The Form of Decency

At a recent exhibition, I saw a sign that read: “Exit Only. No Re-Entry.” It seemed not just as a logistical instruction but as a metaphor. Around the same time, I came across a photo of a sign demanding that people speak the local dialect. What struck out to me was that the sign was written in English. These moments echoed something I have long been thinking about: the contradictions that arise when our distinctions fold back on themselves, what George Spencer-Brown called “reentry.”

I am a longtime admirer of Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form, and in today’s post, I explore how his notion of reentry helps illuminate the paradoxes and blind spots in modern ideologies, especially the rise of xenophobia and extreme nationalism. These rigid ideologies depend on distinctions between us versus them, lawful versus unlawful that appear neat but collapse under their own logic when viewed recursively. We pretend we are only exiting, drawing sharp lines, while ignoring the inevitability and necessity of reentry in our sensemaking.

Drawing Distinctions

Spencer Brown opened his mathematical-philosophical treatise with a simple instruction: Draw a distinction. This simple act of marking a boundary between “this” and “that” forms the foundation of how we structure knowledge, meaning, and identity. We create categories and define what is “in” and what is “out.” This is how form arises through distinction.

In Laws of Form, he also introduced the notion of reentry: the act of folding a distinction back into itself. Simply put, this is a self-referential act. By doing this, the tidy separations we created begin to blur. This move, abstract as it sounds, has powerful consequences for how we think, live, and treat each other. Especially in a world torn by polarization, nationalism, and fear of the “other,” reentry reveals the paradoxes that rigid ideologies try to hide and points us toward a more humane way of navigating complexity.

The Pot and the Form

Let us use a simple example to understand the form better. Consider a pot of boiling water. Here, we can make three identifications:

  • Pot = the mark, or the distinction
  • Water inside the pot = what is indicated, the marked space, the inside
  • Outside the pot = the unmarked space, the outside

Together, all three constitute the form. The pot, as a boundary, plays the role of the mark in Spencer-Brown’s terms. It creates a distinction between what is inside and what is outside. The pot itself is not part of what is inside; it is what makes “inside” possible by drawing a boundary. The mark exists in a meta-position: it defines inside and outside but cannot be reduced to either. It is the operation of drawing the distinction. The pot allows us to interact with what is inside and allows what is inside to interact with the surroundings.

We can use the same example to introduce reentry. Imagine placing that pot inside another pot, creating a double boiler. The inner pot is held by the outer one. The boundary remains, but now it is nested and refers to something beyond itself. This is reentry: when a form does not just define something but begins to refer to its own act of defining. This becomes an act of second-order observation. In the double boiler metaphor, the inner pot (the reentered form) exists within the outer pot (the original distinction), creating a ‘system’ that is both distinct and self-contained.

Reentry challenges the simplicity of binary logic, revealing that ‘systems’ can be self-referential and dynamic. This concept is pivotal in understanding complex systems, where elements influence and are influenced by themselves.

The Purpose of Reentry: Revealing Cognitive Blind Spots

We love binaries: true/false, us/them, lawful/unlawful. But reentry destabilizes these neat categories. Who defines what is “lawful”? The law itself. When the law governs the making of laws (as in constitutional law), we enter a recursive loop. What is legal becomes a matter of interpretation, not clarity. The binary collapses into ambiguity. Reentry shows us that binaries are useful simplifications, not absolute truths. Dogmatic ideas rely on such binaries, and reentry becomes an effective tool for challenging dogma.

Similarly, in language, terms like “normal” are defined by cultural norms, which are themselves shaped by collective perceptions of normality. This circularity demonstrates how meanings are not fixed but evolve through self-reference. Reentry is not merely a logical twist. It reveals something crucial about how we construct meaning.

When we draw a distinction between “lawful” and “unlawful,” we assume clarity. But as soon as we ask who defines the law and realize it is the law itself, we see that the boundary is recursive. It defines itself. This is not a flaw but a feature of complexity.

The Second-Order View: Observing Observation

This leads us to second-order thinking: the act of observing the act of observing. In logic, when a ‘system’ includes itself in its model, it can become unstable. However, it also owns its position. Blind spots can be revealed, opening the door to creativity, paradox, and deeper understanding. Reentry is how we shift from first-order systems (clear categories, fixed forms) to second-order ones (reflexivity, contradiction, emergence). It is how we move from saying “we are right” to asking “how do we know?”

As the cybernetician Heinz von Foerster observed: “The observer must be included in the observed system.”

This represents the leap from first-order thinking (observing the world) to second-order thinking (observing how we observe). Reentry is the mechanism of that leap. Recognizing and thinking along the lines of reentry is deeply needed today because some of the most dangerous ideas we face rely on distinctions that collapse under their own logic.

Reentry and the Illogic of Xenophobia

Xenophobic ideologies often define “us” versus “them,” asserting superiority or purity. However, when these distinctions undergo reentry, when the criteria for inclusion are applied to the in-group, they often fail to hold consistently. Similar to the sign that demanded the use of the local dialect but was written in English, xenophobic logic contradicts itself when examined through reentry.

What does it mean to be a person from country “X”? Is it geography? Culture? Language? Legal status? Values? The more we examine these criteria, the fuzzier they become. Yet we use such labels as if they were clean boundaries, pots that perfectly contain identity. Reentry challenges this assumption by turning the form inward.

If being from country “X” means standing for freedom, justice, and decency, how can one uphold those values while treating outsiders with cruelty? If your culture preaches respect, how can you use that culture to justify disrespect? If your national identity is built on moral ideals, then those ideals must apply to how you treat everyone, not just those inside your imaginary boundaries.

Bigotry collapses under reentry. Its internal logic folds in on itself. The principle violates the practice. The mirror reflects itself and reveals the contradiction. Racism, xenophobia, and nationalism, when examined through the lens of reentry, are not just morally wrong. They are logically incoherent.

The Ethical Need for Redundancy

In complex systems, one of the most powerful safeguards is redundancy. In engineering, redundancy prevents collapse. In ethics, it serves the same function.

Hope is redundancy in action, as are other humanistic notions such as kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. These are not luxuries; they are second-order buffers. They activate when logic stalls. They hold the ‘system’ together when paradox threatens to tear it apart. Reentry exposes the instability of our forms. Redundancy helps us live with that instability.

Ethical redundancy functions like the inner pot in a double boiler. It buffers the heat. It allows care to emerge where rigidity would cause harm. It creates space for ambiguity, reflection, and repair. This is why, in the face of bigotry and rigid ideologies, we must design for ethical reentry. We must build in second chances. We must speak gently even when the logic breaks.

Final Words

In a world obsessed with efficiency, clarity, and being right, reentry is a radical act. It turns the ‘system’ inward. It reveals our blind spots. It shows us where our ideals betray themselves. But reentry does more than expose contradictions; it opens pathways to wisdom. When we embrace reentry, we move from the arrogance of first-order certainty to the humility of second-order inquiry.

The rise of extreme nationalism and xenophobia reflects our collective failure to practice reentry. These ideologies thrive on the illusion of clear boundaries, pure identities, and simple answers. They collapse when subjected to their own logic, but only if we have the courage to apply that logic. Only if we are willing to let our mirrors reflect.

Reentry teaches us that our most cherished distinctions are provisional, our certainties are constructed, and our boundaries are more porous than we dare admit. This is not cause for despair but for hope. It means we can rebuild. We can redesign. We can choose compassion over cruelty, and in that act, we can stay human.

In the end, reentry invites us to remain human and to include kindness as a design principle, building ‘systems’ that can reflect on themselves without breaking. It asks us to hold our beliefs lightly enough that they do not harden into weapons, yet firmly enough that they can guide us toward justice. This is the form of decency: recursive and reflective.

Always keep learning…

Get a Grip on It:

Complexity is a matter of degree and not a kind. – Glenda Eoyang

In today’s post, I am exploring the importance of incorporating diversity when navigating complex environments. I have written previously about the seductive appeal of efficiency and how its blind pursuit can leave us exposed. Efficiency asks us to optimize for known outcomes. It assumes a world where inputs are controlled and variation is minimized. But reality is rarely that generous. It is textured, layered, and in motion. It offers few clean edges and rarely repeats itself in neat loops. As leaders, we are asked to shape structures that can stay viable in this kind of world. The overuse of efficiency in such contexts does not make us leaner or smarter—it often makes us brittle.

We often design as though the ground is level. As if everyone begins from the same place, with the same tools, the same reach, the same slack. But the ground is not level. It has never been. Some people begin with more; more access, more time, more tolerance from the structure. Others begin already contending with friction. Not because they lack capability, but because the design was not shaped with them in mind. This is not just an ethical issue. It is a design one.

In complexity, uniformity fails fast. In simple, symbolic systems—code, logic, procedures—uniformity can be a virtue. The terrain is controlled. The inputs are known. The environment is stable enough to reward sameness. But in complexity—where causes are fuzzy, signals are noisy, and context moves mid-sentence—we need something else. We need grip.

Reality Requires Grip

Reality rarely presents itself in tidy ways. It offers no singular handle for us to grab. Instead, it throws contradictions, mismatched signals, and unexpected constraints. We cannot hold it with one kind of mind, one kind of framework, or one kind of experience. The more varied the terrain, the more varied our grasp must be.

That grip—our capacity to make meaningful contact with complexity—comes from difference. It comes from a range of perspectives, a mix of sensibilities, a spread of lived experiences. It comes from people who notice different things, who ask different questions, who move through the world in different ways. This does come with a cost. Uniform structures may look clean and run fast, but they tend to crack under pressure. Diverse structures take longer to build, but they flex, adapt, and hold when things shift.

Ross Ashby reminded us that only variety can absorb variety. If the environment can surprise us in a hundred ways, then our ‘systems’ must be able to respond in at least a hundred ways. If not, the environment ‘wins’.

We often treat diversity as an accessory, something to be added after the main frame is in place. But in complexity, diversity is not decorative. It becomes load-bearing. The differences give the structure grip, not inward but outward, allowing it to hold against the irregularities of reality. They create structural tension and enable edge awareness. This awareness helps us notice early signals, those subtle cues that something is shifting. The presence of difference prevents the system from becoming complacent, blind, or brittle. Diversity introduces stretch that resists premature closure, while expanding the system’s capacity to perceive what is happening at its limits, where breakdowns often tend to begin.

A monoculture in nature may appear efficient. For example, fields of identical crops may offer predictability, ease of control, and optimized yield when conditions remain stable. But this sameness introduces a hidden fragility. A single disease, an unexpected frost, or a sudden shift in climate can cause the entire network to fail, because uniformity amplifies vulnerability. In contrast, a wild field may seem chaotic or inefficient, yet its diversity in root structures, growth patterns, and tolerances create resilience. When conditions change, not everything is affected in the same way. Some parts fail, while others adapt. The ‘system’ bends, but it does not break.

This is more than an ecological insight. It is a way of thinking about how we organize and sustain ourselves. When a team, a community, or a structure relies on sameness, it may function smoothly in predictable conditions, but it lacks the range to respond when reality becomes more complex. Diversity—cognitive, experiential, and demographic—broadens a group’s capacity to interpret change, adjust course, and stay viable over time. In environments where uncertainty is the rule and control is limited, it is this range that gives the whole arrangement a better grip on reality.

Designing From the Blind Spot

We tend to build from what is visible, measurable, and familiar. We optimize for what is easy to test. But what gets left out often matters more than what gets built in. And too often, the people left out are the ones already carrying the most structural friction. We tend to think of inclusion as a moral gesture. A choice to be kind or fair. When we design only for those already well-positioned, we do not just exclude, we weaken the design itself.

We create brittle solutions, ones that quietly assume access, literacy, capacity, forgiveness. We optimize for efficiency and familiarity, and miss the parts that strain under real-world pressure. But when we start from the edges—from those who live with constraint—we see what the structure hides. We start to notice the steps that are too steep, and that the protocols assume too much. Fixing for them is not just being humane. It becomes diagnostic work. It is how we surface the assumptions that compromise integrity. It is how we build arrangements that do not crack when things get uneven, which they always do.

Final Words

Heinz v on Foerster said:

Act always so as to increase the number of choices.

Maybe the corollary to that is:

Design as if you might be the one with the least choice.

That is not a political statement. It is a practical one. When we build for those with the least slack, we tend to uncover the most insight. And when we design from the blind spot, we do not just fill a gap—we often strengthen the whole. Designing for the most vulnerable builds in the redundancy that makes a structure resilient. When you build in space for the person who cannot read the form, who does not have time to wait, who misses the signal the first time—we are not just helping them. We are making the whole arrangement more resilient.

This is because the real world is not clean. Things fail, contexts shift and people miss a step. And if our design cannot bend in those moments, it will break.

In complex arrangements, redundancy is what keeps the structure whole. Not all paths will be smooth. Not all users will match the ideal profile. Not all steps will land perfectly the first time. This means that we should build space for detours, retries, and second chances. That is not inefficiency. That is how we build resilience. Redundancy is not the opposite of elegance or efficiency. It is the thing that lets the design bend without breaking.

I will finish with one of my favorite quotes from Doctor Who:

Human progress is not measured by industry. It is measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is your value. That is what defines an age, that is… what defines a species.

Always keep learning…

When Cybernetics Replaced Philosophy – Heideggerian Insights into Systems Thinking – Part 3:

SPIEGEL: And what now takes the place of philosophy?

Heidegger: Cybernetics. [1]

In today’s post, I am wrapping up the series of posts on the Heideggerian insights by tying his later ideas with Cybernetics. You can view my earlier posts here and here.

Heidegger realized that the reliance of modern times on technology is leading humanity away from thinking itself. He went on to say that cybernetics has replaced philosophy. Cybernetics, particularly in its early days (first-order cybernetics), proposed the idea that the world could be understood and controlled through feedback loops, systems, and control mechanisms. This approach brought about the view that systems could be analyzed and optimized by focusing on information flow, communication, and control.

For Heidegger, this shift was significant because it represented a transformation from philosophical reflection on being to technological thinking that prioritizes efficiency, control, and calculation. The concern was that cybernetics, as a science and as a philosophy of systems, would replace the deeper, reflective inquiry into human existence, nature, and being. Instead of focusing on the questions of meaning, existence, and our relationship to the world, cybernetics focuses on problem-solving, control, and optimization.

Cybernetics and the “Standing-Reserve”

Heidegger’s main critique of technology is that it reduces everything (nature, people, even time itself) to a “standing-reserve” (Bestand), something to be used, optimized, and controlled. Cybernetics (especially first order cybernetics), as a way of organizing systems (whether biological, mechanical, or social), fits perfectly into this framing.

In this context, cybernetics offers a model of system control, where everything is measured, processed, and optimized. Heidegger feared that this would become the dominant worldview, replacing the deeper ontological reflections of philosophy with purely functional, instrumental thinking. The philosophical inquiry into what it means ‘to-be’ would be overshadowed by the technological mindset, where the world is treated not as a place for human reflection but as a set of interlocking systems to be controlled. It has become quite normal to consider humans as resources. It would be abnormal to not have a human resources department in any organization.

Heidegger believed that the core of philosophy, especially in the existential tradition, was to ask questions about being, meaning, and human existence. It was about understanding the world in a way that was not reducible to mere calculations or control. Cybernetics, in his view, represents a shift towards quantitative, calculative thinking that bypasses deeper reflections on human existence. When Heidegger says that cybernetics could replace philosophy, he warns that the dominant mode of thought in the future might be one that prioritizes instrumental control over reflection. By doing this, we are reducing human life to a set of inputs and outputs rather than exploring the more profound questions of existence and meaning.

Philosophy’s traditional role, the search for wisdom, would be replaced by functional, managerial thinking: “How do we optimize? How do we stabilize systems? How do we predict outcomes?” In that world, humans themselves risk becoming just another kind of standing-reserve, resources to be managed, data points in systems, not beings questioning their existence. This brings in questions about ethical thinking that is rarely considered in terms of managerial thinking. Here is where second order cybernetics comes into play. Second order cybernetics aligns very well with the later ideas of Heidegger.

The World as a Picture

Heidegger argues that modernity transforms the world into a representable object: a picture that stands before a human subject.

The fundamental event of the modern age is the conquest of the world as picture.[2]

This transformation does not just add new tools; it redefines what the world is. Everything becomes a resource, available for control and calculation. Cybernetics, particularly in its first order form, mirrors this tendency. It maps systems, constructs models, and aims for control. But second order cybernetics, which emerged in the 1970s, turns inward, asking: “Who is doing the observing? What does it mean to know?”

Second order cybernetics, shaped by thinkers like Heinz von Foerster and Humberto Maturana, breaks from the God’s-eye view. The observer is no longer external to the system. They are part of it. Observation itself becomes an action, a construction, an intervention. We are not out there looking into a pre-given world; rather, we are disclosing the world through care, through being-in-the-world. Knowledge, then, is not correspondence but involvement. It is not about having a picture in the head, but about being attuned to a situation, about knowing how to go on in the world.

We do not navigate life by carrying internal maps. We act skillfully because we are already attuned to the world, through our bodily presence and history of engagement. We are always already involved in what we observe. There is no “view from nowhere”.

Von Foerster – The Map Is All We Have

Von Foerster sharpened this critique of representation when he said, “The map is all we have”. This was a nod to Alfred Korzybski’s famous dictum – “the map is not the territory”. von Foerster goes further with this and says that there is no access to the territory outside of our mappings. However, this does not imply that we carry mental blueprints.

Instead, cognition is about structural coupling. When a system is perturbed by its environment and it responds according to its structure and its history of past interactions. This knowledge did not arise from accurate representation, but from historically tuned participation. We are bringing forth a world through interaction, not mirroring it.

This is also why von Foerster said: “If you want to see, learn how to act”. Understanding emerges from doing. Seeing is not prior to action. It is shaped by how we move, respond, and care. Like Heidegger’s hammer that is ready-to-hand, our understanding is practical, not theoretical. The “map” then is a trace of engagement, not a neutral diagram or mental map. This brings up the keen ethical insight of constructivism – we are responsible for the worlds we bring forth. There is no neutral observation, only involvement. We do not just see; we enact distinctions, and those choices matter.

How to Proceed?

Heidegger’s answer to technological enframing is releasement (Gelassenheit). This is not withdrawal but a posture of openness—a “letting-be” of beings. It is both a refusal to dominate and a readiness to engage differently.

Releasement echoes the ethic of second order cybernetics – a recognition that control is never total, that knowing is always situated, and that ‘systems’ are too rich to be fully grasped. It is a call to humility, responsibility, and care. We do not stand apart from the world, looking at it as if it is just “out there” and complete, just waiting to be ‘represented’ in our minds. Instead, we bring forth the world through our involvement, through practical activity, care, concerns and relationships.

When we place Heidegger and second order cybernetics side by side, a powerful ethical sensibility emerges that is often missing from modern managerial thinking. We should act as an observer who matters. Our observations shape what becomes real. We must opt for situations where future possibilities are protected. Freedom is about future possibilities. We must resist the reduction of everything to resources. We must balance calculative and meditative thinking. Cybernetics may offer powerful tools, but it must be nested within deeper questions of meaning. We should learn to dwell and not to dominate. Our task is not to master the world but to participate wisely in it.

Final Words:

In his 1966 Der Spiegel interview [1] (published posthumously), Heidegger made his famous statement:

Only a god can save us.

He was not advocating that we should pray for divine intervention. He was imploring us to realize that we need a fundamental shift in how we think, see, and act. And perhaps second order cybernetics, rightly understood, can help us return to that question. Treating the world as picture blinds us to other modes of revealing—poetic, responsive, ethical. Second order cybernetics, in turn, reminds us that every act of observation is also an act of construction. This reframes truth, not as correspondence, but as coherence within a relational, historical process. Meaning arises from engagement, not representation. We ultimately bear responsibility for how the world comes into view. Both Heidegger and cybernetics are inviting us to move beyond prediction and control—toward participation, humility, and care.

Always keep learning…

[1] “Only a God Can Save Us”: The Spiegel Interview (1966)

[2] The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, M. Heidegger, translated by William Lovitt, 1977.

Note:

In referencing the work of Martin Heidegger, I want to acknowledge the deeply troubling fact of his affiliation with the Nazi party. This aspect of his life casts a long and painful shadow over his legacy. While I draw on specific philosophical ideas that I find thought-provoking or useful, this is not an endorsement of the man or his actions. Engaging with his work requires ethical vigilance, and I remain mindful of the responsibility to not separate ideas from the broader context in which they were formed.

System on the Shelf – Heideggerian Insights into Systems Thinking – Part 2:

“Treat the patient, not the protocol” – Dr. Walsh, THE PITT (2025—)

In today’s post, I am following up on the ideas of the controversial German philosopher, Martin Heidegger in relation to Systems Thinking. This will be a series of posts. See Part 1 here.

In the last post, I discussed the ready-to-hand nature of ‘Systems’, which is based on Heidegger’s earlier ideas. Today, I am exploring his later concepts. I will use an Emergency Room as an example, inspired by ‘The Pitt’ on Max—a medical drama set in a Pittsburgh hospital that illustrates many of the concepts we are discussing. The show explores complex issues faced by both staff and patients, and I highly recommend it.

Beyond Hard Systems Thinking

The general notion of Systems Thinking is to use it to understand and address problems in a system. Some view this as identifying a goal state and developing a map toward achieving that state. Others might reduce it to drawing boxes and arrows. These approaches involve seeing interconnected elements of a system and making changes to improve efficiency or solve problems. In this view, a system is something external that can be fixed or adjusted.

If we follow Heideggerian ideas, however, we begin to challenge the notion of system as an object to be controlled. His philosophy helps us reimagine systems thinking not as a mechanism for optimization, but as a way of engaging with the world that prioritizes reflection, inclusion, and emancipation.

This reimagination sets the stage for fixing the notion of ‘fixing the system’.

Fixing the Notion of Fixing the System

We often point at the physical artifacts of a system and conclude that the system itself is a physical thing “out there.” When something goes wrong—be it biased decision-making, inefficiency, or inequality—the focus is typically on fixing the system. We might say we just need to identify and correct inefficiencies, include more stakeholders, or model it better.

This approach assumes that the system itself is something that can be analyzed, optimized, and managed. The system is seen as an object to be controlled, which Heidegger warns can lead us into a technological mindset he called ‘Gestell’. This German word can mean a physical shelf, rack, or framework in everyday usage. Heidegger used it to refer to how modern technology frames our approach to the world.

In his critique of technology [1], Heidegger explains that modern technology enframes the world as ‘standing-reserve’—a view where everything, including people and natural resources, is seen as a resource to be optimized, controlled, and efficiently managed. For Heidegger, this mode of seeing the world is pervasive in modern life. It is not merely a matter of wrong ideas or flawed methods; it reflects a deeper shift in how the world reveals itself to us.

In systems thinking, this means that even when we attempt to fix systems, we may still be working within the same way of thinking. We focus on models and boundaries, still seeing the system as something external that can be engineered and controlled. According to Heidegger, we cannot escape this framing by simply improving analytical methods; instead, we need a shift in understanding how the world reveals itself to us—a shift that cannot be engineered or willed into existence, but one that we must arrive at organically.

Recognizing this leads us to ask: if fixing the system is not the answer, what is? It is here that we move from a mindset of control to one of care.

From Control to Care

For Heidegger, the hope lies not in better models, but in a new beginning of thinking. Rather than treating the world and systems as collections of problems to be solved, this approach encourages us to engage with the world as a field of beings to care for. This means approaching the world not as a collection of objects to manipulate, but as a web of interconnected, living entities, each with intrinsic value and meaning.

This shift has practical implications for systems thinking. It means stepping back from the drive to “fix” the system and instead focusing on how we frame the system in the first place. It is about asking, “Who defined the system, and what is concealed by that definition?” This questioning resists Gestell and pushes us toward a more open, reflective, and inclusive approach to systems. This approach aligns with the soft systems thinking school pioneered by Churchman, Vickers, Checkland, Ulrich, Jackson, and others.

Boundaries and Emancipation

From this viewpoint, system boundaries are contingent. Every boundary drawn includes certain aspects while excluding others, and these decisions are made by those who defined the system. For example, in healthcare, a system might be narrowly defined to include only hospitals and doctors, or more broadly to include public health and social factors. The boundaries are not neutral; they reflect values and interests.

We require critical reflection regarding who holds the power to define the system and who are the winners and losers within it. This leads us to focus on emancipation, which involves challenging dominant framings of the system and reimagining boundaries to be more just and inclusive. It is about opening up the framing process to empower marginalized voices and create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive system.

In the Heideggerian essence, this is about liberating systems thinking from being a tool of control to becoming a process of unveiling and co-creating alternative futures. This involves letting go and being receptive to the world around us, allowing things to emerge and reveal themselves without immediately trying to control or optimize them. Heidegger advises us to shift our attunement—to change how we approach systems. Instead of seeing systems as mechanical entities to be fixed, he encourages engagement that is more reflective, inclusive, and humane.

Letting Go of Control

When we talk about “letting go” in systems thinking, we refer to relinquishing the desire to control or optimize systems in the traditional sense. In much of traditional systems thinking, there is strong emphasis on identifying the “right” model, fixing inefficiencies, and controlling outcomes, often with the mindset that the system can be “engineered” into something better.

However, Heidegger’s perspective asks us to let go of this drive for mastery and optimization. Instead of focusing on fixing the system, he encourages us to focus on how we relate to it—shifting attention away from controlling outcomes toward engaging with the system in a more reflective, open, and inclusive way.

‘Letting go’ is not about giving up on making things better, but about releasing the impulse to always have a fixable or controlled solution. It is about recognizing that systems are complex, messy, and sometimes unpredictable, and that meaningful change often comes from attuning to these complexities rather than imposing rigid solutions.

An Emergency Room Example

Consider an overstretched Emergency Room suffering from long wait times, staff burnout, and patient dissatisfaction. The traditional approach might focus on optimizing wait times, improving throughput, or redesigning workflows—all within the same Gestell mindset of optimization and control.

A Heideggerian approach would invite us to engage with the ER as a shared world, not just a system to be fixed. We might ask:

  • What does the ER mean to those who work and visit here?
  • What are the invisible boundaries that shape this system?
  • Who gets to define what a “good day” in the ER looks like?

By creating space for these questions, we allow the ER to disclose itself in a way that invites reflection and co-creation. This approach might lead to solutions that do not just optimize efficiency but also restore dignity, care, and trust.

We begin to see the hospital not just as a system to optimize or a place where resources are managed, but as a place where people—patients, doctors, nurses, janitors—are engaged in a shared, living experience. Instead of focusing solely on throughput and efficiency, we listen to the experiences of all involved, understand their needs, and respond with care.

‘The Pitt’ portrays this attunement through scenes where ER staff focus on the human elements of care—pausing to notice the little things, the moods of patients, the tone of voice of colleagues, and the atmosphere in the waiting room.

Final Words

Ultimately, integrating Heidegger’s critique of technology into systems thinking teaches us that true emancipation is not about better control over systems. It is about freedom from the need to control systems. The real shift comes not from improving models or creating more inclusive diagrams, but from a new beginning of thinking—one that is more reflective, inclusive, and ethical in how we frame and engage with the systems around us.

In the last and final post of this series, I will examine Heidegger’s thoughts on Cybernetics.

I will finish with a quote from Heidegger [1]:

Enframing not only conceals a former way of revealing, bringing-forth, but it conceals revealing itself and with it That wherein unconcealment, i.e., truth, comes to pass.

Heidegger is warning us of the most insidious danger of Gestell. Gestell does not just hide what is revealed, but it also hides the very process of revealing. It is like wearing glasses that distort our vision, but it also makes us forget that we are wearing the glasses.

Always keep learning…

[1] The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, M. Heidegger, translated by William Lovitt, 1977.

Note:

In referencing the work of Martin Heidegger, I want to acknowledge the deeply troubling fact of his affiliation with the Nazi party. This aspect of his life casts a long and painful shadow over his legacy. While I draw on specific philosophical ideas that I find thought-provoking or useful, this is not an endorsement of the man or his actions. Engaging with his work requires ethical vigilance, and I remain mindful of the responsibility to not separate ideas from the broader context in which they were formed.

Being-In-the-System – Heideggerian Insights into Systems Thinking – Part 1:

In today’s post, I am following up on the ideas of the controversial German philosopher, Martin Heidegger in relation to Systems Thinking. This will be a series of posts. I have utilized his early work, particularly his tool analysis from “Being and Time” for this post.

I do not have a high opinion of Heidegger as a person. But his philosophical ideas are quite insightful and provide a deeper understanding for systems thinking. I believe his ideas offer a humanistic view of Systems Thinking. Readers of my blog should now be introduced to the notion of ‘systems’ as mental constructs that we use to make sense of the world around us. The statement, ‘Systems do not exist’, is used to drive this point home. However, this quite often raises the question as to whether this is purely a subjective view, and some even go to the extreme end of blaming this to be a solipsistic idea. To me, there are a lot of nuances around this. I think that the ideas of Heidegger quite nicely provide a great background for this.

Ready-to-Handedness of Systems:

Heidegger rejects the traditional subject-object dichotomy that has dominated Western Philosophy since Renee Descartes. Heidegger was focused on the practical engagement with things in their context of use. He gave the example of a person with a hammer to explain this. When we are skillfully using a hammer, we do not experience the hammer as an ‘object’ separate from ourselves as ‘subject’. Instead, we are together caught up in a unified field of practical activity. Heidegger termed this ‘ready-to-handedness’. This is our primary mode of being in the world. When the hammer breaks down, it becomes simply present-at-hand. This idea provides a nuanced view of ‘systems’. ‘Systems being mental constructs’ is not merely about subjectivity versus objectivity, but about the fundamentally practical nature of our engagement with the world.

Often, when we speak about systems, we treat them as being out there separate from us as part of an objective reality, waiting to be discovered. When we identify a ‘system’, we are performing an act of abstraction guided by practical concerns. We select certain elements as relevant, establish boundaries, and identify patterns of relationships while ignoring countless other potential elements. This selection process is inherently pragmatic, shaped by our ‘concernful’ dealings with the world.

This connects to Heidegger’s concept of ‘world’ as a context of significance rather than a collection of objects. The ‘world’ emerges through our projects and concerns. Similarly, systems emerge as pragmatic ways of organizing our engagement with reality rather than discoveries of pre-existing structures.

When Heidegger rejects the subject-object dichotomy, he is pointing toward what precedes both – our practical involvement in what he calls ‘being-in-the-world.’ Systems emerge from this practical engagement, not from either pure subjectivity or pure objectivity.

Heidegger notes:

‘The ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all… The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically.’

When Heidegger says, ‘the ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all,’ he is distinguishing our primary way of engaging with things (as tools or equipment for our projects) from the detached, theoretical stance that philosophy has traditionally privileged. In our everyday dealings, we do not first observe objects with properties and then decide how to use them—we encounter them directly as meaningful within our practical concerns.

The second part—’it must, as it were, withdraw in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically’—reveals something profound about skilled engagement. When we are skillfully using a tool, the tool itself recedes from our explicit attention. A skilled surgeon does not focus on the scalpel as an object but sees through it to the tissue being cut. The carpenter does not contemplate the hammer but is absorbed in the activity of driving the nail.

This ‘withdrawal’ is crucial for authentic practical engagement. The moment we begin to theoretically contemplate the hammer as an object with properties, it has already shifted from being ‘ready-to-hand’ to being ‘present-at-hand’—it has lost its primary mode of being as equipment.

Healthcare ‘systems’, for example, function most effectively when practitioners are not explicitly thinking about ‘the system’ but are engaged directly with patient care. The structures withdraw, allowing the practitioner to work through it rather than on it.

Take the example of an ER department. A skilled nurse does not consciously think about the triage system as an abstract model but embodies it in practice, moving seamlessly through assessment protocols while attending to the unique needs of each patient. The moment the nurse must stop to explicitly consider ‘how the system works’, the flow is disrupted.

This withdrawal is not a flaw but is essential to practical engagement. It is precisely because systems withdraw from explicit attention that they can effectively organize our practical dealings with complexity. The moment we make systems themselves the focus of theoretical attention, we have already shifted away from the primary mode in which they function to organize meaning.

This is why attempts to perfectly model complex systems often fail to improve practice—they shift our orientation from ready-to-hand engagement to present-at-hand contemplation, missing the practical wisdom embedded in skilled doing.

Pluralism:

As noted before, different practical orientations bring forth different systems from the same reality. Let us take the example of a forest. The forest appears as one system to the ecologist, another to the logger, and yet another to the spiritual seeker. This is not because reality is arbitrary, but because different practical concerns illuminate different aspects of it.

No two people share identical practical concerns or histories of engagement, which is why their systems may never be identical. But this does not make systems merely subjective. They remain constrained by both the resistance of external world and our shared practical traditions. In this light, systems are not arbitrary mental projections nor discovered objective structures, but practical organizations of meaning that emerge from our concernful dealings.

This view has profound implications. It suggests that different system boundaries and descriptions can be equally valid depending on practical contexts. The healthcare ‘system’, eco ’system’, and economic ‘system’ are not competing descriptions of reality but pragmatically useful constructions for different purposes.

To understand someone else’s system is not just to access their mental model as if it were a static blueprint. Rather, it is to grasp the practical context in which that system emerged — their concerns, skills, goals, histories, and engagements with the world.

When we say systems are mental constructs, we are not simply pointing to the mind’s capacity to generate arbitrary interpretations. We are recognizing that each person brings a unique mode of involvement with the world. The ‘mental construct’ is not a detached abstraction. It is situated, embodied, and shaped by practical relevance. There is an indefinite variety of practical orientations, which means different systems can (and often will) emerge from the same situation, depending on the person’s intentions and history of interactions. Different practical orientations bring forth different systems from the same reality… not because reality is arbitrary, but because different practical concerns illuminate different aspects of it.

‘Systems’ are emergent expressions of lived involvement, often unique to those who live it.

Understanding another person’s system is an act of empathic attunement — not reading their mind, but listening deeply to how the world discloses itself to them through practice. It is not stepping into their mind, but stepping into a shared space of unfolding meaning — where both your world and theirs begin to overlap. From a second order standpoint, the act of observing brings in observer’s own ‘thrownness’, with their own background of concerns, preunderstandings and practices. In other words, the observer is also disclosing a world while watching another world gets disclosed. This encounter between ‘systems’ is itself a system — one that emerges through dialogue, empathy, and mutual disclosure. Doing this requires epistemic and ontological humility.

Systems Thinking practices in Heideggerian manner will be to attending to practical concerns and lived engagements. In this, we must observe how the participants actually work rather than just asking them how they think they work. We should look for times when systems break down, as these reveal key underlying assumptions. We should focus on how and why the boundaries are drawn as they are. In this, models used to map the systems are provisional tools, and not representations of truth. We must acknowledge our own role in shaping what is being seen. We should allow space for plurality, emergence and non-finality.

Always keep learning…

Note:

In referencing the work of Martin Heidegger, I want to acknowledge the deeply troubling fact of his affiliation with the Nazi party. This aspect of his life casts a long and painful shadow over his legacy. While I draw on specific philosophical ideas that I find thought-provoking or useful, this is not an endorsement of the man or his actions. Engaging with his work requires ethical vigilance, and I remain mindful of the responsibility to not separate ideas from the broader context in which they were formed.

Announcing “Second Order Cybernetics”: My First Published Book

Last month, my first book was published. The book is a collection of essays that was written over the course of five years and covers ideas in second order cybernetics. The book is aptly titled – “Second Order Cybernetics”. The cover art is done by my lovely daughter, Audrey Jose. The book is published by Laksh Raghavan as part of Cyb3rSyn Labs Community offering. The hardcover of the book is available at this link. The hard cover copy is a beautifully typeset deluxe edition. I am thankful for my readers and Laksh for his trust in my ideas.

The venture by Laksh represents a great opportunity to mingle with people from different backgrounds to pursue cross-disciplinary learning in themes such as cybernetics, systems thinking, philosophy, and more. I am excited to be part of this intellectual community and ongoing dialogue.

The table of contents of the book is given below:

The Recursive Mirror: Why I Write

I write to make sense of the world and my place in it. Moreover, I write to find myself. Writing gathers my scattered thoughts, helping me wrestle with ideas and shape them into something coherent. It is a way to lay out the pieces of a puzzle, to see where they fit and where they do not. By externalizing my thoughts through writing, I can spot flaws in my thinking, correct errors, and refine my understanding.

I understand that my ideas might be fallible. Writing is a form of error correction, a way to surface hidden assumptions and test them. The act of translating thoughts into words forces me to confront contradictions and gaps in my reasoning. However, error correction does not end with me. By putting my ideas out into the world, I invite others to scrutinize them, to challenge and refine my thinking in ways I might not achieve alone.

Concepts, unlike physical objects, do not reveal their mismatches as easily. You know when an oversized peg will not fit into a hole, but conceptual contradictions and paradoxes linger in cognitive blind spots. Writing becomes a tool to illuminate those hidden contradictions, to test ideas and see if they truly hold. Each iteration of thought, refined through reflection and external feedback, sharpens understanding.

I strive to be able to find differences among apparently similar things and similarities among apparently different things. Writing is my way of exploring those connections, of noticing patterns that might otherwise stay buried. Maturana spoke of “aesthetic seduction“, the idea that we should not seek to convince others but to attract them to our way of seeing. I write not to persuade, but to offer my thoughts as an invitation. As informationally closed entities, readers must convince themselves; my role is simply to present the ideas in their most compelling form.

Baltasar Gracián wrote, “The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard.” [1]Writing teaches me this skill, knowing which ideas to keep and which to let go of. It clears the mental clutter, revealing what truly matters. Error correction itself is recursive, an ongoing cycle of questioning, refining, and discarding what no longer serves understanding.

Ultimately, I write first for myself. It is a way to think, to question, and to grow. And by putting my words out into the world, I open the door for unexpected connections, corrections, and conversations. Writing, then, becomes not just a means of expression but an evolving dialogue; with myself, with others, and with the ever-changing nature of truth. I write so that I can keep learning.

References:

[1] The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle. – Baltasar Gracián

The Invisibility of Infrastructures:

What can be studied is always a relationship or an infinite regress of relationships. Never a “thing.” – Gregory Bateson

In today’s post, I am continuing to look at the infatuation of blindly pursuing efficiencies. I am utilizing the thinking from the American sociologist Susan Leigh Star. Susan Leigh Star’s concept of invisible infrastructure focuses on the human and social dimensions of ‘systems’ that are often overlooked or undervalued when evaluating their efficiency. Star’s concept of “infrastructure” extends far beyond physical systems like roads or servers. In her framework, infrastructure is a sociotechnical web that includes both material and human elements, all of which are deeply embedded in organizational and social practices. Her key insight was that when things work, what makes them work remains invisible to us.

She wrote [1]:
People commonly envision infrastructure as a system of substrates—railroad lines, pipes and plumbing, electrical power plants, and wires. It is by definition invisible, part of the background for other kinds of work. It is ready-to-hand. This image holds up well enough for many purposes—turn on the faucet for a drink of water and you use a vast infrastructure of plumbing and water regulation without usually thinking much about it.

For Star, the idea of an infrastructure is a complex domain with several underlying attributes. She and her team identified the following attributes [1]:

Embeddedness: Infrastructure is fundamentally integrated within other structures, social arrangements, and technologies. These elements are so interconnected that it becomes difficult to separate the infrastructure from the social and organizational systems it supports.

Transparency: Infrastructure operates invisibly to support tasks without requiring rebuilding or reconfiguration. Expert users understand exactly what needs to be done, making the infrastructure transparent to them. For novices, however, the same infrastructure may appear opaque and challenging to navigate.

Reach and Scope: Infrastructure’s influence extends beyond specific tasks or locations, creating patterns that affect both spatial and temporal aspects of work. These broader impacts often remain subtle until explicitly examined.

Learned as Part of Membership: Users develop familiarity with infrastructure through ongoing participation in their communities. While newcomers might struggle initially, regular users develop an implicit understanding that allows them to work with the infrastructure naturally.

Links with Conventions of Practice: Infrastructure shapes community practices while simultaneously being shaped by them. The QWERTY keyboard exemplifies this relationship – its design constraints have influenced modern computing interfaces despite the original mechanical limitations no longer being relevant.

Embodiment of Standards: While infrastructure incorporates standardized practices, these standards vary across different communities and contexts. This variation reflects local adaptations and specific needs of different groups.

Built on an Installed Base: Infrastructure develops from existing systems, inheriting both their capabilities and their constraints. This inheritance affects how new capabilities can be implemented and integrated.

Becomes Visible Upon Breakdown: Infrastructure remains invisible during normal operation, becoming apparent only when it fails. This invisibility masks the complexity of interactions and dependencies until disruption occurs.

Fixed in Modular Increments: The notion that infrastructure can be fixed comprehensively or globally is problematic, as modifications must occur while maintaining existing operations.

Star highlighted that much of the labor that sustains infrastructure is hidden from view. This includes everyday tasks like troubleshooting, mentoring, and resolving problems that aren’t captured in traditional efficiency metrics. This “invisible labor” is essential for keeping systems running smoothly but is often unacknowledged until it breaks down. She noted that infrastructure is invisible when it works well, meaning people do not usually notice the networks or the labor involved unless something goes wrong. For example, employees who manage crises or adapt systems to unexpected challenges often go unnoticed, but when they are gone, the gaps they filled become painfully obvious.

Star illustrates this further through the example of nursing work in hospitals. When such work remains implicit, it becomes invisible – as one respondent noted, it is simply “thrown in with the price of the room.” However, once this work is made explicit and measurable, it becomes vulnerable to cost-cutting measures and efficiency metrics. This example demonstrates how the very act of making invisible work visible can threaten its existence, despite its crucial role in maintaining the infrastructure.

Human participants are what connect the elements of a network. The values or purposes come from the participants. Star noted that the infrastructure is embedded in social practices and human relationships. This means that the work of employees, how they interact with each other, share knowledge, or resolve conflicts, becomes part of the infrastructure itself. When organizations remove people to streamline operations, they erase these informal networks, which can undermine the functioning of the ‘system’.

Another key insight from Star was that the pursuit of mindless efficiencies can propagate deep social inequalities. Star emphasized that infrastructure is not neutral; it reflects power dynamics, values, and social structures. When efficiencies are pursued without recognizing the human labor behind them, it can perpetuate inequities and make the infrastructure less adaptable and more vulnerable to failure. Most often, layoffs that happen as part of the pursuit of efficiencies affect marginalized workers who help to keep the infrastructure invisible.

From a cybernetic perspective, maintaining viability requires some redundancy or capacity to achieve requisite variety. External variety is always orders of magnitude higher than internal variety. Most of the time, the policies or procedures set in place by the higher-ups are rigid and unable to meet this external variety. The management of variety in these situations is provided by the employees at those levels where the variety is being thrown at by the external world. These are not documented in any of the policies or procedures. This ignores how the real-world messiness is tackled on a daily basis by the employees. Cutting staff removes tacit knowledge and informal networks that are critical to keeping systems running, even if they are not formally acknowledged by management.

Efficiency assumes predictability, and this is not a luxury that organizations can afford. These are tagged by quantifiable metrics such as productivity quotas. These quantifiable metrics have a tendency to obfuscate the complexity of the networks.

Final Words:

The tendency to view infrastructure as merely technical ‘systems’ that can be optimized through efficiency metrics fundamentally misunderstands how complex ‘systems’ actually work. The invisible elements – human relationships, tacit knowledge, informal networks, and social practices – are not inefficiencies to be eliminated but rather critical components that enable ‘systems’ to adapt and survive in an unpredictable world.

When organizations pursue efficiency without recognizing these invisible dimensions, they risk damaging the very mechanisms that make their systems resilient. The human capacity to adapt, solve problems, and maintain relationships forms an essential infrastructure layer that formal processes and metrics cannot capture. This “invisible infrastructure” provides the flexibility and intelligence needed to handle real-world complexity. Removing this impacts the infrastructure’s ability to self-regulate. The error correction of error correction for a network lies within the tacit and social dimensions. This is a key aspect for making networks viable in the sea of complexity. We need to start framing resilience and redundancy as infrastructure investments, not inefficiencies. We need to start valuing the invisible.

I will finish with a thought-provoking quote from Star and Bowker:

But what are these categories? Who makes them, and who may change them? When and why do they become visible? How do they spread?…Remarkably for such a central part of our lives, we stand for the most part in formal ignorance of the social and moral order created by these invisible, potent entities.

References:

[1] The Ethnography of Infrastructure, Susan Leigh Star

The Thing About ‘Thing-in-Itself’:

In today’s post, I am looking at Immanuel Kant’s Thing-in-Itself and Hans Vaihangar’s ideas. In Kant’s philosophy, the “Thing-in-itself” (or Ding an sich) refers to the reality that exists independently of human perception or experience. Kant argued that while we can know phenomena (the appearances of things as they present themselves to us), the “Thing-in-itself” remains inaccessible to human cognition, as our knowledge is always mediated by the structures of our mind (such as space, time, and categories of understanding). The Kantian dichotomy therefore is phenomena (things as they appear to us) and the noumena (the “Things-in-themselves”). For Kant, the Thing-in-itself is something that exists independently of human perception, but it is forever inaccessible to us. We can only know the world as it appears to us, not as it truly is in itself. This creates a separation between appearance and reality, and Kant suggests that this gap is unbridgeable for human beings.

I am not a fan of dichotomies. Most often, dichotomies are created as linguistic tools to aid our thinking. But they form a life of their own and cause confusion in our thinking. There are a few ways to think about the thing-in-itself. One is to take the road that reality is indeed accessible to us. This will be the approach of a naïve realist. This notion can be easily disproven by the use of numerous illusions. The second route is to be an idealist. Loosely put, this approach takes the view that everything is in the mind. This notion is also not very useful. This again is another dichotomy – reality is directly accessible out there versus reality is all inside our minds.

It is more useful to take a middle path. Here also, there are different ways to go. One example is Charles Sanders Peirce, who is a realist American philosopher. He believed that reality does exist out there independent of our perception. We may not have direct access to it, but we can gradually make sense of it. He believed that all knowledge is fallible and subject to revision. Instead of positing an unknowable reality, he focused on the continuous process of inquiry and the gradual approximation of truth. In this view, the notion of the thing-in-itself is not value adding since he is proposing that reality or portions of reality are eventually accessible to us. Peirce was a pragmatist (or a pragmaticist as he called himself). As noted above, pragmaticism supports the idea of truth. If there is a practical or pragmatic observable effect, then that becomes truthful. Truth in this case is not absolute since pragmatists support the idea of fallibilism. Truth is provisional. What we have discussed so far moves towards the realist camp.

It is here that I want to introduce the ideas of Hans Vaihinger. At this point in time, I side with Vaihinger’s ideas. Vaihinger was a German philosopher who studied Kant vigorously. His ideas have many familiarities with pragmatism. He proposed the philosophy of “as-if”. He came up with the notion of “useful fictions” instead of “truth” in pragmatism. Similar to pragmatism, he was interested in practical applications in the world. Vaihinger argued that the thing-in-itself is not something we can know, but that it functions as a “useful fiction” that helps guide our thinking and practical action. According to Vaihinger, we can use the concept of the thing-in-itself as a heuristic tool, a fiction that helps us organize our experience and navigate the world, even though it does not correspond to anything directly accessible to human cognition.

In a sense, Vaihinger suggests that the thing-in-itself has practical utility, even if it is ultimately unknowable. It provides a framework for understanding reality, even if that framework is not literally true. For Vaihinger, this “fiction” is necessary for guiding human action and thought, even if it is not an accurate representation of an objective reality. He is not interested in “Truth”. Unlike the pragmatists, he calls his ideas fictions.

Vaihinger discussed his ideas in his magnum opus, “The Philosophy of As-If“. He argues that human thought, fundamentally, is geared not towards metaphysical truth or solving abstract problems, but towards survival and fulfilling the “Life-will” (Arthur Schopenhauer’s term for the fundamental drive to live and survive). This perspective leads Vaihinger to conclude that human cognitive faculties are inherently limited, not because they are defective, but because they evolved for very specific, practical, and existential purposes: to help humans navigate the world and satisfy their basic needs.

Vaihinger views human thought as essentially a tool for life, serving the practical ends of survival rather than speculative exploration of ultimate reality. Human cognition was not designed to uncover metaphysical truths or answer the “big questions” about the nature of the universe. Instead, it evolved as a means to manage and react to immediate environmental challenges—finding food, avoiding danger, securing shelter, reproducing, and so on. From this perspective, thought is a functional tool, not a quest for objective knowledge.

In this way, Vaihinger agrees with Kant that human knowledge is bound by certain limits. But Vaihinger takes Kant’s idea further: instead of viewing these limits as a tragic deficiency (i.e., the inability to access noumena or things-in-themselves), Vaihinger argues that they are the natural result of human thought’s biological and practical function. Thought was never intended to grasp the ultimate nature of reality; it evolved to solve problems relevant to human survival and everyday life.

Given that human thought is limited in this way, Vaihinger proposes that we use certain concepts—like the thing-in-itself—as fictions. These fictions are not intended to describe the ultimate nature of reality but to help us organize and navigate our experience of the world. The thing-in-itself, as a fiction, becomes a useful tool for thought, enabling us to conceptualize reality in a way that facilitates practical action and understanding, even if that concept does not correspond to anything we can directly know or experience.

Vaihinger argues that these fictions are essential because they allow us to deal with phenomena that cannot be grasped directly. The thing-in-itself becomes a placeholder or a symbolic construct that helps us maintain coherence in our thinking and practical activities, even though it does not correspond to any knowable “reality”. In this way, Vaihinger’s approach offers a way to work with limitations in thought while still being able to reason, act, and engage with the world meaningfully. Similar to Peirce, Vaihinger maintained that all knowledge is fallible and provisional. He also emphasized the idea of correcting them when they are no longer viable.

The Paradox of Thing-in-itself:

The notion of the thing-in-itself comes with a paradox. If the thing-in-itself is not accessible to us, then how can we even talk about it? How can we ascertain that what we experience is supposed to represent the thing-in-itself? The very act of trying to access the thing-in-itself proves its inaccessibility. Kant acknowledged the limits of human cognition and left us with the concept of the thing-in-itself to indicate that reality exists beyond our perception. Kant insisted that we cannot know the thing-in-itself because our mind imposes its own structures onto the world. So, the thing-in-itself is something that remains, by definition, unknowable. We humans are separated from the “true” nature of things.

Let us use an example to make things clearer. Imagine the reality of a landscape. Kant originally suggested this is a reality we cannot directly touch, like the landscape is behind a thick fog. We can see outlines, but not the detailed terrain itself. Peirce proposed that we have multiple ways to understand that landscape such as signs, instruments, mathematical models etc. It is not that the landscape is unknowable, but that we approach it through creative interpretation. These are not just representations – they are active ways of constructing understanding. Instead of seeing the thing-in-itself as an impenetrable mystery, Peirce suggests it is more like a dynamic puzzle. We do not give up because we cannot see the whole picture immediately. We use every tool we have – mathematical models, technological instruments, logical reasoning – to progressively understand. Peirce claimed we can access reality through signs and mediation.

If we look at Vaihinger’s ideas, Vaihinger would call Peirce’s signs still fictions we have constructed. The mathematical models, instruments, and interpretive frameworks are themselves useful fictions that help us navigate experience. The key distinction between Peirce and Vaihinger is that Peirce believed that we are progressively accessing reality, and Vaihinger saw us as creating increasingly sophisticated, but still fundamentally, fictional frameworks of understanding. In our example, it is like different ways of mapping an unknown territory. Peirce is thinking that we are gradually revealing the actual landscape. Vaihinger is saying that we are creating ever more useful maps, knowing that they are not the territory itself.

In my opinion, there is a Noumenal gap that realism cannot transcend. No matter how sophisticated our signs, instruments, or mediations, we cannot escape the fundamental epistemological limitation. Our cognitive apparatus always interprets, always mediates, always transforms. Any “progress” is still within our conceptual framework. We are not getting closer to the thing-in-itself. We are often simply creating more complex interpretive structures.

Vaihinger’s idea that the thing-in-itself is a “useful fiction” suggests a very different way of thinking. Vaihinger argues that while we may never have direct access to the thing-in-itself (or any ultimate reality), the concept of the thing-in-itself can still be useful for organizing experience and guiding practical action. According to Vaihinger, the idea of the thing-in-itself is a fiction, but one that is necessary for making sense of the world. It is a construct that helps us navigate and interact with our experiences, even if it does not correspond to any objective reality beyond our conceptual framework.

Vaihinger’s view allows us to maintain the utility of concepts like the thing-in-itself without being trapped in the idea that they correspond to something inaccessible in a metaphysical sense. For Vaihinger, the thing-in-itself is not some unreachable essence, but a concept that functions within human thought in a way that allows us to make sense of the world. It is a fiction that helps us act and think meaningfully, even though we know it does not correspond to something we can access directly.

This is a much more flexible and practical stance than Kant’s and Peirce’s, because it allows for the continued use of concepts like the thing-in-itself without needing to assert that they refer to an objective, inaccessible reality. Instead, we can use them for practical reasoning, action, and understanding, while acknowledging their fictional status.

Vaihinger moves beyond the notion that we are limited by a distance from ultimate reality and suggests that the limitations of our understanding do not prevent us from using concepts that guide our actions. He does not need to answer whether we can access the thing-in-itself in any literal sense because he acknowledges that it is a fiction—yet a necessary one. Vaihinger provides a path forward in that sense: we no longer need to grapple with the unknowability of ultimate reality, but instead can work with useful fictions that help us navigate the world. This gives us a much more flexible, non-dogmatic framework for understanding our place in the world and how we think about things like the thing-in-itself.

If we ask for burden of proof for the various ideas we have discussed here, we see that both realism and idealism carry a significant burden of proof because they are making claims. Even with Peirce, there is a significant burden of proof. He must still prove that signs can access reality. Vaihinger on the other hand avoids any metaphysical commitments. By calling the thing-in-itself as a useful fiction, he sidesteps the burden of proof altogether. His focus is only on the viability of an idea.

I will finish with a quote from Vaihinger:

The world of ideas… we generally call “truth” is consequently only the most expedient error, i.e, that system of ideas which enables us to act and to deal with things most rapidly, neatly and safely, and with minimum of irrational elements.

Note: There are of course numerous other schools of philosophy such as critical realism, radical constructivism etc. that I have not looked at here.

The Form of Batesonian Abduction:

In today’s post, I am looking at Batesonian abduction through the lens of George Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form (LoF). I have written about LoF here, here and here. Spencer Brown came up with an elegant algebra mechanism to capture the thinking process using a notation called as “mark”. I welcome the reader to explore the ideas in the links given above.

Laws of Form (LoF):

I will go through the basic calculations and notations needed for this post. I am going to use parentheses to capture the notion of the mark. For example, the distinction of an idea ‘A’ can be notated as:

(A)

The first principle in LoF is the Law of Condensation. This basically means that when an idea is repeated, it condensates into the original idea itself. For example, if I make a distinction of an apple, and I repeat the distinction again, I have not added anything new if the two concepts are identical to each other. The original concept remains the same.  This is shown below:

(Apple) (Apple) → (Apple)

However, distinct ideas maintain their separation.

(Apple) (Orange) → (Apple) (Orange)

Through contrast and comparison of different ideas, we can achieve deeper understanding. This is shown below where we gain a better understanding of fruits in terms of Apples and Oranges:

(Fruits ((Apple) (Orange)))

Abduction:

With the basic notations of LoF out of the way, let us look at abduction. Abduction is a reasoning process introduced by Charles S. Peirce. It is a way of coming up with hypotheses to explain surprising or puzzling observations. It is different from induction (generalizing from observations) and deduction (deriving conclusions from general principles).

Peirce saw abduction as important in the context of discovery, the stage in science where new theories or ideas are generated. The modern notion of abduction has become more focused. Modern views of abduction often focus on finding the “best” explanation for a given observation. Peirce did not emphasize choosing the best hypothesis among many possibilities. He was more focused on generating hypotheses that could later be tested and refined. Peirce thought that while the hypothesis might be influenced by existing knowledge, abduction is still important because it leads you to consider new possibilities you have not fully explored yet.

For example, if a scientist notices that certain plants grow better near a specific type of soil, they might abduce the hypothesis that certain nutrients in the soil are helpful for growth. This hypothesis can later be tested through experiments and predictions.

Batesonian Abduction:

Gregory Bateson, the renowned anthropologist and cybernetician, developed a more nuanced interpretation of abduction. His approach emphasized understanding relationship patterns rather than linear cause-and-effect explanations. Bateson positioned abduction within the broader context of pattern recognition in networks, viewing it as a cognitive process for interpreting systemic patterns.

For Bateson, abduction was about seeing how different elements in a system relate to each other in a non-linear way. Instead of finding a single cause, Bateson was interested in contexts and feedback loops — how an element can be part of a larger dynamic pattern or system. Bateson, while acknowledging abduction as a method of forming hypotheses, placed it more broadly within the context of pattern recognition in networks. He saw abduction not just as a logical operation but as a cognitive process that helps us interpret and make sense of patterns in the world. For Bateson, abduction was related to the way humans and animals perceive and respond to relationships between elements in a ‘system’, not simply in relation to surprising observations or hypotheses.

Bateson asked in Mind and Nature:

What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you? And all the six of us to the amoeba in one direction and to the backward schizophrenic in another?… What is the pattern which connects all the living creatures?

His central thesis proposed that the connecting pattern is itself a metapattern—a pattern of patterns that defines the broader generalization of connectivity through patterns.

Bateson explained his take on abduction as:

Every abduction may be seen as a double or multiple description of some object or event or sequence.

The idea of double or multiple descriptions is very profound. In simple words, it is better to have multiple perspectives of a situation to have a better understanding of the situation. This represents a pluralistic framework. A simple example is the binocular vision we have. Each eye captures a slightly different image because they are located on opposite sides of the face. The brain combines these two images to create a single, three-dimensional perception of the world. Using our LoF notation, this can be described as follows:

(3-dimensional perception of the world ((Left eye image) (Right eye image)))

In terms of abduction, the brain “abductively” connects these two different descriptions (the views from each eye) to create a unified perception. The brain interprets the difference between the two flat images to infer depth – how far away objects are. This is similar to how abduction works by generating an explanation (in this case, the perception of depth) based on two related but distinct pieces of information (the two images).

The pluralistic aspect is the most important idea that I want to bring to the readers. In order to improve our understanding of a situation in complexity science or systems thinking or thinking in general, we should have epistemic humility and welcome different perspectives. Bateson also defined information as the difference that makes the difference. If the two descriptions are identical, we do not generate a new understanding. This would be very similar to being in an echo chamber. Now, this does not of course mean that you need to welcome ideas that are demonstrably absurd. The gist is that you need to be open to other perspectives and take a pluralistic approach.

Final Words:
The etymology of “abduction” means to lead away. It suggests leading away from our current knowledge to new explanations. It represents a movement away from what we already know. It is about being led away to new understanding.

A profound connection from Bateson’s Double Description suggests that real learning is not about accumulating single descriptions, but about developing the ability to see patterns across contexts. Using LoF helps us see why – the form (pattern((A)(B))) shows how understanding emerges from relationship rather than from things themselves. The Metapattern structure suggests that what we are really doing in double description is learning to recognize “patterns that connect” – metapatterns. This is why Bateson saw it as crucial for understanding complex situations like ecosystems or minds.

The LoF notation reveals something profound about abduction itself – it’s not just inference, but a leap to a new logical type. When we write (pattern ((A )(B))), we’re showing how abduction creates new knowledge by seeing across levels.

The use of LoF notation perhaps gives us a new way to look at things. I will finish with another example of improving our understanding utilizing a pluralistic approach. The paper, An update on Inuit perceptions of their changing environment, Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island, Nunavut) by Sansoulet, Therrien et al, offers an example of a pluralistic approach to understanding climate change, as it incorporates indigenous knowledge and perspectives alongside scientific observations. A LoF notation might be:

(climate-understanding ((scientific-models) (indigenous-knowledge) (economic-analysis)))

There are several examples in the paper that talks to the changes that the Inuit have seen as part of climate change. With respect to Inuit perceptions on climate change, including weather, climate impacts on the ice, and invasive/disappearing species, Inuit report the change in the ice as the main and most widespread change to have occurred in the last decades, with adaptation to this change being increasingly difficult and unsafe for hunters.

This integration of different ways of knowing exemplifies Bateson’s vision of abduction as a tool for understanding complex systems. It shows how the marriage of traditional knowledge and scientific observation can lead to richer, more nuanced understanding – exactly the kind of “difference that makes a difference” that Bateson emphasized. Through this lens, we see that addressing complex challenges like climate change requires not just multiple sources of data, but the ability to recognize and connect patterns across different domains of knowledge.

The application of Batesonian abduction and LoF notation thus offers not just a theoretical framework, but a practical approach to understanding and addressing complex challenges in our interconnected world. It reminds us that a nuanced and better understanding emerges from our ability to recognize and integrate the patterns that connect diverse ways of knowing.

Always Keep on Learning…

On the Presence of Complexity:

In today’s post, I am following up on the theme of complexity by drawing upon ideas from Derrida to further explore these concepts. I will start with a fundamental question regarding the basic premise- Is complexity an inherent property of a situation, independent of the observer, or does it emerge through observation and purpose? In other words, is complexity a given phenomenon in the external world or is it constructed?

This question might seem strange to some, while straightforward to others. Some might argue that this leads us down the path of solipsism, while others might contend that this approach is superior as it pushes us away from naive realism. In this article, we will examine the perspective where complexity manifests as an observer-dependent phenomenon, shaped by intention, purpose, and the limitations of presence. Through Derrida’s philosophical framework, we will explore how complexity emerges not as an absolute property, but as a relational phenomenon tied to observer intention and capability.

When we discuss observer-independent properties, we generally refer to physical properties of a situation that are ‘objective’. Consider the example of a termite hill. The material composition, number of tunnels, number of intersections, and other dimensional properties are indeed independent of the observer. However, I would posit that complexity is fundamentally different, and this difference can be demonstrated through three levels of analysis.

First, at the ontological level, complexity emerges as a second-order property. While first-order properties like mass, dimension, or quantity exist independently, complexity arises from the relationships between these properties. These relationships do not exist in isolation but are perceived and constructed through an observer’s cognitive framework. For instance, in our termite hill example, the mere presence of multiple tunnels does not inherently create complexity – it is the observer’s attempt to understand their interconnections, purpose, and evolutionary significance that generates the perception of complexity.

Second, at the epistemological level, complexity manifests through the limitations and capabilities of the observer. Consider two observers of the same termite hill: an entomologist and a child. The entomologist might find the structure’s organization relatively straightforward due to their understanding of termite behavior and construction patterns. The child, lacking this specialized knowledge, might perceive the same structure as overwhelmingly complex. This demonstrates that complexity is not merely about what is being observed, but about the relationship between the observer’s knowledge framework and the observed phenomenon.

Third, at the teleological level, complexity emerges through purpose and intention. When we declare something as ‘complex’, we are not making a purely objective observation. Instead, this declaration typically arises from a specific purpose or intention. This may be tied to the need to manage a situation, the desire to understand a situation, the need to solve a problem or the obligation to make decisions.

This three-tiered analysis demonstrates that the concept of complexity makes most sense when an observer is involved. As Derrida notes in “Of Grammatology” [1]– There is no outside-text. Similarly, there is no complexity outside of our purposeful engagement with situations. The very act of identifying complexity is embedded in our intentions and purposes. Complexity ’emerges’ when we try to understand something, manage something, or achieve something. It is inextricably tied to our purposes and capabilities.

The next point to consider is how différance structures our understanding of complexity. When we identify something as complex, we explain it through emergence. This emergence is further explained through various properties, which in turn point to relationships that lead us back to emergence and complexity. This pattern mirrors Derrida’s différance, where meaning is constantly deferred through a chain of references.

As he notes in “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” [2]:

The center is not the center… the concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of a freeplay based on a fundamental ground, a freeplay constituted upon a fundamental immobility and a reassuring certitude, which is itself beyond the reach of the freeplay.

In his deconstructionist approach, Derrida critiqued the traditional metaphysical idea that meaning or reality is grounded in an immediate, fully present essence—something that can be directly perceived and understood without ambiguity. This notion of “presence” suggests that there is a fundamental truth or meaning that is self-evident and immediately accessible to the mind. However, Derrida challenges this assumption, arguing that meaning is never fully present or directly available. Complexity, in this view, is never completely “present.” It is always understood in relation to other concepts, each of which itself requires further explanation and definition. In this way, complexity can never be reduced to a simple, fixed presence; instead, it is always deferred, dependent on the play of differences and relationships between terms.

Derrida’s concept of différance provides crucial insights into how complexity ‘operates’. In “Margins of Philosophy” [3], he writes:

Différance is what makes the movement of signification possible only if each so-called ‘present’ element… is related to something other than itself, thereby keeping within itself the mark of its past element and already letting itself be vitiated by the mark of its relation to the future element.

Complexity is never purely present. It carries traces of past experiences, and it points toward future implications. In this perspective, complexity exists in a network of relationships. The concept of trace is particularly relevant to understanding complexity. In “Of Grammatology” [1], Derrida explains:

The presence-absence of the trace… carries in itself the problems of the letter and the spirit, of body and soul, and of all the problems whose primary affinity I have recalled.

This suggests that complexity is both present (in our observation) and absent (in its continual deferral). Complexity carries within itself marks of our purposes and intentions. It also contains traces of our past experiences and future expectations. This leads us to a nuanced understanding of complexity as a perspective of possibilities. This is further illuminated by Derrida’s critique of ‘presence’ in “Speech and Phenomena” [4]:

The presence of the perceived present can appear as such only inasmuch as it is continuously compounded with a nonpresence and nonperception, with primary memory and expectation.

Derrida explores the idea that our perception of the present moment is inherently tied to our understanding of time, memory, and anticipation. In other words, we cannot fully experience or recognize the “present” unless it is continuously linked to what is not present—our memory of the past and our expectations for the future. This further supports the view of complexity as being grounded in our capabilities and shaped by our purposes. It is influenced by our past experiences and directed toward future actions.

Final Thoughts

Much like Berkeley’s question of whether a tree falling in the forest will make a sound if there is no one to hear it, I propose that complexity requires an observer. Complexity measures are always knowledge and purpose-relative. This means that different purposes yield different complexities. What is complex to one observer may be merely complicated to another. No absolute measure can exist independent of purpose. Consider the example of a pandemic: there may be objective properties such as transmission rate, virus size, and type, but the notion of complexity makes sense only within the network of relationships, purposes, and meanings. Here, complexity emerges through various needs such as public health management, economic considerations, and social conditions.

As Derrida’s philosophy suggests, complexity exists not as a presence but as a network of relationships, purposes, and meanings. There is no ‘ground’ for complexity as a pure property independent of an observer. This view offers a more nuanced and practical approach to understanding and managing complex situations. This perspective changes how we approach complex challenges, suggesting that effective management requires understanding not just situations, but the purposes, capabilities, and contexts that make them complex in the first place.

Managing complexity within this framework requires understanding the specific purposes of the participants, their capabilities, contextual factors, and available resources. We should appreciate multiple perspectives and not fear provisional solutions. I invite readers to check out this post that goes deeper into Derrida’s deconstruction.

I will conclude with Derrida’s words:

There are things like reflecting pools, and images, an infinite reference from one to the other, but no longer a source, a spring. There is no longer any simple origin. For what is reflected it split in itself and not only as an addition to itself of its image. The reflection, the image, the double, splits what it doubles. The origin of the speculation becomes a difference. What can look at itself is not one; and the law of the addition of the origin to its representation, or the thing to its image, is that one plus one makes at least three.

(Simply put, the above passage suggests that representation or reflection always results in a gap because they are inherently split. This gap creates a difference between the original and its image. As a result, the traditional notion of a stable origin or source is undermined. Instead, meaning emerges through a play of differences. The idea that “one plus one makes at least three” indicates that when an origin is reflected or represented, a third element, the difference or gap between them, emerges. This reveals that neither the original nor its reflection is self-contained or stable.)

Always keep on learning…

[1] Of Grammatology, Derrida. 1967

[2] Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, Derrida. 1970

[3] Margins of Philosophy, Derrida. 1972

[4] Speech and Phenomena, Derrida. 1967