The centuries old conversation about the relationship between Arts and Sciences is summarized by Jessica Abbadia. Here are some of the ways this conversation is showing up in various systems thinking communities.
One: Terms for data use in systems thinking framed research describe quantitative and qualitative data types as hard/soft data, warm data, data rich/poor models and dataless models. Data scientist Jer Thorp talks about the human experience of data collection and management in his recent book Living in Data. See an excerpt from his book below.
Another example of humanizing data from the systems thinking community is found on the website of Ellen Lewis and Anne Stephens who coined the term Inclusive Systems Thinking.
Two: In the setting of consensus building and group decision making, participatory modelling methods exist in multiple systems thinking streams. The participatory modelling process is facilitated by a trained participatory modelling expert. The facilitator guides the stakeholders who share technical data and lived experiences they believe are relevant to credibly model the problem being experienced by the group. The resulting group built model includes social as well as technical information to reflect the more comprehensive problem reality. Participatory modelling was developed in the 1990’s and has been adding valuable options to the existing consensus building tools and skills. It is showing particular success in large scale, complex, conflicted (wicked problem) settings of group decision making.
A widely used open source example of participatory modelling is the Climate Interactive En-Roads Simulator. This is an interactive system dynamics model that enables model viewers to frame group discussions on global policy decisions at the nexus of natural resource use, climate impacts, economics and social equity. During an En-Roads workshop, participants role play diverse stakeholders who come to recognize their mutual interdependence and gain a wider problem understanding which then leads to more useful and meaningful consensus driven policy development.
Three: The global development paradigm Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) integrates human wellbeing, economic strategies and environmental impact awareness. SDG’s are being taught through a systems thinking lens by scholars such as Birgit Kopainsky amongst many others. Additionally, systems thinking scholars are studying other global development paradigms such as Global Health, Planetary Health (Byomkesh Talukdar), and One Health (Suzanne Parsel-Dew, Elizabeth Mumford) which include the wellbeing of plants, animals, and people in the encompassing ecosystem. The term ‘wellbeing‘ is increasingly used in today’s academic and public conversations that integrates physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sociocultural dimensions of healthy life.
Four: Since the 20th century, academics have been speaking more wholistically about the anatomy and process of human cognition. James Carney states in a recent review, “The 4E approach to cognition argues that cognition does not occur solely in the head, but is one which is embodied, embedded, enacted or extended by way of extracranial structures and processes.” Systems thinking oriented music researcher Mark Reybrouck applies this wholistic view of cognition to the music listening experience, while educators Linda Booth-Sweeney and Dennis Meadows apply it to systems thinking teaching strategies.
Five: There is fusion of beauty, innovation and physical function inspired by nature and systems thinking concepts such as at the Biomimicry Institute. In the excerpt below, see how author Michael Gelb includes systems thinking as one of the Seven da Vincian Principles for living a balanced life from his book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.
Six: What might core systems thinking concepts about relationship structure add to the Arts/Sciences conversation? Adding to the traditional one-way cause-and-effect relationship enters the circular feedback relationship in systems thinking academic inquiry. George Richardson meticulously documents the 20th century co-emergence of the cybernetics and system dynamics threads of feedback thought. Read more below about the interplay between Arts and Sciences as seen by Norbert Weiner and Jay W Forrester who were pioneering feedback systems thinkers from these two threads.
How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci
The Seven da Vincian Principles
Curiosita – An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
Dimostrazione – The commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
Sensazione – The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
Sfumato (literally “Going up in Smoke”) – A willingness to embrace ambuiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
Arte/Scienza – The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination. “Whole-brain” thinking.
Corporalita – The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
Connessione – A recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Systems thinking.
Gelb, Michael J. “Introduction”, How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci, Copyright 2004 by Michael J. Gelb, published by Delta Trade Paperbacks, p. 9
Living in Data
A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Information Future
“That same collective “we” has too often been data’s “all lives matter,” a way to soft-pedal concerns about privacy while refusing to speak directly to dangerous inequalities. If I want to talk about the human experience of data, I need to talk about risk, and risk is something that does not affect people equally or at the same time. Living in data may seem like a shared reality, but it is an experience that critically differs from person to person and from group to group. One two-letter word cannot possibly hold all of the varied experiences of data, specifically those of the people who are at the most immediate risk: visible minorities, LGBTQ+ people, indigenous communities, the elderly, the disabled, displaced migrants, the incarcerated.”
Thorp, Jer. “Preface”, Living in Data, Copyright 2021 by Jer Thorp, Published by MCD Farrar, Straus and Giroux/New York
Interplay between Arts and Sciences as seen by two pioneering systems thinkers
Norbert Weiner
“In order for us to understand and affect the systems in the world around us, we need information. We need feedback.” This was one of Norbert Wiener’s primary principles when he coined cybernetics in 1948. One fundamental element of a feedback system is the connection of elements across many systems in many scales and dimensions; a process of cause-and-effect.
Cybernetics fundamentally changed how we thought about ‘answers’. In the years around the publication of Wiener’s Human Use of Human Beings, previously siloed fields of thought began to intermingle, challenging the conventional separation of the ‘hard’ sciences and engineering from the ‘soft’ psychology and sociology; a new, broadening and evolving style of research that historian of science Andrew Pickering calls the “mangle of practice” . This was the original Resistance of Reduction!
From Inviting Feedback, author Pip Mothersill
Interplay between Arts and Sciences as seen by two pioneering systems thinkers
Jay W Forrester
”System dynamics runs across all disciplines. The application to physics is fairly obvious because of the dynamics involved, but it’s probably not one of the most active areas. In social studies, students can use system dynamics to explore the economic and social forces causing various things to unfold in history. There are English teachers doing computer simulation modeling of the psychological dynamics in various pieces of literature. System dynamics provides a foundation that underlies most of the subjects. A student discovers a new mobility between subjects. If one understands a particular dynamic structure in one setting, the behavior is the same in all settings.”
From A Pioneer on the Next Frontier: An Interview with Jay Forrester, author Diane Cory