptions can be viewed as essential. It provides a more adequate range of references for selecting adaptive behavior in differing contexts.

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Approaching Basic Worldview Assumptions as Serving the Purpose of Sustained Survival

As the basis of 'how we know the world,' our worldview is fundamental to our survival, both in the short term for individuals, and the long term for a community or even a species. Survival requires references for how to interpret phenomena in ways that promote sustainably adaptive behavior.

 

Survival Requires Understanding 'How Things Happen'

To promote survival, a worldview must somehow represent the realistic fundamentals of 'how things happen,' and thus 'how the world actually works.' It must provide assumptions that guide long-term adaptive behavior.

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Worldview Assumptions form through Feedback between Phenomena, Perception, and Interpretation

Phenomena must be somehow 'seen' or perceived, then interpreted relative to conceptual references or models, to then form adequately realistic assumptions about 'how things happen.' Such assumptions about the origins and effects of phenomena assist in establishing priorities and values that guide adaptive behavior. There is a recursive feedback loop between perception, interpretation, priorities, and perception that configure our behaviors.

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A worldview-forming feedback between phenomena and mind​ that guide behavior :

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Adaptive Behavior is Context Dependent

Selecting what adaptive actions to take in response to a given context derives from interpretations made on the basis of existing worldview concepts and assumptions. Options to be considered include what behaviors might be more adaptive for survival in the short versus the long term. Being able to interpret 'how things are happening' in a given context is essential to survival.

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Evaluating contexts and potential behavior options through worldview references:

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However, 'How We Know the World,' through Worldview References, is not necessarily 'the World as It is'

Worldview references of conceptions and assumptions that facilitate interpretation are mental constructs. As such, these are not the same as the literal phenomena 'out there,' but are re-presentations 'in mind-ing.' We 'know the world' as mental representations formed in reference to our worldview. Thus, if our worldview concepts and assumptions have been formed in an inaccurate manner, relative to actual phenomena (or reality), then our behaviors can become ineffective or maladaptive and threaten survival. It is possible for our assumptions to 'over ride' accurate perceptions, so that we 'see what we expect to see,' rather than 'the world as it actually happens.' Our worldview can 'blind' us to aspects of reality without our even knowing.

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We assume we 'see' what is:                             But we can 'see' as we expect to:                       Thus it is possible to 'see' mistakenly:​

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​Worldview Assumptions are Culturally Conditioned thus Often Reflexive and 'Unconscious'

Because people are 'born into' a worldview, its assumptions and references can become entirely unconscious and reflexive. From birth we are constantly conditioned to think in terms of a cultural worldview. One's personal identity becomes entangled in it. The world can only be and 'happen' as one has come to expect. Thus, it can be extremely difficult to detect the underlying assumptions which form the basis for one's interpretations, priorities, and behaviors -- even when these begin to appear ineffective or maladaptive and threaten survival. Insufficiently realistic worldview assumptions are incredibly hard to modify, even when these prove disastrous for survival. Forming a genuinely different worldview is inherently traumatic for personal and social identity.

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What are the Most Basic Traits of 'How Things Happen' for a Worldview to Represent?

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​Systems Science Identifies Two Contrasting 'Ways That Things Happen' Essential to Realistic Worldview References

​Scientific analysis of dynamical systems differentiates two contrasting dynamical modes for modeling dynamical change, or 'how things happen.' The more familiar mode is that of predictably deterministic cause and effect, or causation. Dynamical changes in this mode are sequentially progressive and can be accurately calculated, thus predicted. Events happen 'one after another,' as actions and reactions, in a linear fashion, with each being determined by previous events. We can think of this as 'mechanistic dynamics' because it happens like a set of parts acting upon each other in a machine. Deterministic causation is relatively easy to conceive of in a logical fashion.

 

The 'one thing after another' of change through deterministic causation:

 

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The other mode arises from the simultaneous interactions of many factors which 'happen all at once.' It can result in new forms of increased organization with unexpected properties. This dynamical mode of change is termed "emergent" and can create unpredictable increases in order termed "self-organization." This new ordering 'emerges' synergistically from concurrent interactions, rather than from predictable sequences of cause and effect. Self-organization can result in self-ordering, self-directing systems that are 'agentic,' or 'agent-like,' in the sense that these can purposefully promote their existence as "complex adaptive systems." Animal agency is the most elaborate form of such 'agentic systems.' Unpredictably emergent self-organization is profoundly difficult to conceive in a logical manner because it occurs as concurrent interactions in each instant as well as over time, Compared to sequential causation, emergence has a more non-linear dynamical character. Thus, emergent ordering is change that occurs in a technically non-causal or 'acausal' manner.

 

​The logically confounding  'everything at once' of interactive, unpredictably emergent ordering:

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Systems science reveals how both these 'ways that things happen' are fundamental to 'how the world works.' But it also shows that the emergent mode and resulting self-organizing of systems proves to be the source of most of the forms and ordering of the biosphere -- of life itself. Therefore, perceiving and interpreting the agentic or 'agent like' behavior of such systems is essential to adaptive behaviors that sustain survival for animals and humans. Creatures must be able to differentiate what dynamical modes and factors are involved in the events around them if they are to respond with effectively adaptive behaviors.

 

Effectively adaptive behavior depends on differentiating 'how things are happening':

 

 

 

 

 

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Thus, an adequately realistic worldview must provide references for both 'ways that things happen' to promote long term sustainable survival. Worldview assumptions about 'how the world works' that fail to adequately represent both dynamical modes is likely to prove disastrous.

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The 'double minding' of 'how things happen' in an adequately realistic worldview:

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​Next Page of Introductory Sequence:

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What is Our Modern Worldview?

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