for @DevilsRefugee (Theo Priestley)
I used to work in an office where, every now and again, an announcement would be made over the tannoy. "The fire alarm system will be tested at 11 o'clock. Please stay at your desks."
What exactly was this "fire alarm system" that was being tested here? My idea of a fire alarm system involves people responding appropriately and without panic to some kind of audible signal. The purpose of the fire alarm system is to get people safely out of a burning building, and the purpose of the test is presumably to make sure that the system works.
But if the office manager's idea of a successful test was that people stay at their desks despite the signal, then obviously that's not the system she meant. Probably focused on testing the wiring. (To my mind, that's just a subsystem.)
Teaching people to ignore fire alarm signals is a really stupid idea, isn't it? I worked in another office with proper tests of the fire alarm, where we all had to leave the building without prior warning and not using the lifts. But there was a guy on my floor on crutches, and he would be told of the drill in advance and advised to remain at his desk. When we figured this out, we just looked over to him when the alarm signal sounded; if he was ignoring it, we knew it was just a test.
Okay, so the test proves we can get all the able-bodied people out of the building quickly. What does that imply for my friend on crutches? Was the office manager not bothered whether he could get out of the building in a real fire?
How someone goes about testing a system reveals what exactly they think the system is, as well as what they think is important about it.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Benefits of Doubt
Some people seem to care enormously about the circumstances of President Obama's birth. Was he perhaps born a citizen of some other country, or was he really Malcolm X's lovechild? If they could only prove some problem with his provenance, then his presidency (they imagine) would be over.
For some of these conspiracy theorists ("Birthers"), the most convincing evidence is the fact that President Obama doesn't (perhaps cannot) produce documentation sufficient to allay their suspicions. Do they imagine he's got nothing better to do than prove that he exists?
But sometimes the best strategy when faced with irrelevant accusations is to leave people wondering. For example, David Cameron refused to specify his youthful chemical indiscretions (BBC News 14 Oct 2005). A fictional example is provided by Stephen Byerley, in Isaac Asimov's short story Evidence.
Leaving something like this open to doubt (or even deliberately sowing the seeds of doubt) may serve a useful purpose. Your enemies may make a big fuss and waste a lot of energy; if they can't find something more important to talk about, people will stop paying much attention to them; meanwhile there is a mystery and glamour that may even enhance your appeal.
See my earlier post: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama.
For some of these conspiracy theorists ("Birthers"), the most convincing evidence is the fact that President Obama doesn't (perhaps cannot) produce documentation sufficient to allay their suspicions. Do they imagine he's got nothing better to do than prove that he exists?
But sometimes the best strategy when faced with irrelevant accusations is to leave people wondering. For example, David Cameron refused to specify his youthful chemical indiscretions (BBC News 14 Oct 2005). A fictional example is provided by Stephen Byerley, in Isaac Asimov's short story Evidence.
Leaving something like this open to doubt (or even deliberately sowing the seeds of doubt) may serve a useful purpose. Your enemies may make a big fuss and waste a lot of energy; if they can't find something more important to talk about, people will stop paying much attention to them; meanwhile there is a mystery and glamour that may even enhance your appeal.
See my earlier post: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Comforting Maxims
There are some sayings that are plainly not true, but people like to repeat them anyway. Here are a few. If you have any more, please add to the comments.
This maxim is often attributed to Frederick Nietzsche. I found an application of this maxim to the history of Turkey by adriangzz.
Geva Perry adds: "In Israeli military we used to say: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and what DOES kill you makes your mom stronger."
The satirical website Newsbiscuit mocks the maxim. "What doesn’t kill you may not actually make you stronger, warn doctors."
Oh yes they can. Robert Fulghum, US author and Unitarian clergyman, coined a counter-maxim: "Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts..." (via Suzette R. Hinton, eZine Articles).
Clearly there is a short-term purpose in these comforting maxims - to comfort those who have suffered or are suffering, and to encourage people to take command of their lives and move on. But there is also a disturbing erosion of truth, which ultimately lead us to regard all such maxims as vapid cliché, and to distrust the old wives who supposedly tell these tales. As Francis Bacon said (not the painter, the other one)
1. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
This maxim is often attributed to Frederick Nietzsche. I found an application of this maxim to the history of Turkey by adriangzz.
Geva Perry adds: "In Israeli military we used to say: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and what DOES kill you makes your mom stronger."
The satirical website Newsbiscuit mocks the maxim. "What doesn’t kill you may not actually make you stronger, warn doctors."
"Doctors have discovered that among those conditions which won’t leave you feeling better than before are cancer, HIV/AIDS, strokes, Parkinson’s disease, a broken spine, Ebola, heart attacks, radiation poisoning and massive trauma to the head. ... There are no recorded instances of a rejuvenating bout of typhoid or a restorative case of the clap."
2. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
Oh yes they can. Robert Fulghum, US author and Unitarian clergyman, coined a counter-maxim: "Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts..." (via Suzette R. Hinton, eZine Articles).
Commentary
Clearly there is a short-term purpose in these comforting maxims - to comfort those who have suffered or are suffering, and to encourage people to take command of their lives and move on. But there is also a disturbing erosion of truth, which ultimately lead us to regard all such maxims as vapid cliché, and to distrust the old wives who supposedly tell these tales. As Francis Bacon said (not the painter, the other one)
"So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes." (Advancement of Learning)
Monday, July 13, 2009
Purpose of Labour Pains
In my post on Back Pain, in response to Scott Adam's complaint that back-pain was evil, I asserted that pain has a perfectly valid function, and it is painkillers that are evil.
However, although this is the general function of pain, it sometimes doesn't seem to work properly. For example, in some chronic situations such as cancer, the body sends excessive pain signals to which the only possible response appears to be some kind of signal blocking mechanism such as drugs or TENS. Alternative therapies in this category might include acupuncture and hypnosis.
Childbirth is another situation where pain-killing drugs and TENS machines are commonly used. Why should mothers suffer labour pains?
Childbirth is a natural and, if all goes well, perfectly healthy procedure; many people therefore think it is inappropriate to treat childbirth as a medical condition. And there is a common ideology of "natural" childbirth: many women adopt birth plans that aim to avoid excessive medical intervention, not just out of bravado or authenticity, but also for fear of unnecessary side-effects.
But it is one thing to oppose or refuse excessive medical intervention; quite another to assert that labour pain has a positive function, as does Dr Denis Walsh.
Dr Denis Walsh is an associate professor of midwifery at the University of Nottingham; he is described by the Observer as "one of the UK's leading midwives". The basis for his claim is apparently set out in an article Dr Walsh has written for the Royal College of Midwives journal Evidence-Based Midwifery. (See note below)
Evidence-based midwifery, huh? I wonder what kind of evidence can Dr Walsh produce for the purpose of labour pains? Is this perhaps the kind of hypothesis that can only be evaluated by evolutionary biologists? Labour pains have doubtless co-evolved with maternal care, many other species lacking both, but can we really conclude that labour pains are an adaptation that help to promote maternal care? I think it is more plausible to say that labour pains are a side-effect of a much more important adaptation, namely large brains.
In any case, evolutionary biology offers one possible meaning of the word "purpose" - some functional trait that has evolved or co-evolved for a reason. If that's not what Dr Walsh means, what else could he possibly mean?
Note 1: Dr Walsh has an article in the current issue of Evidence-Based Midwifery (Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2009), but this seems to be about something else and I couldn't find the word "purpose"; he had an article on the Role of the Midwife in a previous issue, but this is for subscribers only. However, I did find an interesting editorial in the current issue by one Professor Marlene Sinclair, Practice: a battlefield where the natural versus the technological, citing Elul, Habermas and Ihde.)
Note 2: I didn't know whether evolutionary biologists had ever studied labour pains as a separate phenomenon, so I tried Google and found an abstract of an article by Wulf Schiefenhövel called Perception, Expression, and Social Function of Pain: A Human Ethological View (Science in Context, 1995). I have sent an email to Professor Schiefenhövel asking for his opinion on Dr Walsh's claim.
Note 3: When I previously blogged on pain, I got a lot of comments from people trying to sell dodgy pain relief. Any such comments will be quickly deleted, so please don't bother. I am only interested in retaining comments that discuss the points in this blog.
Pain has a perfectly valid function - it is the body's way of communicating something important to the mind. If you ignore a small child, it will misbehave louder until it gets your attention. And pain works the same way. If you completely ignore your back until it seizes up, then you shouldn't be surprised if it seizes up from time to time. That's how systems work.
In my view, it is painkillers that are evil - or rather the casual use of painkillers - because they interfere with the natural communication between the mind and the body, and the natural balance of work, rest and play.
However, although this is the general function of pain, it sometimes doesn't seem to work properly. For example, in some chronic situations such as cancer, the body sends excessive pain signals to which the only possible response appears to be some kind of signal blocking mechanism such as drugs or TENS. Alternative therapies in this category might include acupuncture and hypnosis.
Childbirth is another situation where pain-killing drugs and TENS machines are commonly used. Why should mothers suffer labour pains?
Childbirth is a natural and, if all goes well, perfectly healthy procedure; many people therefore think it is inappropriate to treat childbirth as a medical condition. And there is a common ideology of "natural" childbirth: many women adopt birth plans that aim to avoid excessive medical intervention, not just out of bravado or authenticity, but also for fear of unnecessary side-effects.
But it is one thing to oppose or refuse excessive medical intervention; quite another to assert that labour pain has a positive function, as does Dr Denis Walsh.
"Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby." [Observer, 12 July 2009]
Dr Denis Walsh is an associate professor of midwifery at the University of Nottingham; he is described by the Observer as "one of the UK's leading midwives". The basis for his claim is apparently set out in an article Dr Walsh has written for the Royal College of Midwives journal Evidence-Based Midwifery. (See note below)
Evidence-based midwifery, huh? I wonder what kind of evidence can Dr Walsh produce for the purpose of labour pains? Is this perhaps the kind of hypothesis that can only be evaluated by evolutionary biologists? Labour pains have doubtless co-evolved with maternal care, many other species lacking both, but can we really conclude that labour pains are an adaptation that help to promote maternal care? I think it is more plausible to say that labour pains are a side-effect of a much more important adaptation, namely large brains.
In any case, evolutionary biology offers one possible meaning of the word "purpose" - some functional trait that has evolved or co-evolved for a reason. If that's not what Dr Walsh means, what else could he possibly mean?
Note 1: Dr Walsh has an article in the current issue of Evidence-Based Midwifery (Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2009), but this seems to be about something else and I couldn't find the word "purpose"; he had an article on the Role of the Midwife in a previous issue, but this is for subscribers only. However, I did find an interesting editorial in the current issue by one Professor Marlene Sinclair, Practice: a battlefield where the natural versus the technological, citing Elul, Habermas and Ihde.)
Note 2: I didn't know whether evolutionary biologists had ever studied labour pains as a separate phenomenon, so I tried Google and found an abstract of an article by Wulf Schiefenhövel called Perception, Expression, and Social Function of Pain: A Human Ethological View (Science in Context, 1995). I have sent an email to Professor Schiefenhövel asking for his opinion on Dr Walsh's claim.
Note 3: When I previously blogged on pain, I got a lot of comments from people trying to sell dodgy pain relief. Any such comments will be quickly deleted, so please don't bother. I am only interested in retaining comments that discuss the points in this blog.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Purpose of a Nation
James Liu posted a question to the Linked-In Systems Thinking Group.
My first response was to suggest that nations only exist because other nations exist. I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about a nation in isolation. The system whose purpose I'd like to understand is the system that has (often violently) carved the world into the nations we have today, and still threatens to split existing nations into smaller ones and/or create new ones. What purposes are served by the concept of "Nation"? And how does a single instance of this concept relate to this international context?
This prompted an interesting response from Joseph Higginbotham, who rephrased my suggestion in terms of alterity (Otherness) - the organization of the nation is an answer to the threat posed by organization of the Other. But that doesn't quite explain what triggers the process of nation-forming in the first place.
Joseph went on to speculate about the end of this process of nation-forming.
Obviously if there is only one government, then there cannot be wars between governments. But history tells us about many other kinds of war - civil wars (British, American, Spanish), revolutions, guerrilla and terrorism. The nation-state pattern (one nation = one country = one government) is not a universal one. And from a systems perspective, the notion of historical inevitability is highly problematic.
A vision of competition being replaced by cooperation suggests that there were in fact two different questions under discussion: not only what the purpose of a nation actually is, but also what the purpose should be. Some of us may have a personal preference for cooperation over competition, or for peaceful resolution rather than violent conflict, but getting large complex systems (such as Global Politics) to follow our personal preferences is a highly political activity.
Joseph says the challenge would be to agree on why we have a government or a nation. That is certainly a challenge, but I see it as primarily a political challenge. A systems-thinking challenge (I hesitate to say "the" challenge) would be to agree on a systematic or systemic way of exploring and perhaps improving the purpose of governments or nations, without being constrained or coopted by any single political or ethical position.
James offered an answer to his original question: "Currently the primary aim of a democratic nation is to help its citizens to enhance their quality of life." This answer has added two important words: currently and democratic.
I take the word "currently" to indicate that this is his observation of the AS-IS purpose of a nation (what it already is), rather than his aspiration of the TO-BE purpose (what he thinks it ought to become).
I also note the addition of the qualifier "democratic". Democracy has long been a key component of how America has perceived itself, and how it has been perceived by others. In his classic book Democracy in America, the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville sought to understand why republican representative democracy had succeeded in the United States while (at that time) failing in so many other places. He sought to apply the functional aspects of democracy in America to what he saw as the failings of democracy in his native France. (Book summary based on Wikipedia.) A useful read if you want a historical perspective on the purpose of a democratic nation.
Today, many Americans sees one important purpose of the United States of America as being a Beacon of Democracy. If you search the Internet for "beacon of democracy", you will also find this phrase being applied to other nations, including Canada, Ghana, India, Mongolia and Taiwan, as well as some imaginary future state of Iraq.
But is this systems thinking as opposed to straight politics? By straight politics I meant undiluted politics, which Churchman identified as one of the Enemies of the Systems Approach. I wasn't thinking specifically of realpolitik.
James's second question (How can we get there if we don't know?) seems to be making an assumption about the nature of goal-directed systems. However, with large complex systems, we can achieve (happen upon) all sorts of wonderful outcomes without knowing the purpose in advance. I often use Stafford Beer's POSIWID principle to try and work out the hidden agendas of complex systems.
Joseph acknowledged that governments and government officials have many different purposes, some of them declared and some hidden. But then Joseph went on to say that "we cannot apply systems thinking to government until we can agree on what government is trying to accomplish". My view is the exact opposite of Joseph: we MUST apply systems thinking to government IF WE WANT TO MAKE SENSE OF what government is REALLY trying to accomplish. (This is perhaps a classic example of the POSIWID principle.)
Joseph thought that my position (that systems thinking must be applied to figure out what government is trying to accomplish) has at least three logical flaws:
My approach to systems thinking is careful not to make any of the assumptions he imputed to me, and I don't accept that there were logical flaws in my argument. But it became increasingly clear from our discussion that Joseph and I had completely different notions of what systems thinking actually was. He acknowledged the validity of logically walking backwards from outcomes through processes to ask questions about systems, such as "Your system is perfectly designed to deliver X, was that your intent? Did you know your system was designed to produce X or do you just not know what you're doing?" But he didn't seem to regard this line of inquiry as a form of systems thinking. I do, although it's not the only kind of systems thinking I recognize.
What Joseph is calling systems thinking seems to be limited to a particular rationalist style of systems design. As it happens I am currently re-reading Churchman's book on the Systems Approach and its Enemies, where this practice is described as Objective-Planning. But this leaves out what Churchman calls Ideal-Planning (working out the objectives in the first place), which I regard as an important (perhaps the most important) element in Systems Thinking.
To the extent that this discussion was taking place in the Systems Thinking group, I expected to see some willingness to find systems-thinking answers to some important questions about nationhood, and I hoped such answers would be different to the answers we might have found in a Political Study group (if there were one).
James thought it was interesting to see totally different perspectives from different groups. And he thought that this diversity suggested it was a question worth to ask and discuss.
Diversity is often a sign that there is something problematic about the question. Systems thinking often helps us by changing the question. The Linked-In Group was certainly having an interesting discussion about something important, although the exact nature of the question (as often happens with discussions about complex systems) seemed to be shifting kaleidoscopically, and I was interested to see the interplay between different systems concepts - purpose, role, causal loops, and so on.
Some later contributions to the discussion seemed to be converging on identifying a purpose for the discussion itself - perhaps to identify how people (such as ourselves) can make a difference to the political formation of the nation and its activities (including diplomacy and warfare).
And this is a strong theme within some styles of systems thinking - the need to rephrase the original question into "What is the purpose/aim of OUR ASKING ABOUT a nation (such as US, UK... ) as a system?
Someone else talked about the discussion "drifting around" - and calling it that makes it sound as if it's always better to follow a charted course. But then you will only arrive at pre-ordained destinations.
What is the purpose/aim of a nation (such as US, UK... ) as a system? How can we get there if we don't know the aim of our nation?The following is edited from my contributions to this discussion.
My first response was to suggest that nations only exist because other nations exist. I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about a nation in isolation. The system whose purpose I'd like to understand is the system that has (often violently) carved the world into the nations we have today, and still threatens to split existing nations into smaller ones and/or create new ones. What purposes are served by the concept of "Nation"? And how does a single instance of this concept relate to this international context?
This prompted an interesting response from Joseph Higginbotham, who rephrased my suggestion in terms of alterity (Otherness) - the organization of the nation is an answer to the threat posed by organization of the Other. But that doesn't quite explain what triggers the process of nation-forming in the first place.
Joseph went on to speculate about the end of this process of nation-forming.
So what is advancement? A Utopia where humans only organize to accomplish something that can only be accomplished through cooperation, not because they feel threatened? And of course, as the world grows "flatter" and more interconnected and more interdependent, we have to ask if One World Government is inevitable, right? I mean, theoretically, can wars be eliminated if we're all One World?
Obviously if there is only one government, then there cannot be wars between governments. But history tells us about many other kinds of war - civil wars (British, American, Spanish), revolutions, guerrilla and terrorism. The nation-state pattern (one nation = one country = one government) is not a universal one. And from a systems perspective, the notion of historical inevitability is highly problematic.
A vision of competition being replaced by cooperation suggests that there were in fact two different questions under discussion: not only what the purpose of a nation actually is, but also what the purpose should be. Some of us may have a personal preference for cooperation over competition, or for peaceful resolution rather than violent conflict, but getting large complex systems (such as Global Politics) to follow our personal preferences is a highly political activity.
Joseph says the challenge would be to agree on why we have a government or a nation. That is certainly a challenge, but I see it as primarily a political challenge. A systems-thinking challenge (I hesitate to say "the" challenge) would be to agree on a systematic or systemic way of exploring and perhaps improving the purpose of governments or nations, without being constrained or coopted by any single political or ethical position.
James offered an answer to his original question: "Currently the primary aim of a democratic nation is to help its citizens to enhance their quality of life." This answer has added two important words: currently and democratic.
I take the word "currently" to indicate that this is his observation of the AS-IS purpose of a nation (what it already is), rather than his aspiration of the TO-BE purpose (what he thinks it ought to become).
I also note the addition of the qualifier "democratic". Democracy has long been a key component of how America has perceived itself, and how it has been perceived by others. In his classic book Democracy in America, the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville sought to understand why republican representative democracy had succeeded in the United States while (at that time) failing in so many other places. He sought to apply the functional aspects of democracy in America to what he saw as the failings of democracy in his native France. (Book summary based on Wikipedia.) A useful read if you want a historical perspective on the purpose of a democratic nation.
Today, many Americans sees one important purpose of the United States of America as being a Beacon of Democracy. If you search the Internet for "beacon of democracy", you will also find this phrase being applied to other nations, including Canada, Ghana, India, Mongolia and Taiwan, as well as some imaginary future state of Iraq.
But is this systems thinking as opposed to straight politics? By straight politics I meant undiluted politics, which Churchman identified as one of the Enemies of the Systems Approach. I wasn't thinking specifically of realpolitik.
James's second question (How can we get there if we don't know?) seems to be making an assumption about the nature of goal-directed systems. However, with large complex systems, we can achieve (happen upon) all sorts of wonderful outcomes without knowing the purpose in advance. I often use Stafford Beer's POSIWID principle to try and work out the hidden agendas of complex systems.
Joseph acknowledged that governments and government officials have many different purposes, some of them declared and some hidden. But then Joseph went on to say that "we cannot apply systems thinking to government until we can agree on what government is trying to accomplish". My view is the exact opposite of Joseph: we MUST apply systems thinking to government IF WE WANT TO MAKE SENSE OF what government is REALLY trying to accomplish. (This is perhaps a classic example of the POSIWID principle.)
Joseph thought that my position (that systems thinking must be applied to figure out what government is trying to accomplish) has at least three logical flaws:
- It assumes humans always act rationally and that their plans always reflect their intent. I can use systems thinking to analyze the probably outcome of a government policy or I can go the other way and start with the outcome and work backwards from the outcome through the system that produced it to the cause but I still don't know what that government intended. Only if they are consistent systems thinkers who intentions always align with their policies can I assume that.
- It assumes our policy makers are good enough systems thinkers themselves to reason from intent to plan to implementation to execution to outcome. We don't know if our leaders are systems thinkers. We don't elect them for their systems thinking skills. We elect them because they say what we want to hear and then we pray they meant what they said. Of course, most of the time they don't.
- Policy keeps changing and pretty soon, due to budget cuts, elections, changes in party, lack of political will, lack of public support, etc., by the time we get enough data to start looking backward from outcomes to processes to causes to intents, we don't know what was intended.
My approach to systems thinking is careful not to make any of the assumptions he imputed to me, and I don't accept that there were logical flaws in my argument. But it became increasingly clear from our discussion that Joseph and I had completely different notions of what systems thinking actually was. He acknowledged the validity of logically walking backwards from outcomes through processes to ask questions about systems, such as "Your system is perfectly designed to deliver X, was that your intent? Did you know your system was designed to produce X or do you just not know what you're doing?" But he didn't seem to regard this line of inquiry as a form of systems thinking. I do, although it's not the only kind of systems thinking I recognize.
What Joseph is calling systems thinking seems to be limited to a particular rationalist style of systems design. As it happens I am currently re-reading Churchman's book on the Systems Approach and its Enemies, where this practice is described as Objective-Planning. But this leaves out what Churchman calls Ideal-Planning (working out the objectives in the first place), which I regard as an important (perhaps the most important) element in Systems Thinking.
To the extent that this discussion was taking place in the Systems Thinking group, I expected to see some willingness to find systems-thinking answers to some important questions about nationhood, and I hoped such answers would be different to the answers we might have found in a Political Study group (if there were one).
James thought it was interesting to see totally different perspectives from different groups. And he thought that this diversity suggested it was a question worth to ask and discuss.
Diversity is often a sign that there is something problematic about the question. Systems thinking often helps us by changing the question. The Linked-In Group was certainly having an interesting discussion about something important, although the exact nature of the question (as often happens with discussions about complex systems) seemed to be shifting kaleidoscopically, and I was interested to see the interplay between different systems concepts - purpose, role, causal loops, and so on.
Some later contributions to the discussion seemed to be converging on identifying a purpose for the discussion itself - perhaps to identify how people (such as ourselves) can make a difference to the political formation of the nation and its activities (including diplomacy and warfare).
And this is a strong theme within some styles of systems thinking - the need to rephrase the original question into "What is the purpose/aim of OUR ASKING ABOUT a nation (such as US, UK... ) as a system?
Someone else talked about the discussion "drifting around" - and calling it that makes it sound as if it's always better to follow a charted course. But then you will only arrive at pre-ordained destinations.
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
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