Tag Archives: Churchman

Cybernetics of the Systems Approach:

In today’s post, I am looking at the idea of “sweeping-in” in Systems Approach. “Sweeping-in” can be described as the process of opening up the inquiry of a system by expanding its boundaries. Churchman discussed sweeping-in in several works, including “Thought and Wisdom” [1] and “The Design of Inquiring Systems” [2]. Churchman credited his teacher, E. A. Singer, for the concept of sweeping-in.

The “sweeping-in” process was introduced as a method for incorporating diverse concepts and variables from various sciences to resolve inconsistencies in measurements or observations. Churchman wrote:

the problems we humans face are so closely interconnected so that the only way we can study a system is to recognize the need to be comprehensive. [1]

there are no simple questions and the process of addressing a specific question will eventually require answers to more and more questions, i.e., require the “sweep-in” process. [1]

The sweeping-in process consists of bringing concepts and variables… into the model to overcome inconsistencies… [2]

In Systems Approach, sweeping-in requires us to expand our inquiry to incorporate a wide range of perspectives and variables. It demands that we examine the larger system and understand the ethical implications of our approach. This is a continual process that necessitates a cross-disciplinary approach. When addressing a situation, we must bring in knowledge and perspectives from multiple stakeholders and look at broader contexts. This means looking beyond the immediate problem to understand the larger systems and contexts in which our system exists.

Singer argued against the idea of simple and directly knowable facts from observation. He thought that there are no simple facts of nature that we can know directly, and that even seemingly simple observations are actually complex. In this regard, when we set out to find an answer to any question of fact, we realize that we must learn more and more about the situation. The original question becomes increasingly complicated, not simpler. Singer advocated not trying to reduce observations to simple elements, but instead following a sweeping-in process where our inquiry expands to include more context and interconnected systems.

The sweeping-in process is anti-reductionistic. Churchman explained this when he wrote about the strategies of inquiry [2]:

Which is better, to reduce the system to its elements or to expand the system? A system-science reply would be that since there are no simple, elementary questions, the first strategy is based on illusion and the second is the one to be followed.

The sweeping-in process requires us to embrace the complexity of the situation at hand. This demands epistemic humility. Reality is already complex, which means that our initial framing of the situation is often too narrow, resulting in premature solutions that are not effective and may cause more harm than good in the long run. We may ignore important interactions and relationships, leading to unintended consequences.

Sweeping-in involves examining our current system from the perspective of the larger systems it is part of. This is one of the basic ideas in systems approach – to understand the function of a part, we must look at it from the standpoint of the larger whole. There is a hint of Godelian thinking here. A great example from Russell Ackoff, a renowned Systems Thinker and student and friend of Churchman, is that of the automobile. No matter how much we understand an automobile and its parts, we will never understand why we drive on the right side of the road in the U.S. unless we consider the larger context—the historical, social, and cultural norms that shape American driving practices.

The reader might now wonder about the use of cybernetics in the title of the post. Churchman wrote that sweeping-in is a process of adding in and adjusting the results to improve our understanding of a problem [1]. This is a means to perform error correction in our understanding. This will be a never-ending process since we lack the variety to completely understand the external world.

Sweeping-in cautions against over-simplification. This does not mean that we need to make a situation artificially more complex for the sake of it. As I mentioned before, reality is already complex. We need to acknowledge our limitations and account for enough perspectives and variety to match the variety of the situation at hand. In Cybernetics, complexity is explained via variety. To achieve a requisite understanding of the situation, we need to have requisite variety. One of the most important ideas in cybernetics is Ross Ashby’s law of requisite variety. I welcome the reader to explore this further here.

The complexity that we are “adding” through sweeping-in is not arbitrary. We are attempting to include aspects that are needed but might not have been considered in the initial framing. This could include perspectives from other stakeholders, longer-term consequences, ethical considerations, or the influence of broader contexts such as social, political, or environmental factors.

Our basic instinct is to simplify when faced with situations that seem complex. This process is known as attenuating external variety in cybernetics. While simplification can effectively achieve requisite variety, excessive attenuation signals ignorance, which in cybernetics is referred to as the “lethal attenuator.” Our attempts to simplify can often create blind spots, causing us to overlook less obvious but influential factors. Therefore, sweeping-in serves as a reminder to deliberately resist oversimplification.

Having epistemic humility and being aware of our cognitive blind spots are important notions in second-order cybernetics. Second-order cybernetics reminds us that any system’s functioning includes the observer and their interactions with the system. Here, the feedback loops include the observer as a participant, influencing the dynamics and adding new layers of complexity to the situation. This recursive process highlights the interdependence of the system and the observer, making it illogical to separate the two.

This reflexive approach means that reality is constructed on an ongoing basis through the interaction between the observer and the system. Most importantly, this approach incorporates ethics, one of the key points of Systems Approach, by recognizing that the observer’s involvement in a system carries responsibility. Since observers influence systems and construct reality through their interactions, they must be aware of the consequences of their actions. This promotes a constructivist view, where knowledge and reality are not discovered as objective facts but are constructed through interaction in a social realm. Observers are responsible for the realities they help construct. This practical aspect challenges the implications of relativism. While multiple perspectives may exist, the ethical responsibility of observers grounds our understanding of “truth” and “reality”, emphasizing that our participation in systems has meaningful consequences.

Churchman used the examples of a prison and a hospital to explain the ethical considerations further[1]:

The planner should search not for ways to make the prison or the hospital run more smoothly, but for the reasons why we have things like badly run prisons and hospitals. The reasons turn out to be political, as much as economic; hence, the planner needs to “sweep-in” the causes of the existence of the troubled organization, and these causes like in other systems.

Another notion in sweeping-in is the need for challenging assumptions. Here we should ask questions such as WHO defines the system, WHOSE perspectives are included or excluded, and WHAT ethical considerations should be taken into account etc. The path forward, as advised by Churchman, is to utilize idealistic thinking. We must look at what an ideal solution would look like, not just accepting the current “realities”.

There are no final solutions in this approach, only provisional solutions. There is only continuous feedback and adaptation. This is also an important aspect of second-order cybernetics. The emphasis is on “less wrong” solutions rather than correct solutions. Each action taken informs the next round of understanding and action. Thus, the emphasis is on improving our understanding, or “understanding understanding”, another notion in second-order cybernetics.

Churchman was a pragmatist. From this perspective, the practical payoff comes from improving the depth and quality of decision making by acknowledging our limitations and inherent complexity of the situation. The goal is better informed action. I will finish with a great passage from Churchman that shows his true pragmatist spirit [2]:

When all is going well, and data and hypothesis are mutually compatible, then is the time to rock the boat, upset the apple cart, encourage revolution and dissent. Professors with well-established theories should encourage their students to attack them with equally plausible counter-theories. This is the only pathway to reality: whenever we are confident that we have grasped reality, then begins the new adventure to reveal our illusion and put us back again in the black forest.

But the process is dialectical, which means that two opposing processes are at work… One is the process of defending the status quo, the existing “paradigm” of inquiry, with its established methods, data, and theory. The other is the process of attacking the status quo, proposing radical but forceful paradigms, questioning the quality of the status quo.

Singer… called the “real” an “ideal” and we can see why. The idealist is a restless fellow who sees evil in complacency; he regards the realist as a hypocrite at times because his realism is unrealistic. The realist, on the other hand, accuses the idealist of being impractical, because his insistence on destroying the value of the present way of life precludes positive action. The Singerian inquiring system does not seek to resolve the philosophical dispute, but, on the contrary seeks to intensify it.

Always keep on learning.

[1] Thought and Wisdom, C. West Churchman (1982)

[2] The design of inquiring systems, C. West Churchman (1971)

Beyond the Elephant – On Churchman’s Systems Approach:

I have been revisiting Churchman’s writings on Systems Thinking recently. In today’s post, I am looking at his book, The Systems Approach. It is a wonderful book that examines the systems approach from multiple viewpoints and walks the reader through Churchman’s thinking on the subject. Churchman was heavily inspired by philosophy and was considered to be a pragmatist. This shows up in his writings.

He notes that:

Systems are made up of sets of components that work together for the overall objective of the whole. The systems approach is simply a way of thinking about these total systems and their components.

He notes that there are several systems approaches. He considered four such advocates to these approaches.

  1. The advocates of efficiency – they claim that the best approach to a system is to identify the trouble spots, and especially the places where there is waste, e.g., unnecessarily high costs, and then proceed to remove the inefficiency.
  2. The advocates of the use of science in approaching a system – they claim that there is an objective way to look at a system and to build a “model” of the system that describes how it works. The science that is used is sometimes mathematics, sometime economics, sometimes “behavioral”.
  3.  The advocates of the use of human feelings, i.e., the humanists – they claim that systems are people, and the fundamental approach to systems consists of first looking at the human values; freedom, dignity, privacy. Above all, they say the systems approach should avoid imposing plans, i.e., intervention of any kind.
  4. The anti-planners – who believe that any attempt to lay out specific and “rational” plans is either foolish or dangerous or downright evil. The correct “approach” to systems is to live in them, to reach in terms of one’s experience, and not to try to change them by means of some grandiose scheme or mathematical model. Most of them believe that experience and cleverness are hallmarks of good management.

In the following chapters, Churchman discusses the problems with these approaches.

In one of the chapters, Churchman utilizes the age-old story of the group of blind men and an elephant to slowly poke holes in the idea of systems thinking itself. He noted:

There is a story often told in logic texts about a group of blind mean who are assigned the task of describing an elephant. Because each blind man was located at a different part of the body, a horrendous argument arose in which each claimed to have a completed understanding of the total elephantine system.

What is interesting about this story is not so much the fate of the blind men but the magnificent role that the teller had given himself – namely, the ability to see the whole elephant and consequently observe the ridiculous behaviors of the blind systems describers. The story is in fact a piece of arrogance. It assumes that a very logically astute wise man can always get on top of a situation, so to speak, and look at the foolishness of people who are incapable of seeing the whole.

 Churchman challenges the whole notion of what is meant by a system, and what is considered to be its parts, environment, and objectives. He challenges the notion of how we claim to measure the performance of a system. One example he gives is that of a medical laboratory that tests specimens which doctors send in. He asks – what is the objective of the laboratory? He states that the obvious answer might be to make the test results as accurate as possible. Then he points out that the test results being accurate may not actually improve the accuracy of the doctor’s diagnosis. Another example he gives is that of a student trying to achieve the highest grade possible in a course as if the measure of that system’s performance is the grade achieved. He points out that their stated purpose is to learn, but their real measure of performance is the grade.

Churchman also challenges the notion of environment for a system. The environment of the system is what lies “outside” of the system. This also is no easy matter to determine. When we look at an automobile we can make a first stab at estimating what’s inside the automobile and what’s outside of it. We feel like saying what lies beyond the paint job is the environment of the automobile. But is this correct? Is it correct to say, for example, that what lies beyond the paint job of a factory is necessarily outside of the factory as a system? The factory may have agents in all parts of the country who are purchasing raw materials or selling its products. These are surely “part” of the total system of the factory, and yet they are not usually within its walls. In a more subtle case, the managers of the factor may belong to various political organizations through which they are capable of exerting various kinds of political pressures. Their political activities in this case certainly “belong” to the system, although again they hardly take place within the “shell” of the system. And, returning to the automobile and considering what it is used for, we can doubt whether its paint is the real boundary of its system.

In the book, Churchman wisely notes that we are deceived by our ideas of the system. We come to believe that what we perceive is the reality and get deceived by our model of the system. But these models seldom capture the basic human values. These models also deceive us by hiding our own inability to truly understand all the aspects of what we call a system, and the complexity of its internal politics. At the same time, Churchman also remarks that each of these solutions may also make improvements. He notes:

And yet when one looks at the solution and sees its wrongness, one is also deceived, because, in searching for the wrongness, one misses the progressive aspect of the solution. We have to say that the advocate of the solution both deceives and perceives. We have to say that the solution is ridiculous and serious. We have to maintain the contradiction or else we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the consistent.

The ultimate meaning of the systems approach, therefore, lies in the creation of a theory of deception and in a fuller understanding of the ways in which the human being can be deceived about his world and in an interaction between these different viewpoints… What is in the nature of systems is a continuing perception and deception, a continuing re-viewing of the world, of the whole system, and of its components. The essence of the systems approach, therefore, is confusion as well as enlightenment.

With this, Churchman parts us with his four principles for his systems approach:

  1. The systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another.
  2. The systems approach goes on to discovering that every world view is terribly restricted.
  3. There are no experts in the systems approach.
  4. The systems approach is not a bad idea.

Churchman is asking us to welcome multiple perspectives. Our notion of the system is provisional. So is everyone else’s. It is based on our worldviews and value systems. When we blame the system, we engage in a fictional undertaking. What we call a system is entirely our creation and is very limited. Every system is based on a terribly restricted worldview. There are no experts who can see the whole and “fix” the system. There is no whole system since every system is embedded in an even larger system. Even with all this, the systems approach is not a bad idea. We need to utilize empathy and perspective-taking when it comes to the systems approach. We need to have epistemic humility by understanding that our viewpoints are limited. Churchman’s ideas promote a humble, inclusive, and multifaceted approach to understanding and addressing complex problems. He wanted ethics to be an important part of systems approach.

Always keep on learning.

The Core Maxim for Systems Thinking:

In today’s post, I will explore Systems Thinking from a pragmatist viewpoint. I will draw on the ideas of the great American pioneer pragmatist philosopher, C. S. Peirce and the pragmatist systems thinker, Charles West Churchman.

Pragmatism can be viewed as a push against the idea that there are fundamental, unchanging “Truths”. Pragmatism emphasizes experience and observable consequences rather than abstract notions of certainty. There is a hint of utilitarianism in pragmatism in that both philosophies prioritize practical outcomes and the consequences of actions as measures of value. Perhaps, one of the attractive notions in pragmatism is the idea of fallibilism, the view that any claim to knowledge could be mistaken and therefore, we need a means for error correction. This is mostly achieved in the form of social consensus. In this regard, pragmatism also supports the idea of pluralism, the recognition that there may be multiple valid ways of seeing a phenomenon or approaching a phenomenon.

As Philip Campbell noted [1]:

Pragmatism is the proposal that the value and meaning of any concept is the set of its possible effects… If a concept has no possible effects, then it has no value and no meaning. If two concepts have the same set of possible effects, then the two concepts are the same… Pragmatism is utilitarianism with long-range goals.

This idea brings up a core maxim in pragmatism that is attributed to Peirce. This is called the “pragmatic maxim”. The maxim basically states that to further our understanding of a concept or a thing, we need to also understand the practical consequences to us of that concept or thing. Peirce noted in 1878 essay, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear?” [2]:

If one can define accurately all the conceivable experimental phenomena which the affirmation or denial of a concept could imply, one will have therein a complete definition of the concept, and there is absolutely nothing more in it.

In that essay, Peirce presented three grades of clarity for a concept. Loosely put, they are in the increasing order:

  • The user has a general familiarity with the concept.
  • The user can provide a working definition for the concept.
  • The user knows the conceivable practical effects of the concept.

The last step focuses on the pragmatic maxim. Peirce argued that to fully understand an idea, we must examine what experiences or actions it would lead to if it were true. Peirce gave the example of the concept of hardness to explain this. We have a general understanding that a rock is hard, while a pillow is not hard (soft). This allows us to define hardness as the ability to withstand deformation. Therefore, we realize that a hard object resists deformation and can be used to deform relatively softer objects.


Peirce’s maxim teaches us that understanding a concept is not fully developed until we grasp its practical consequences and how it influences our interactions and expectations in the world. In other words, the meaning of an idea is linked to its practical effects. In social contexts, this introduces the notion of pluralism. Different individuals can interpret a concept based on their unique perspectives and worldviews, all of which can be valid. In this sense, knowledge becomes provisional and always evolving. Pragmatism encourages epistemic humility, as well as continuous inquiry and revision of beliefs. Truth is multifaceted and shaped by multiple contexts and practical consequences. This represents a soft view on the complexities of truth rather than a dogmatic hard view.

With this background, let us look at the idea of a system. A “system” is generally construed as a collection of interconnected parts working together to represent a whole. This leads to the common notion that systems are real and present everywhere and can be fixed or changed to achieve a desired outcome. This type of thinking is based on faulty pretense that whole system can be modeled accurately to represent the complex situation. They might argue that the outcomes of the systems can be designed, and their view is the accurate representation. As David Matthews wrote [3]:

Undoubtedly, the early systems theorists were uncritically committed to both foundationalism and representationalism. They aimed to produce models that corresponded with reality (representationalism) and, moreover, assumed that it was feasible to justify the outcomes of their studies by claiming to always model the ‘whole system’ (foundationalism).

It is here that we can introduce Charles West Churchman. At heart, Churchman was a pragmatist who challenged the notion of the hard systems approach. He did not see that the boundaries of a system are given by the structure of reality in favor of a pragmatic understanding that what is ‘given’ and what is ‘constructed’ are irreducibly intertwined. The system became a constructed notion to represent a phenomenon based on multiple perspectives and value systems. Matthews continued:

Accordingly, traditional distinctions between subject and object (and for that matter ontology and epistemology) are undone and boundary definition becomes an issue not of systems modelling but of practical philosophy. That is, it becomes an ethical issue. Something that appears to be an improvement from a narrow point of view may not be seen as such if the boundaries are extended or arranged in a different way. According to Churchman, systems approaches too often have us analyze ‘the problem’ as if it represented the total system.

Multiple perspectives stem from the pluralistic approach in pragmatism. This means there is not one representation of what a system means; the meaning can change depending on who the participant is. This highlights the importance of ethics in systems thinking. My narrow view of what a system should do and what the outcomes should be may not align with another participant’s perspective. For example, what a transportation system means to a train driver can differ significantly from what it means to a passenger. Each participant has their own perspectives and cultural nuances that can drastically affect practical consequences. To understand what the system is, we must consider these different perspectives. Churchman’s famous maxim states that a systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another.

Churchman also teaches us that if we come to view our own version of system as the correct one, we are deceiving ourselves. We may not be aware of our cognitive biases and other blind spots. He wrote, the ultimate meaning of the systems approach, therefore, lies in the creation of a theory of deception and in a fuller understanding of the ways in which the human being can be deceived about his world.

His systems approach was rooted in pragmatism. He advocated listening to our ‘enemies’ so that we can challenge our own assumptions. Matthews noted that he suggested pitting alternative options (based on alternative a priori metaphysical assumptions) against each other. By listening to the arguments of our ‘enemies’ we become aware of the assumptions in our own thinking and both are better for it.

Churchman’s Social System Design aimed at ‘surfacing’ the implicit worldviews (a priori assumptions) of the systems designer and/or decision maker. Once these assumptions are brought to the surface an alternative set of assumptions are developed. From this alternative set, different proposals (courses of action, decisions, systems designs etc.) are derived that, because of their different foundational assumptions, challenged the former ones. The aim is to develop a more critical understanding of the complex problem (or system) by seeing aspects of the problem that would have remained hidden by the uncritical implementation of policy founded on a single worldview.

In my view, the core maxim of systems thinking is same as the pragmatic maxim. To understand the system, we should grasp its practical consequences. In social contexts, there are multiple participants and, therefore, multiple perspectives on what the system is and what they desire from it. What a system does is emergent and contextually dependent. We should not seek to optimize without first understanding the pluralistic nature of the system and its practical consequences.

I will end with a quote from one of Churchman’s students, Werner Ulrich:

It is not the reality ‘out there’ that determines the boundary between the system and the environment, but rather the inquirers standpoint, the purpose of his mapping effort, his personal preconceptions of the reality to be mapped and the values he associates with it.

Always keep on learning…

[1] Peirce, Pragmatism, and The Right Way of Thinking, Philip L. Campbell, Sandia Report

[2] How to Make Our Ideas Clear?, Charles Sanders Peirce

[3] Pragmatism Meets Systems Thinking: The Legacy of C. West Churchman, David Matthews

The Contingency and Irony of Systems and Cybernetics Thinking:

In today’s post, I am using the ideas of the great American pragmatist philosopher, Richard Rorty. Rorty’s most famous work is Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Rorty as a pragmatist follows the idea of an anti-essentialist. This basically means that there is no intrinsic essence to a phenomenon. Take for example, the idea of “Truth”. The general notion of Truth is that it can be found independent of human cognition. Rorty points out that this idea is not at all useful.

Rorty states:

Truth cannot be out there – cannot exist independently of the human mind – because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true of false. The world on its own – unaided by the describing activities of human beings – cannot.

The suggestion that truth, as well as the world, is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a language of his own.

A key idea that Rorty brings up is the contingency of language. We may see language as this wonderful thing that enables us to communicate. Rorty describes language as contingent. This means that language is actually something we invented rather than discovered. And that language is really a tool we use to describe what is around us and our ideas. It is contingent because it is historically and geographically based. It is also contingent because we are engaged in language games, and meaning is an emergent phenomenon from our language games. This idea of language games is inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein. If we see language as contingent, then we can prepare ourselves to not fall prey to the idea that truth is out there in the world, and that it is something that we can find. When we realize that language is contingent, we stop believing in dogmas and doctrines stipulated to us. We stop asking questions such as “What is it to be a human being?” Instead we ask, “What is it to inhabit a twenty first century democratic society?”

The idea of contingency slowly reveals us that sentences are no longer important. We should focus on vocabularies. Rorty explains that vocabularies allow us describe and re-describe the world. It is a holistic notion. When the notion of a “description of the world” is moved from the level of criterion-governed sentences within language games to language games as wholes, games which we do not choose between by reference to criteria, the idea that the world decides which descriptions are true can no longer be given a clear sense. It becomes hard to think that, that vocabulary is somehow already out there in the world, waiting for us to discover it. Languages are made rather than found, and truth is a property of linguistic entities (sentences).

As a pragmatist, Rorty’s view is that language, and in turn vocabulary, is a tool that is useful in a particular context. It does not have an intrinsic nature on its own because it is contingent on us, the users. Rorty wonderfully explains this as – the fact that Newton’s vocabulary lets us predict the world more easily than Aristotle’s does not mean that the world speaks Newtonian.

Another idea that Rorty proposes is that of the final vocabulary. Rorty says that we all have final vocabularies. All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise for our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes… It is “final” in the sense that if doubt is cast on the worth of these words, their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only helpless passivity or a resort to a force. A small part of a final vocabulary is made up of thin, flexible, and ubiquitous terms such as “true,” “good,” “right,” and “beautiful. ” The larger part contains thicker, more rigid, and more parochial terms, for example, “Christ,” “England,” “professional standards,” “decency,” “kindness,” “the Revolution,” “the Church,” “progressive,” “rigorous,” “creative.” The more parochial terms do most of the work.

Let’s look at what we have discussed so far and look at systems thinking. Pragmatism is not foreign to systems thinking. The pioneer of soft systems approach, C. West. Churchman was a pragmatist. He advised us that systems approach starts when we view the world through the eyes of another. The general commonsense view of systems is that they are real, and everyone sees the “system” objectively which helps to address the problem. The “system” can be drawn and described accurately. The system can be optimized to achieve maximum performance. This is the “hard systems” approach which utilizes a mechanistic view. However, as we start applying the pragmatist ideas we have looked at, we start to challenge this. “Systems” are not real entities but mental constructs by an observer to aid in understanding of a phenomenon of interest. “Systems” no longer become a necessity, but become contingent on the observer constructing it. When one says that the “healthcare system” is broken, we no longer look at the sentence in isolation, but rather we start looking at the vocabularies. The idea of contingency brings the non-objective nature of reality into the front. How one sees or experiences something depends on his or her contingency and their final vocabulary. From this standpoint, a system has nothing that the observer does not put into it. The intrinsic nature of a system is actually the properties assigned by the observer and contingent on his or her final vocabulary.

Similar ideas are present in Cybernetics and Systems Thinking:

We exist in language using language for our explanations- Humberto Maturana 

The environment as we perceive it is our invention. – Heinz von Foerster

If contingency of language is an issue, then how does one do systems thinking then? Here I will introduce another idea from Rorty. This is the idea of an “ironist”. Rorty said:

I shall define an “ironist” as someone who fulfills three conditions : ( 1 ) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts ; (3 ) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. Ironists who are inclined to philosophize see the choice between vocabularies as made neither within a neutral and universal metavocabulary nor by an attempt to fight one’s way past appearances to the real, but simply by playing the new off against the old.

Rorty adds:

The ironist spends her time worrying about the possibility that she has been initiated into the wrong tribe, taught to play the wrong language game. She worries that the process of socialization which turned her into a human being by giving her a language may have given her the wrong language, and so turned her into the wrong kind of human being. But she cannot give a criterion of wrongness. So, the more she is driven to articulate her situation in philosophical terms, the more she reminds herself of her rootlessness by constantly using terms like “Weltanschauung,” “perspective,” “dialectic,” “conceptual framework, “historical epoch,” “language game,” “redescription,” “vocabulary,” and “irony.”

From a second order Cybernetics standpoint, the idea of an ironist is self-referential. The observer is aware of their final vocabulary. Moreover, they are aware that their final vocabulary is perhaps incomplete or incorrect. They are historicist in the sense they understand that their language is contingent based on the time, place and society they were born into. They are also aware that others do not share their vocabulary. From this standpoint, what they can do is to seek understanding and ask leading questions to expose others to their contingencies of their vocabulary. They understand that truth is a function of agreement within language games. They don’t look at sentences in isolation, but at vocabularies in a holistic fashion. They realize that ideas are dynamic and do not have a fixed essence because vocabularies themselves are dynamic. They are open to changing their vocabularies without the fear of going against ideas they once held on to. They understand in a pragmatist sense that all models are wrong but the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful. (George Box)

I will finish with a quote from Fredrich Nietzsche:

“Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.”

Please maintain social distance and wear masks. Stay safe and Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Cybernetic Explanation, Purpose and AI:

The System in the Box:

W

In today’s post, I am looking at the brilliant philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “The Beetle in the Box” analogy.

Wittgenstein rose to fame with his first book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in which he proposed the idea of a picture theory for words. Very loosely put, words correspond to objects in the real world, and any statement should be a picture of these objects in relation to one another. For example, “the cat is on the mat.” However, in his later years Wittgenstein turned away from his ideas. He came to see the meaning of words in how they are used. The meaning is in its use by the public. He came to realize that private language is not possible. To provide a simple explanation, we need an external reference to calibrate meanings to our words. If you are experiencing pain, all you can say is that you experience pain. While the experience of pain is private, all we have is a public language to explain it in. For example, if we experience a severe pain on Monday and decided to call it “X”. A week from that day, if you have some pain and you decide to call it “Y”, one cannot be sure if “X” was the same as “Y”.

The beetle in the box analogy is detailed in his second book released posthumously, Philosophical Investigations:

Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a ‘beetle’. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word ‘beetle’ had a use in these people’s language? If so, it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

The beetle in the box is a thought experiment to show that private language is not possible. The beetle in my box is visible to only me, and I cannot see the beetle in anybody else’s box. All I can see is the box. The way that I understand the beetle or the word “beetle” is by interacting with others. I learn about the meaning only through the use of the word in conversations with others and how others use that word. This is true, even if they cannot see my beetle or if I cannot see their beetle. I can never experience and thus know their pain or any other private sensations. But we all use the same words to explain how each of us experience the world. The word beetle becomes whatever is in the box, even if the beetles are of different colors, sizes, types etc. Sometimes, the beetles could even be absent. The box in this case is the public language we use to explain the beetle which is the private experience. The meaning of the word beetle then is not what it refers to, but the meaning is determined by how it is used by all of us. It is an emergent phenomenon. And sometimes, the meaning itself changes over time. There is no way for me to know what your beetle looks like. The box comes to represent the beetle.

I love this thought experiment because we all assume that we can tell what others feel like. We talk as if we are all talking about the same world. We talk about the beetle as if everybody has the same beetle in their boxes. Everyone’s world is different, and their worlds are constructed based on their worldviews, mental models, schemas, biases etc. The construction is a dynamic and ongoing process. The construction is a recursive process in the sense, our construction influences how we interact in the world, which in turn influences the ongoing construction of the world. From this standpoint, we can see that reality is multidimensional and that there are as many realities as the number of participants. There is no one reality, and we cannot assume that our reality is the correct one. What exists is a cocreated reality with others, and this co-constructing activity is on a delicate balance. Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something. Nobody has access to a true reality. To paraphrase Heinz von Foerster, we do not see it as it is, it is as we see it.

We all talk about systems as if we all know what they mean. We say that we need to think about the purpose of the system or that it is the system, not the people. Systems are mental constructs we create based on our worldviews to make sense of phenomena around us. Most of the time when we talk about systems, we are speaking about a “part”. For example, when we talk about the “transportation system”, we are actually meaning the bus that is running late. Similar to the beetle in the box, my system is not the same as your system. My view of the healthcare system changes when I become sick versus when I am healthy. The same system has a different meaning and purpose if you are a healthcare worker versus if you are on the board of the hospital. We cannot stipulate a purpose for the system because systems do not have an ontological status. We cannot also stipulate a purpose for a co-creator. To do so will be to assume that we can see the beetle in their box. The great Systems Thinker West Churchman said that systems approach starts when one sees the world through another person’s eyes. Wittgenstein would say that this is impossible. But I think what Churchman was getting at is to realize that our “system” is not the only system. What we need is to seek understanding. With this view, Churchman also said that, there are no experts in the systems approach. Werner Ulrich, who built upon the ideas of Churchman said the following:

The systems idea, provided we take it seriously, urges us to recognize our constant failure to think and act rationally in a comprehensive sense. Mainstream systems literature somehow always manages to have us forget the fact that a lack of comprehensive rationality is inevitably part of the conditio humana. Most authors seek to demonstrate how and why their systems approaches extend the bounds of rational explanation or design accepted in their fields. West Churchman never does. To him, the systems idea poses a challenge to critical self-reflection. It compels him to raise fundamental epistemological and ethical issues concerning the systems planner’s claim to rationality. He never pretends to have the answers; instead, he asks himself and his readers a lot of thoroughly puzzling questions.

Even though systems are not real, we still use the word to further explain our thoughts and ideas. Ulrich continues:

What matters is ultimately not that we achieve comprehensive knowledge about the system in question (an impossible feat) but rather, that we understand the reasons and implications of our inevitable lack of comprehensive knowledge.

 The crucial issue, then, is no longer “What do we know?” but rather “How do we deal with the fact that we don’t know enough?” In particular, uncertainty about the whole systems implications of our actions does not dispense us from moral responsibility; hence, “the problem of systems improvement is the problem of the ‘ethics of the whole system’.”

 A book on morals is not moral. We cannot assume full access to the real world and stipulate purposes for our fellow cocreators. The purpose of language is to not expose our thoughts, but to make them presentable. In today’s world where complexity is ever increasing due to increasing connections, the beetle in the box analogy is important to remember.

 Similar to the famous credit card ad, I ask, “What is in your box?”

Stay safe and Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Map at the Gemba: