Hi everyone, just to say that the "method" advanced by Edgar Morin is not a "method" in the traditional meaning of the term, but it is just based on the relativity of different methods and therefore deals with uncertainty. That is what we have to face nowadays. In this sense, if you go through what Morin says you will find much to think about even though it does not represent the summary of Morin's thought.See for example: " Method: The Nature of Nature" that is the first of several volumes exposing Edgar Morin's general systems view on life and society. The volume maintains that the organization of all life and society necessitates the simultaneous interplay of order and disorder. All systems, physical, biological, social, political and informational, incessantly reshape part and whole through feedback, thereby generating increasingly complex systems. For continued evolution, these simultaneously complementary, concurrent, and antagonistic systems require a priority of love over truth, of subject over object, of Sy-bernetics over cybernetics.

I personally think that the human perspective of Morin's though could be the key for our survival on Earth. See, for comparison, the article by Donella Meadows*, that is not so far away from Morin's thought. There is a kind of convergence that should not surprise us, because who is able to have visions of great scope, is also able to operate synthesis that have many common features.

*https://www.researchgate.net/post/Welfare_and_sustainability_as_a_part_of_sustainable_development_strategies

Thanks so much Patrick.

Dear Giovanni,

I have just downloadad it. The summary is consize but clear. I will need some time to read.

Hi everyone, just to say that the "method" advanced by Edgar Morin is not a "method" in the traditional meaning of the term, but it is just based on the relativity of different methods and therefore deals with uncertainty. That is what we have to face nowadays. In this sense, if you go through what Morin says you will find much to think about even though it does not represent the summary of Morin's thought.See for example: " Method: The Nature of Nature" that is the first of several volumes exposing Edgar Morin's general systems view on life and society. The volume maintains that the organization of all life and society necessitates the simultaneous interplay of order and disorder. All systems, physical, biological, social, political and informational, incessantly reshape part and whole through feedback, thereby generating increasingly complex systems. For continued evolution, these simultaneously complementary, concurrent, and antagonistic systems require a priority of love over truth, of subject over object, of Sy-bernetics over cybernetics.

I personally think that the human perspective of Morin's though could be the key for our survival on Earth. See, for comparison, the article by Donella Meadows*, that is not so far away from Morin's thought. There is a kind of convergence that should not surprise us, because who is able to have visions of great scope, is also able to operate synthesis that have many common features.

*https://www.researchgate.net/post/Welfare_and_sustainability_as_a_part_of_sustainable_development_strategies

Prof G, I will read it carefully. I'm interested in sustainable development :)

Dear All, Lijo Francis, Patrick Low and others that you know are not able any longer to log in their RG account from yesterday. RG suspended their accounts without any reason. I don't know why, but I find this an outstanding abuse. Please help them and inform all other participants as this is a signal that things are not going in the right way in RG before it happens to you!

Regards

Gianni

Dear Giovanni,

I have read the Morin article. This is a very clearly even beautifully written essay. Which was interesting and somehow new is the “trinity” of humankind in the existence and all kinds of relationships. Regarding the characterisation of system structure and operation his thoughts did not exceed really what Bertalanffy had described already. Which was extremely important: he explained very simply the dangerous way we are wandering towards a certainly bad future. The raisons for this obscure future are the uncountable human passion, madness and the unlimited freedom containing the ungoverned development which cannot be controlled.

He wrote: “Madness, unawareness, productivity, and destruction of the biosphere: we are stuck with a series of catastrophes, and we cannot predict them.”

The ending of the article was quite sad: our last hope may be only the uncertainty (the second law of thermodynamics) that the dangerous processes may achieve even the contrary of their objectives. He thought that normally, society would need a metamorphose to became a better one but the great velocity makes impossible this metamorphose.

I think Donella Meadows paper has had a more concrete way for finding the right way. Of course, the convergence of the two papers is obvious. I am afraid that many of us did not read any of them.

Dear Giovanni,

My question: why people (scientists, researchers) are not interested in questions like that?

Dear Giovanni,

There is but a sad thing for me in both papers: Either Morin or Meadows did not mention ethics. That means they calculated so much the real value of human ethics. Certainly, this is not their mistake.

I have just read the paper, a bit late! Andras, I did not have time before, but I am very interesting in! I like Morin's feedbacks! Also, I do agree about the missing ethics issue!

Dear Ljubomir,

My remark had a statistical approach not personnel. Your natural curiosity and interest towards subjects like that is well known.

I like it but it is not a unity, the whole is not more than the parts.

Systems thinking is one approach to reality. There are others. Sometimes systems is the way to go. Sometimes not. It really depends what you are trying to do. I am a systems thinker, by the way. I am inclined to think that systems thinking should show the limitations of systems thinking not just blow its own trumpet.

Dear Louis,

Could you be a bit more specific?

András,

The paper includes many different narratives which I agree with. But I do not find a common thread among these narratives. I could have read any part of it without the preceding one. I could have read the last part without missing anything from not reading the first part. So I do not get the thread among these narratives. Maybe I would come to a different opinion if I would have read the paper several times.

@Louis,

exact my impression. I was also looking for the thread and a logical sequence. But it was nice to read.

Dear Louis and Hanno,

With one word, the paper lacks of the really original point of view. However, I think it is useful to read it. I stress again my first comment on it.

Dear all, perhaps it is true that there is no much originality in Morin's speech for us as complex thinkers, but I find in that speech a lot of useful linkages to demonstrate that complex thinking is the proper way of thinking in this century and ahead. What is interesting is that the main focus of that speech is "changing paradigms" and "uncertainty" not due to ignorance, but to the intrinsic uncertainty of complex systems that is exactly what we have to face nowadays. His dialogical approach, typical of Morin's thought, where “dialogical” means the union of two antagonistic terms in order to understand a complex problem, is only a recent achievement of system theory (see, e.g. order and disorder, and the resilience notion stemming out of this). In this sense, if you go again through what Morin says you will find much to think about even though it does not represent the summary of Morin's thought nor a summary of system theory.