The Radical New Reality of Systems Science

 

Making Network Science 'Sensible' through Dynamical Symbolism

and Its Right Brain Hemisphere Stimulus

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How to Represent both Dynamical 'Ways Things Happen' Effectively?​

To appreciate the concurrently interacting feedback relationships of parts/factors that generate self-organizing, adaptive system networks requires a radical shift in how we experience the way things happen. Our ordinary sense of events as mechanistic sequences of predictably proportional actions cannot grasp these dynamics.  We require some extra-ordinary stimulus to enable perception of the 'everything happens at once'  of these activities, along with the unpredictable emergence of self-organizing agency.  

 

Representing Complex Network Behaviors Logically is Limited

Scientific diagrams and schematics give us some impression of these simultaneous, disproportional dynamics. But these abstractions are derived from progressively sequential logic that tends to diminish confrontation with the irreducible interdependencies of emergent phenomena. Additionally, the technical logic of science derived graphics is difficult to appreciate without extensive technical knowledge.

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Knowing Agentic Systems through Archetypal Characterization and Symbolic Representation

 

The Archetypal Network Characterization of Agentic Systems and Their Self-Asserting Behaviors

Because agentic systems are dynamically unpredictable (or, not mechanistic), it is not possible to know 'what they will do next' with any certainty. How then are we to have insight into their behaviors so we can act adaptively in response to theirs? If we cannot predict future behaviors confidently from past ones, then we can only gather references to form some expectations of how a system might behave relative to past behaviors and their apparent purposefulness -- what they did and for what seeming purposes.That approach can be understood as 'constellating' networked references to pose the 'archetypal character' of an agentic system self-assertion. We can call this approach to understanding agentic systems as 'archetypal network characterization' of internal and external system relationships.  It is a cognitive effort we all do reflexively but must be formally promoted if we are to have a more realistic worldview.

 

The problem can be illustrated by reference to interpersonal human relationships. Other people often appear to behave in relatively consistent ways. But they also can suddenly behave in unexpected ways. That is because they are agentic complex adaptive systems. Thus, we must observe them over time, get a sense of their various ways of thinking in different contexts, perhaps gain some knowledge of their historical experience and behaviors. Then we might be able to roughly associate these references in ways that characterized them -- as selfish, generous, domineering, cooperative, competitive, or deceitful 'types.' Such categories can be extended to more formal psychological types, such as extrovert or introvert, type A or Type B personality, narcissistic or sociopathic. So this 'psychological profiling' is a form of archetypal characterization of how agency or spirit has manifested thus might be likely to do so in the future.

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The Symbolic Representation of Emergent Ordering Dynamics and Agentic / Spiritual System Character

A further method for representing types of agentic system behaviors is through metaphoric symbolism. This approach employs likenesses to provide references for characteristic expressions of agency or spirit. Metaphors 'stand for something' that is not directly or literally represented in the metaphor, whether in the form of words, images, or allegories. Metaphors in effect present a representation as 'like' another phenomena. We can think of this as a form of 'modeling,' in which the traits of the metaphoric expression are 'carried over' to characterize that of different thing or event. To state that 'John runs like a wolf, or 'John is a wolf,' metaphorically characterizes John in reference to 'wolf-ness.' The meaning is not that John is literally a wolf, but that John's behavior can be understood in networked references to behaviors associated with wolves. That can be extended to the sense that 'John manifests wolf spirit.'

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This characterizing an agentic system in terms of likeness to phenomena that are not literally part of it, can be regarded as 'metaphorical modeling of dynamical behaviors.' When we describe living systems as 'machines,' we are suggesting those systems are dynamically mechanistic. From the perspective of systems science, that metaphoric representation appears inaccurate because biological systems are emergently self-ordering and agentic in ways that cannot be reduced to mechanistic dynamics. But if we characterize a government or corporation as a 'many-headed hydra monster,' then the metaphor can be seen as dynamically appropriate. Governments and corporations are emergently self-asserting super organism systems composed of many subsystems that manifest in conflicting ways and are intrinsically psychopathic. 

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In the context of artistic expression, the forms of an image or sculpture can be engaged as modeling complex dynamics metaphorically. A Jackson Pollack painting provides an experiential impression of how chaotically interacting elements can somehow 'synchronize' in our awareness, giving a sense of interacting 'wholeness' without being reduced to a singular, uniform, or sequential dynamical status.

 

Symbols similarly 'stand for' something these are not. That can mean a national flag or religious icon such as a cross. Metaphoric symbolization can be understood as a more overt characterization of some phenomena in a symbolic form. In this mode, images and concepts of 'divine agents,' such as gods and goddesses, can be approached as symbols that 'personify' how agentic system self-assertion becomes characteristically expressed in the world. As metaphoric symbols, the traits of a particular divinity are 'carried over' in our understanding to provide insight into the ways agentic systems 'do what they do.' An associated diversity of such divinities, as in a pagan 'pantheon' of gods and goddesses, poses an array of such symbolic characterizations that 'constellate' a dynamically active relational field of potential interactions among these, which collectively models the potential ways agentic system self-assertion can form and interact.

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Experiencing Interactive Feedback and Emergent Ordering through Dynamical Metaphors

Artistic representations can provide more experiential impressions of feedback dynamics and how these collectively generate an emergent whole that is something more than the individual parts or actions. The most obvious of these are visual symbols that represent such reciprocal, feedback-driven interactivity. These can be considered as iconic metaphors of complex system dynamics.

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Art as the symbolization of network dynamics ranges from more realistic to more fanciful and abstract styles. By violating our ordinary perceptions and interpretations of how thins appear to us, these styles can awaken intuitive awareness of the hidden networks that actually enable the existence of our selves, ecologies, thoughts, and interpersonal relationships.

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Employing Scientific Symbolism--Making the Invisible Visible​

When the provocations that art, and its more ancient mythological versions, present to our ordinary sense of reality, are associated with the science of complex system networks, our understanding of both can be enhanced. This correlation can render the abstract concepts of the science more 'tangible' by giving us a kind of 'doubled vision.'

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The Right Hemisphere Activation of Metaphoric Symbolism

The neuroscience of brain functions indicates that the inclusive attentional mode of our right hemisphere is involved in how we 'make sense of' the non-literalistic representations of overtly metaphorical symbolism. Thus this mode of representing phenomena, whether in images, language usage, artistic forms, or theatrical performances, appears to activate or emphasize our right hemisphere inflected thought.

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Re-Experiencing Left Brain Hemisphere Knowledge through Right Hemisphere Perspective​

​Systems science confronts us with reductive knowledge about irreducible complexity, about the emergence of self-organizing interdependencies, that can be factually verified yet also not completely analyzed and explained.  This is knowledge derived from the reductive perspective of our left brain hemisphere, but it has implications about 'how the world actually works' that our left hemisphere is not able to fully appreciate.  From the perspective of neuroscientific study of our bilateralized brains, it appears evident we must use metaphoric symbolism to more effectively experience the science through the inclusive, holistically simultaneous attentional mode of our right hemisphere 'mind-ing.'

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