This week’s Cyb3rSyn Newsletter is a guest post by Abdul Aziz, Director & Chief Architect at Requisite Variety Solutions.
This guest post was triggered by a topic we discussed in the podcast with Abdul, originally triggered by his conversation with Geoff Elliot.
It is about a very important rule of thumb for all systems thinkers out there: Epistemology comes first. Systems are epistemological, not ontological!
With that background/context, here is the guest post from Abdul:
The Mountain Is a Mountain... Again and Again and Again
"Before you study Zen, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; while you are studying Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; but once you have had enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers again rivers."
Systems Thinking walked the same path, one wave at a time.
• Hard (mountains are mountains) - acts on the system as given. First-order cybernetics: the observer stands outside, reading off feedback loops. Emphasis on things.
• Soft (mountains are no longer mountains) - the second-order move: the observer is now part of the loop, not outside it, so the emphasis shifts from things to the relationships between things, as seen by whoever's looking. The boundary is someone's construction, not nature's joint.