The Radical New Reality of Systems Science

​

• A worldview, or Weltanschauung, is a fundamental cognitive orientation to 'how one knows' what there is to know

• It involves basic references, concepts, and normative assumptions about 'what is' and 'how things happen'

• It is a basis for perceiving then interpreting phenomena to promote survival through adaptively sustainable behavior

• An effectively realistic worldview is one that facilitates adaptively sustainable behavior for individuals or species

• The accuracy of which depends upon a process of learning from its inadequacies to modify interpretive assumptions

• thereby enhancing the efficacy of adaptively sustainable behavior in order to maintain survival

• But, there is a feedback loop between perceptions and interpretations, where each can alter the other

• Interpretations of perceived data form assumptions that can redirect perceptual attention, but can also 'over ride' it

• That is, assumptions about the world as perceived can become experienced as ongoing perceptions

• such that one is no longer perceiving what is actually happening, but assuming to perceive what one expects

• Phenomena can then be experienced and understood as 'how these are supposed to be'

• The world as we know it is not necessarily the world as it is -- and that can be disastrously maladaptive

• As the basics of a worldview are culturally conditioned, these become reflexive and difficult to reevaluate

• So, fundamental changes in a worldview can require profound cultural change driven by traumatic disruptions

• ​

• ​

• At an animal level,  all creatures require some such orientation to facilitate adaptive behaviors thus survival

• Presumably, it derives from both genetically encoded references and a creature's interactions with environments

• Emerging from repetitions of perception > Interpretation > behavior > perception> learning > adjusted behavior

• In accordance to a particular creature's innate or developed capacities to interact with environments

• As such, a worldview emerges for the purpose of adapting realistically to environments to promote survival

• ​

• ​

• Resulting in assumptions about self and world that foster priorities and values to guide realistically adaptive behavior

• Though 'how the world works' might be similar for all, each encounters it through capacities and a worldview

• In social animals, particularly humans, the resulting assumpitons, priorities and values are culturally conditioned.

• ​

• These are culturally conditioned and socially reinforced, leading to shared priorities and values for 'what should be'

• ​

• Consequently, our notions of what is real become entangled in our anxieties, expectations, and ambitions

• ​​

• It emerges through repetitions of perception > Interpretation > behavior > perception> learning > adjusted behavior ​

• Purpose of Thrive/Survive, in relation to capacities and environments

• ​

• Because these assumptions, priorities, and values are so endemic and reflexive, they are not necessarily obvious

• These are embedded in our culture, which is the basis for our perception, conception, interpretation, and actions

• We know what we know, believe what we believe, interpret our experience, in terms of our basic worldview

• Thus, people and whole societies might be unaware of how their behaviors manifest from their worldview

• Individuals might not be able to state the basics of their worldview or might actually misrepresent these

• Yet survival depends upon having an adequately realistic one that enables us to adapt to changing circumstances

• If our assumptions about 'how the world works' become too inaccurate, our behaviors can threaten our own existence

• But how do we know when our assumptions are failing us?​ What to do when we believe our delusions?

• ​

• Systems science shows how the current collapse of ecological and climate systems is a result of our modern worldview

• Thus, it is factually evident that the inadequacy of our common assumptions is not scientific but cultural

• ​​​​

How We Know the World is not Necessarily How It Is

​

One reflexively assumes that one 'sees' realistically. That what one 'looks at' or 'thinks about' is exactly what one is  'seeing' or 'thinking' in the mind. But our minds are not 'the world out there.' Our perceptions, thoughts, ideas, are representations and interpretations of phenomena -- not the phenomena them selves. Most importantly, how we interpret our perceptions is configured not only by our experience, but by socially and culturally conditioned assumptions about 'how the world is' and 'how things happen' in it.

​​​

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

​

​

​

​

​

Much of what we seek to understand is not even overtly visible, audible, or touchable. Concepts and data obtained in other ways than our senses are required to 'make sense' of most phenomena. Society and culture provide most of those concepts and data. So 'how we know' is deeply conditioned by collectively shared assumptions -- assumptions that become normalized as 'reality.' Obviously, people often disagree about how to interpret phenomena. We do not all 'see things the same way.' Whether in personal relationships, politics, or scientific research, agreement can be difficult to achieve. What is 'real' or 'true' to one person might not be to another. However, these arguments are often about how to apply shared assumptions about 'reality' to particular issues. For example, we might all agree that events only happen because these are deterministically caused by preceding events and factors. From that basic assumption, our disagreements about how certain events happened will be about whose version of causes is more accurate or realistic. This is the sort of shared, fundamental ideas that form the basis of 'how we know what we know,' thus our 'worldview.'

​​

Culture as a Basis for Assumptions Underlying a Cultural Worldview

Every society manifests through standards for normative behaviors. Those behaviors have a basis in shared cultural assumptions, values, and practices. These frame the ways people think about self and world, about 'how things happen' and 'for what purposes.'

Those assumptions and attitudes tend to be 'the water we swim in.' One is 'born into' and develops awareness 'through' these orientations to self and world. Thus, it is inherently difficult to specify, question, or change those orientations. Significant changes in cultural assumptions tend to emerge from some turbulent disruption of the 'status quo' in which 'normal thinking' becomes obviously irrelevant. So long as an existing set of assumptions serve to sustain a society, these can dominate for centuries, even millennia, as in the case of archaic hunter-gatherer cultures.

Since the advent of civilized societies, there have been numerous permutations of cultural worldviews. Many of those have transformed over time. Some appear to have failed in terms of their long term adaptive sustainability. Currently, significant distinctions can be made among how societies around the planet conceive aspects of life and human purposes. However, the majority are operating effectively under the dominance of some basic Western European-derived cultural assumptions, which base a realistic perspective on the reduction of phenomena to materialistic physics and deterministic causation. Our "globalized world" can be said to be 'mechanistically conceptual.'

How Do We Know When the Assumptions of our Worldview are Inaccurate?

​

Presumably, when our basic assumptions about 'how things happen' are significantly inaccurate, experience would provide us with evidence that prompts us to reconsider those assumptions. There are at least three principle obstructions to such a readjustment in one's worldview. Firstly, it can take considerable time before evidence of misunderstanding accumulates to an overtly obvious extent. Secondly, we are so accustomed to 'seeing the world' through our existing assumptions that actually noticing such evidence becomes difficult. We continue to 'see what we expect to see' regardless of what is actually occurring. Thirdly, our social and economic systems become configured around our assumptions. These systems develop significant inertia and resistance to re-orienting practices and purposes. That existing impetus tends to reinforce the primacy of dominant assumptions in the thinking of individual people. The careers of academics, scientists, politicians and corporate CEOs are all deeply 'invested' in the 'status quo' worldview.  Subsequently, even when someone provides evidence that existing assumptions are faulty, 'the system' tends to ignore or actively repress such evidence. These factors can drive a society into self-destructive behaviors. So, it is most likely that reevaluation of our worldview will only occur when our misconceptions result in dramatic disruption of our lives. In the words of Albert Einstein: "You can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it." When the assumptions of our worldview create catastrophe for us, we likely must undergo a radical "metanoia," a complete change in how we think about what we have to think about.

​

Is There Evidence that Our Modern Worldview is Failing Us?

​

Many assert that modern society and culture are a triumph of human intelligence and ingenuity. Industrial technology has given us extraordinary influence over the material world. However, the consequences of that influence have been shown to include effects that both contradict our supposed values for human well being and pose existential risks to the survival of our species. On the larger scale, these effects involve catastrophic disruptions of global ecologies and climate systems. It is clear that our behaviors are neither 'in our own best interests,' nor in those of the biosphere. Some conclude that these effects result from not acting in accordance to our proclaimed values for equity and human rights, or in logical response to our scientific knowledge -- that selfishness, greed, and ignorance are the 'problem.' However, it is worth considering that our relentless pursuit of industrial exploitation of nature, and personal consumption of the commodities it generates, are 'driven' by some basic, if not so obvious, aspects of our underlying worldview -- of assumptions which are so reflexive we are not able to actually reflect upon these. It is possible that we are not able to effectively experience the evidence for our disastrous behaviors because we lack ways to to even think about these. Perhaps we operate from priorities for 'how things should be' that overwhelm our awareness of 'how things actually are.'

​​

Systems science provides factual evidence that our modern worldview misunderstands 'how things happen,' thus how our selves and the world actually work. That being the case, our 'problem' is not so much moral, ethical, or ignorance of existing knowledge, not a simply a practical dilemma to solve in our habitual ways, but a fundamental aspect of our culturally conditioned assumptions about 'how the world should be.' We continually expect to prosper by doing and thinking as we are accustomed to do.

​​

A Fundamental Cultural Assumption about Reality Has Changed in Modern Times

​

Logically, a failure to have a basic understanding of 'how things happen,' thus 'how the world actually works,' would seem to be a severe problem for humans. Looking at diverse cultures across history, the language and imagery used to represent 'how the world actually works' appear quite different.  Nonetheless, these diverse societies have coped with reality relatively effectively. However, in recent history, there has been a profound shift in emphasis in worldviews regarding basic assumptions about 'how things happen,' thus 'how the world actually works.' Our science-based modern worldview differs considerably in this respect from those premodern ones -- so much so, that moderns often regard premodern cultures as unrealistic or fundamentally delusional. Those who came before 'us' clearly miss-perceived,'or at least misinterpreted reality, thus failed to understand 'how things actually happen.'

​

In simplistic terms, premodern societies were based in cultural assumption that regarded the world as animated by spirits, ghosts, demons, and divinities. These intentional but not normally human 'agents' were associated with phenomena perceived as being 'magical' or 'miraculous,' as if there were some 'force' that could produce 'extraordinary' events. Indeed, for these cultures, spiritual agents and their magical actions were the primary source of life and the world. Nonetheless, those people clearly understood the roles of cause and efffect in their practical lives.

With the elaboration of Western scientific method, and its profound accuracy in describing, explaining, and predicting phenomena, those assumptions began to loose credulity. There appeared to be no factual evidence for their existence. Thus, though some people continue to assume 'spiritual phenomena' are actual, overall the larger systems of contemporary societies tend to operate from the conclusion that there is 'no such thing.' Reality, the world, are entirely the consequence deterministic physical causation -- which, as such, could potentially be manipulated and controlled by humans.  For we moderns, 'how the world works' is approached as fundamentally deterministic.

How Did We Arrive at Our Modern Wroldview -- And How Do We Know It is Correct?

​

​

The route to our modern assumptions about deterministic causation has origins in ancient Greek thought. The ancient philosopher Aristotle, sometimes considered an source for modern scientific thinking, posed four causes for 'what is' and 'how it changes':

​

• Material cause: The substance or matter from which something is made.

• Formal cause: The structure, form, or design of something.

• Efficient cause: The agent or force that brings about a change.

• Final cause: The purpose or goal of something. ​

That set of categories was a rather novel abstract philosophical summary even in Aristotle's time, when cultures still assumed the primary source of the world was 'spiritual agency.'  But his ideas can be associated with most premodern cultural worldviews in that he includes a category for 'force of agency' and purposefulness, which resembles mythological concepts of spirits and divinities that influence material reality intentionally.  Aristotle's abstract ideas became prominent in later European thought. Writing in the 17th Century, Francis Bacon offered a more concise model. He proposed that the 'laws of nature,' or natural phenomena, derive only from the "material" and the "efficient" causes.  These he proposed as the basis for physics, or the 'mechanics' of natural phenomena. The "formal" and "final" causes Bacon relegated to "metaphysics" and broadly characterized these as "magic," thus some how 'outside nature.' This division allowed scientific inquiry to focus upon the observable, quantifiable, and calculable aspects of phenomena. At the same time, his notion of "metaphysics" allowed some category for the existence of a traditional 'god' factor that shaped the world 'from outside' it.

Through the so-called scientific revolution into the 19th and 20th Centuries, the mechanical model of causation became dominant and exclusive. The evident potency of physical science in describing, explaining, and predicting phenomena promoted its dominance as the most valid description of 'what is actual' or real. The concept of "metaphysics" lost factual credulity, That left Aristotle's "formal, efficient, and final" causes with no technically validated status. Even his "material cause" is not considered useful now. In modern physics, it has been concluded that, at the most fundamental level, there are four fundamental forces which can be considered as the "causes" behind all observed phenomena:

​

• the strong nuclear force

• the weak nuclear force

• electromagnetism (including both electric and magnetic forces)

• gravity​

​

From this view, it has been assumed that all phenomena derive ultimately, and mechanistically through deterministic physical cause and effect, from these four factors. Absolutely everything derives directly from those 'forces.'  This is referred to as "upward causation," in which more basic or "lower level" factors, such as the four forces, predictably cause all more complex "higher level" phenomena. In a strictly deterministic view of causality, there can be no other source of phenomena.  Agency, including mind, and purposefulness, or goal-oriented actions, thereby came to be regarded as "epiphenomena," meaning secondary effects or byproducts of deterministically causal processes. Which is to say, these 'have no actual influence' upon 'how the world works.'

​​

We arrived at these assumptions through meticulously reductive scientific analysis. By forming hypothetical explanations, then measuring, quantifying, calculating, we tested those hypotheses to demonstrate the factual basis for deterministic causality in the physical universe. The explanatory and predictive power of this method makes it logical to believe that it is correct, and the only way to know realistically is through scientifically proven facts.

​

And Now -- Yet Another (Scientific) Story

There has emerged a kind of 'epilogue' or 'coda' to this story, however. The relentless investigations of the 'physical world,' of how matter and energy 'take form' and 'change,' through verifiable quantification and calculation, eventually generated insights that diverge from an assumption that all phenomena are strictly the result of deterministic cause and effect. In a stunning turn, the very scientific methods relied upon to form that assumption have put it in serious doubt. So much so, that our modern worldview based upon that assumption has lost its supposedly 'iron clad' factual validity. Evidence for non-deterministic events, including purposeful agency, has come from aspects of complex systems science. The implications of this shift is what this website seeks to explore. Aspects of Aristotle's "four causes" are 'back in play' in our scientific thinking, allowing us to reconsider more archaic notions of 'spiritual agency' and its 'purposeful actions' as representations of actual aspects of 'how things happen,' thus, 'how the world actually works.'

​​

​

​

What is a Worldview For?

​

Sustainable Survival Means Adapting Realistically

Animal survival depends upon some capacity to perceive and interpret realistically. Each creature requires references for 'what is' and how to interpret the significance of phenomena for its own survival. It must differentiate food from not food, how to get food, and how to avoid danger. Such capacities of perception and interpretation enable it to adapt to its environment and changes in that environment. These constitute 'ways of knowing' and understanding. If these are not sufficiently realistic, if they do not enable a creature to promote its continued existence, then they can become maladaptive and prove fatal, either for an individual or an entire species. The capacity of animals to 'learn from experience' enables many to enhance capacities to adapt sustainably to different environmental factors or changes. Bears can learn to forage in human garbage cans. Orca whales learn to hunt different prey species in differing ways in different parts of the world. Humans evolved to have particularly versatile adaptive capacities, adjusting their behaviors in ways that proved adaptive in nearly all aspects of the biosphere. Such adaptive learning indicates a capacity for selective self-redirection toward more realistically sustainable behaviors. Humans are characterized by a particularly flexible and inventive degree of this capacity. 

​

A Concept of Animal Worldview

Animal survival depends upon an organism's capacities for perceiving, interpreting, and interacting with its external environment sustainably.  While much of these capacities are genetically endowed and instinctual, in more complex animals such a reptiles, birds, and mammals, they can involve complex cognitive processing that results in adaptive learning and behavior modification. Each creature requires some 'sense of self,' of environment, and of 'others,' in order to adapt their behaviors for sustainable survival.  They have to be able to differentiate aspects what is relatively predictable, and how they might 'act upon' it. In addition, whether as predators or prey, or as social animals, they must sense what 'out there' has agency, or the capacity to act intentionally, thus might act unpredictably and be 'friend or foe.' It can be essential to distinguish what is animate, or alive, from what is not -- then what its 'intentions' might be. Thus, we could say animals have a kind of 'evolved worldview,' roughly representing 'how things happen' or 'how the world works,' appropriate to their own capacities, their environments, and the capacities of other living entities. In some species, this 'animal worldview' involves not only genetically encoded references but learned information and inferred assumptions, both of which can change in adaptive ways.

​

adaptive purpose​: vitality for survival

​

The Conceptualized Worldview of Humans

This extremely basic concept of an 'animal worldview' is offered to help approach notions of what constitutes a human version. Humans are obviously animals. We are subject to similar issues of how to survive through adaptive behaviors within specific environments. Like other social animals, our adaptive capacities are facilitated by collective behaviors. But human capacities for adaptation are exponentially enhanced by our exceptional cognitive functions for abstract conceptualization, analytical reasoning, linguistic communication, quantitative calculation, and technological innovation. However, the worldviews of various human societies can appear significantly different and result in divergent behaviors.

​

For humans, animal aspects of adapting by perceiving, interpreting, and acting accordingly, appear greatly enhanced by abstract conceptualization and language. The frontal lobes or prefrontal cortex of the human brain provide humans with some enhanced cognitive capacities relative to other animals. Consequently, human awareness and mental orientation to the world involves abstract ideas and elaborate manipulation of these. Though it might not be overtly obvious, our thoughts and actions derive in considerable part from linguistically formulated concepts that constitute an explanatory system of ideas, or theories, about what is, how, and why. Whether having consciously articulated those ideas or not, upon reflective consideration, most people discover some 'theory' behind their thoughts and behaviors. It appears reasonable assume that those concepts develop both from cultural conditioning and personal experience and form the basis of one's personal worldview.

​

An Adaptive Worldview Provides Fundamental Insight into 'How Things Happen' thus 'How to Behave'

​From the perspective of conceptual human knowing, we could say that a sustainably adaptive animal worldview differentiates 'how things happen' through some sense of predictable causality, unpredictably emergent ordering, and system agency. Differentiating these aspects of 'how things happen' in some manner provide the assumptions that guide adaptive behaviors and facilitate sustainable survival. This underlying basis for an adaptive worldview is elaborated in the collective behaviors of social animals, and most extensively among humans. To exist sustainably, human societies must evolve shared concepts and assumptions that guide collective behaviors in adaptive ways. Accordingly, if these prove non-adaptive, or maladaptive. then sustained existence requires reassessment of those assumptions.

​​

What Constitutes a 'Fully Adaptive' Worldview?

The survival of animal species presumably derives from creatures developing and employing the full range of their innate capacities, including those involving learning and adaptive innovations in behaviors. Evolution is viewed as 'honing' those capacities by imposing conditions that 'select for' the 'fittest' individuals. Animals need to 'know the world' in ways that fully facilitate their engagement with it. Humans, being arguably the most complex in terms of social creatures, with our highly elaborated cognitive and emotional capacities, would seem to 'prosper' best when their worldview activates the fullest range of those capacities possible. We would be our most 'fully adaptive' when our range of abilities -- mental, emotional, social, and physical -- receive the most engaging developmental stimuli. Surely, the basis for such maximal expression of adaptive behaviors must derive in large part from an adequately complex set of assumptions about reality that guide a cultural worldview and shape the social order that emerges from it. In one sense, it seems that has been the trajectory of Western thought in promoting the well being of individuals in an equitable society. There is much evidence, however, that this goal is not being achieved, partly in the incidence of debilitating mental and physical health, partly in terms of vast social and economic equity, and especially in terms of the devastating effects human systems are having on the natural environments that sustain human vitality.

​

How is a Human Worldview Composed?

​​

​

Culture as a Basis for Assumptions Underlying a Cultural Worldview

Every society manifests through standards for normative behaviors. Those behaviors have a basis in shared cultural assumptions, values, and practices. These frame the ways people think about self and world, about 'how things happen' and 'for what purposes.'

Those assumptions and attitudes tend to be 'the water we swim in.' One is 'born into' and develops awareness 'through' these orientations to self and world. Thus, it is inherently difficult to specify, question, or change those orientations. Significant changes in cultural assumptions tend to emerge from some turbulent disruption of the 'status quo,' So long as an existing set of assumptions serve to sustain a society, these can dominate for centuries, even millennia, as in the case of archaic hunter-gatherer cultures.

Since the advent of civilized societies, there have been numerous permutations of cultural worldviews. Many of those have transformed over time. Some appear to have failed in terms of their long term adaptive sustainability. Currently, significant distinctions can be made among how societies around the planet conceive aspects of life and human purposes. However, the majority are operating effectively under the dominance of some basic Western European-derived cultural assumptions, which base a realistic perspective on the reduction of phenomena to materialistic physics and deterministic causation. Our "globalized world" can be said to be 'mechanistically conceptual.'

​​

cicilization an shift from adaptive purpose​ of vitality for survival to manipulation of nature, then humans, fo hierarchical dominance

​

That does not mean people are consistently logical or scientifically factual in their thinking. In the pursuit of influence, profit, and manipulation of others, people will think and say whatever suits those purposes. The point is, there is a reflexive tendency to assert the validity of one's ideas and interpretations using materialistic and causal arguments. Propositions and arguments that do not claim to explain and predict in a causal manner tend to be regarded as less significant and compelling. Modern assumptions about the preeminence of materialistic causation are entangled in other shared priorities for individualistic competition and the aquisition of relative advantage or dominance over others.

​​

The Logical and Intuitive​ Origins of our Assumptions

​

The Literal and Metaphorical Symbolical Representation of Our Assumptions
Implicit vs Explicit Expressions

​

Dynamical Modeling

Oral to graphic, Literary/Numerical

​

Forming Our Dynamical Assumptions through 'Both Sides of Our Brains'

Animal knowing or cognition involves fantastically complex neurological systems interacting across multiple aspects of brains. A most basic aspect of animal and human cognitive capacity involves a divided brain with two hemispheres, right and left.

• Our mental ways of attending to, then understanding phenomena, have an evolved capacity in our neurological systems

• Most basically, we have two brain hemispheres that promote attending to phenomena in different ways

• Which then promote different modes of interpreting and thinking about 'how things happen'

​

Our Capacity for Knowing Realistically versus How We Use It​

​

• But, how we employ these to 'know' self and world are conditioned by cultural references and related social systems

• ​Those complex influences inevitably promote conflicted, often reflexive, assumptions and interpretations

​

​​

Being Realistic about How Realistic Our Contemporary Cultural Worldview Actually Is

​

• ​

• If we are to be realistic about how we know reality, then we must examine the ways we reflexively perceive and think

• These involve concepts about what is real, 'how things happen,' and priorities or values for 'how things should happen'

• ​All of which configure not only how we think, but also how we experience, then 'feel about,' self and world

• These conflicting assumptions, values or biases, and expectations underlie and 'inform' our 'worldview'

• Yet our survival depends on that overall worldview being sufficiently realistic to promote adaptive behaviors

• Presently, our contemporary behaviors are proving 'maladaptive' by devastating the biosphere upon which we depend

• Thus, there is evidence that our current cultural worldview is not adequately realistic about 'how the world works'

• ​​​

• We argue about who's right or wrong without awareness that we all argue from inadequately realistic assumptions

• From a systems science perspective, our modern emphasis upon mechanism and causality are dynamically insufficient

• Our biases and priorities block concepts that direct our attention toward complexity and self-organization

• even notions of spirituality /religion are deterministic and control obsessed

• ​duynamical delusion / naivete

• civ = hierachicy and tech

• logics of 'how the world works'

• paradigms of relational dynamics -- causal vs emergent,

• priority of participation in ecosystems vs control of these as domesticated zones

• interdependency vs dependency

• our science is not de;lusioons our culture is

• obsession with contrto

​

I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

For more on complex systems and networks see these websites:
Systems Innovation ,  Complexity Labs, Complexity Explained , and
The Complexity Explorer