Thank you so much Julian for another brilliant and clear articulation.
An articulation that is also a potent inquiry.
There is no way a short comment here could do justice to what you’ve put forward. But I want to say that I find remarkable resonance with your approach.
A couple of quick thoughts that come up.
First, I am really glad you made the link between complexity and how we conceive of our “selves.”
Between complexity and awakening.
Both seem to demand the same sort of leap.
So, it leads me to wonder about the “systems” that facilitate awakening, that make it more likely. They seem to have a certain simplicity to them. But here it is important to note that there is no correlation between “easy” and “simple.” They demand practices like honesty, ongoing self reflection, compassion, kindness, connection, and perhaps most importantly, the relinquishing of control.
And… it is also important to note that these “systems” that facilitate awakening must themselves be let go of, released, as we jump into that field where we come to terms with complexity.
The place where our relationship to “control” is what fundamentally changes.
Second, and this is just an inkling for further conversation. I was always struck by the late Jeff Stamps, and how he saw a progression (which I know is different from what you postulate here) from systems thinking to complexity thinking to network theory.
He said that what is distinctive about network theory is that “the link between the nodes is an ontological equal to the nodes themselves.”
Which leads me to wonder, how might bringing out attention to the “space in between,” to the “relational field,” shift our results?
And how is the quality of our attention to this space change as it is approached from the boundlessness of a more wakeful conception of ourselves?
I’ve wondered the same thing. I keep returning to that old systems axiom that ‘every system is perfectly designed to keep getting the same results it keeps getting’. Some socio-cultural ecologies consistently generate different human development outcomes (e.g. authentic elderhood) than others - even in the face of devastation. Is ‘awakening’ a developmental emergent that is made more likely by particular kinds of system dynamics - rather than just being a product of exceptional individual effort?
Your comments also sent me back down the rabbit hole to read Jeff Stamps’s (who I didn’t know) book Holonomy: A Human Systems Theory. Wow! It paints such a rich picture of the evolution of systems thinking…..lots of learning there. And I totally echo your curiosity about paying attention to the ‘space in between’ when we understand the links to be as important as the nodes.
I think that is precisely what a complexity lens invites us to do.
In any self-organizing system, spontaneous patterns of coherence (emergence) arise from the relationships between its parts without needing any outside guidance or control. Nobody is telling flocks of starlings what to do. They are following quite simple rules or protocols at a local level. Things like ‘move at the same speed and direction as the others’ or ‘stay close to your neighbours’. The birds have no intention to create a system-level pattern. They are just doing their thing and interacting with those around them. It must feel good to be part of the sky dance, but the individual birds have no sense of the unique global meta-pattern they are helping to co-create and they certainly don’t reference it as they fly.
Often our failed efforts to ‘change’ human systems stem from a misunderstanding of how systems properties emerge from stubbornly persistent patterns of relationship at a very local level. The stories we tell each other. The way we modulate our responses based on our perception of each other’s actions. What and how we actually learn - as opposed to whatever others may think they are teaching us. Ritual - both the kind we call 'ritual' as well as the everyday patterns of interaction. The way patterns of culture self-replicate at all scales from a small organization to a whole society. It’s why learning, curiosity and self-awareness are so critical for anyone who wants to positively influence a complex system. And it's why starting close in and observing what's actually happening at a local or granular level (the 'complexity move') is so important. Part of what I was trying to explore in this post was my sense that as a systems thinker, I can be 'distracted' by a focus on the whole and lose sight - or under-estimate the significance - of what's actually unfolding right in front of my nose!
Thank you so much Julian for another brilliant and clear articulation.
An articulation that is also a potent inquiry.
There is no way a short comment here could do justice to what you’ve put forward. But I want to say that I find remarkable resonance with your approach.
A couple of quick thoughts that come up.
First, I am really glad you made the link between complexity and how we conceive of our “selves.”
Between complexity and awakening.
Both seem to demand the same sort of leap.
So, it leads me to wonder about the “systems” that facilitate awakening, that make it more likely. They seem to have a certain simplicity to them. But here it is important to note that there is no correlation between “easy” and “simple.” They demand practices like honesty, ongoing self reflection, compassion, kindness, connection, and perhaps most importantly, the relinquishing of control.
And… it is also important to note that these “systems” that facilitate awakening must themselves be let go of, released, as we jump into that field where we come to terms with complexity.
The place where our relationship to “control” is what fundamentally changes.
Second, and this is just an inkling for further conversation. I was always struck by the late Jeff Stamps, and how he saw a progression (which I know is different from what you postulate here) from systems thinking to complexity thinking to network theory.
He said that what is distinctive about network theory is that “the link between the nodes is an ontological equal to the nodes themselves.”
Which leads me to wonder, how might bringing out attention to the “space in between,” to the “relational field,” shift our results?
And how is the quality of our attention to this space change as it is approached from the boundlessness of a more wakeful conception of ourselves?
Gibrán - thank you for sharing these insights!
I’ve wondered the same thing. I keep returning to that old systems axiom that ‘every system is perfectly designed to keep getting the same results it keeps getting’. Some socio-cultural ecologies consistently generate different human development outcomes (e.g. authentic elderhood) than others - even in the face of devastation. Is ‘awakening’ a developmental emergent that is made more likely by particular kinds of system dynamics - rather than just being a product of exceptional individual effort?
Your comments also sent me back down the rabbit hole to read Jeff Stamps’s (who I didn’t know) book Holonomy: A Human Systems Theory. Wow! It paints such a rich picture of the evolution of systems thinking…..lots of learning there. And I totally echo your curiosity about paying attention to the ‘space in between’ when we understand the links to be as important as the nodes.
I think that is precisely what a complexity lens invites us to do.
In any self-organizing system, spontaneous patterns of coherence (emergence) arise from the relationships between its parts without needing any outside guidance or control. Nobody is telling flocks of starlings what to do. They are following quite simple rules or protocols at a local level. Things like ‘move at the same speed and direction as the others’ or ‘stay close to your neighbours’. The birds have no intention to create a system-level pattern. They are just doing their thing and interacting with those around them. It must feel good to be part of the sky dance, but the individual birds have no sense of the unique global meta-pattern they are helping to co-create and they certainly don’t reference it as they fly.
Often our failed efforts to ‘change’ human systems stem from a misunderstanding of how systems properties emerge from stubbornly persistent patterns of relationship at a very local level. The stories we tell each other. The way we modulate our responses based on our perception of each other’s actions. What and how we actually learn - as opposed to whatever others may think they are teaching us. Ritual - both the kind we call 'ritual' as well as the everyday patterns of interaction. The way patterns of culture self-replicate at all scales from a small organization to a whole society. It’s why learning, curiosity and self-awareness are so critical for anyone who wants to positively influence a complex system. And it's why starting close in and observing what's actually happening at a local or granular level (the 'complexity move') is so important. Part of what I was trying to explore in this post was my sense that as a systems thinker, I can be 'distracted' by a focus on the whole and lose sight - or under-estimate the significance - of what's actually unfolding right in front of my nose!