Thank you to Doug Belshaw for the inspiration to blog notes on my Master’s. I did something similar when I read International Studies with the Open University, in fact, to trick myself into getting assignments done I effectively blogged them before taking them back into a more referenced and academic format for submission. I might do something similar this time.
Firstly, some background on the staff teaching this module, and additional sources of information, not least the Global Systems Institute based at the University of Exeter. Prof. Tim Lenton and the GSI also lead on Global Tipping Points.
Themes
Thinking in systems (highly desirable), and understanding Earth and social systems (urgently needed).
Assessment
An essay, aimed at sustainability practitioners, that explains a sustainability challenge as a system; a short explainer film for online / social media consumption that explains positive feedback loops; a conference poster that explains a sustainability challenge to academics using systems theory. This poster might cover a theme that is the basis of the essay.
A class discussion – what is a system?
A system
- can be simple or complex
- has inputs, a process and outputs
- has interconnected components working together (I wonder, could they also work against each other or can system components be disruptive?)
- has a flow, according to set rules
- can be open, closed and isolated
- may be sensitive to the effects of removing a component. Example given is the Intelligent Design theory of irreducible complexity (with the note that it is “bollocks”) – but Donella Meadows discusses this further in Thinking in Systems – it is the interconnections and the purpose of the system that are crucial to the functioning of the system, more than the components: “a system generally goes on being itself, changing only slowly if at all, even with the complete substitutions of its elements – as long as its interconnections and purposes remain intact”.
- can have balancing and reinforcing feedback loops
- can be, or have, micro or sub-systems (or sub-sub-systems, or sub-sub-sub… you get the point)
- has stocks and flows
- has a boundary – we might consider a plant cell as a system, or a leaf, or a branch, or a tree, or a copse, or a forest.
The provided definition
Global sustainability challenges are a challenge of systems.
A system is a collection of elements that interact in accordance with a set of rules. Such rules can be very simple but the behaviour of the system can be complex. Systems can surprise us (see the butterfly effect).
The murmuration of the starlings is to show us a system at work. It might appear chaotic or random, at least impossible to work out, but it is governed by rules:
- Separation – don’t crash into anyone else
- Alignment – fly in the same direction
- Cohesion – get into the centre of the flock (it’s safer)
The butterfly effect and Lorenz
The butterfly effect is a concept rooted in chaos theory, first identified by Edward Lorenz, an American meteorologist and mathematician, in the 1960s. It illustrates how small changes in a system’s initial conditions can lead to vastly different outcomes, especially in complex, dynamic systems like weather.
Lorenz discovered this phenomenon while running computer simulations of weather patterns. In one experiment, he intended to re-run a weather model, but instead of inputting the initial conditions with full precision (up to six decimal places), he rounded them to three decimal places. This seemingly insignificant change led to drastically different weather predictions, revealing that tiny variations in initial data can produce large, unpredictable consequences over time.
Lorenz used the metaphor of a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, causing a tornado in Texas weeks later, to convey the unpredictability and sensitivity of complex systems. Although this is a dramatic example, the underlying idea is that in chaotic systems, minor disturbances can amplify and cascade, making long-term prediction nearly impossible.
The butterfly effect highlights the inherent unpredictability in systems like weather, ecosystems, and even social or economic systems, where small influences can disproportionately affect outcomes. In the context of Lorenz’s work, it showed that deterministic systems, like his weather models, are not necessarily predictable, reinforcing the principle that not all complex phenomena are linearly dependent on their inputs.
Models
What is a model? “Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler“
All models are wrong, some are just more useful than others.
A nice passage in Meadows, here on models, visual representations:
…there is a problem in discussing systems only with words. Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once. They are connected not just in one direction but in many directions simultaneously. To discuss them properly, It is necessary somehow to use a language that shares some of the same properties as the phenomena under discussion. Pictures work for this language better than words, because you can see all the parts of the picture at once.
Donella Meadows
Science
A discussion on science – what is it?
Key is falsifiability (Popper) – the belief that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be inherently disprovable before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory.
Science is a method for producing knowledge. A description of reality.
I did find this graphic satisfying
Assignment
Read Meadows’ Thinking in Systems introduction: The Systems Lens.