From Complexity Concepts to Creative Applications

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From Complexity Concepts toCreative ApplicationsLesley Kuhn a & Robert Woog aa University of Western Sydney , NSW , AustraliaPublished online: 14 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Lesley Kuhn & Robert Woog (2007) From Complexity Concepts toCreative Applications, World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research, 63:3-4,176-193

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World Futures, 63: 176–193, 2007

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN 0260-4027 print / 1556-1844 online

DOI: 10.1080/02604020601172533

FROM COMPLEXITY CONCEPTS TO CREATIVEAPPLICATIONS

LESLEY KUHN AND ROBERT WOOGUniversity of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia

A complexity cosmography is introduced as construing a world that is self-organizing, dynamic, and emergent, and that comprises organic entities that tooare self-organizing, dynamic, and emergent. Following critical reflection into thenature of utilising complexity in social inquiry, specific images, vocabulariesand complexity-based methods and techniques as developed by the authors areintroduced.

KEYWORDS: Attractor analysis, coherent conversations, complexity, fractal narrativeanalysis, vortical analysis.

INTRODUCTION

Study of human experiential space remains a challenge for researchers. In thisarticle we introduce our approach to utilizing complexity in social inquiry. Com-plexity concepts or organizing principles are introduced and implications for stylesof inquiry are discussed. A complexity approach to inquiry brings its own atten-dant images, vocabulary, and metaphors that allow researchers, without recourseto reductionist approaches, to effectively work with complex social phenomena.Complexity is introduced as a habit of thought, along with complexity inspiredimages and metaphors for inquiry and intervention into human experiential space.Following a critical commentary on the nature of our recourse to complexity, wedescribe complexity as a habit of thought or way of understanding the natureof organic unities from individual people through to various social groupings.Key concepts and specific images in the vocabulary of complexity science areintroduced and some examples of complexity based methods and techniques arepresented. The article concludes with a second critical commentary reflecting onissues relating to theory utilization.

CRITICAL REFLECTION (1)

Before proceeding it is important to clearly state our understanding of what we aredoing when we utilize complexity in the social realm, as there have been refutations

Address correspondence to Dr. Lesley Kuhn, School of Management, Universityof Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, 1797, Australia. E-mail:[email protected]

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CREATIVE APPLICATIONS 177

for such endeavors. The argument is usually made that complexity concepts areconstituted by certain specific mathematical formulations referring to specific ob-jects of inquiry and that it is not appropriate to utilize these in a cavalier mannerin other areas.

If however, we begin by understanding that the usefulness of the mathematicalformulations described by complexity and chaos theories do not reside in therebeing a perfect match between these and real world conditions, we can understandthat from the outset complexity science is engaged in metaphor and image making.In terms of so-called real world matches there appears to inherently be a certainfuzziness implied. This is a view that sees the veracity of such mathematicalmodelling as not bound to notions of true representation, but rather that the modelsmay be found useful in other ways, through there being an approximate or “moreor less” match between the models, and the various “real world” phenomenainvestigators seek to illuminate.

Employing complexity metaphors in social settings to guide action and inter-vention can be taken as continuing a process of abstraction. With abstraction comesfuzziness. It is not so much that complexity metaphors are used in crisp or preciseways, but rather that they offer images and give form in a broad brush kind ofway. Nor do we take complexity metaphors as constituting exemplars for howvarious aspects of human life ought to be (as a complexity version of biologicaldeterminism). Rather it is our experience that complexity-based metaphors offerinsightful, useful and refreshingly different ways of working within the messinessof human experiential space. We have found that complexity metaphors give aparticular shape to our sense making that we find intuitively satisfying.

We work with complexity heuristically, focusing on understanding principles.From the most basic organizing intuitions (self-organization, dynamism, and emer-gence) through to those that are more specific such as strange attractors, fractals, orlandscape fitness, we toil at understanding first principles. Although many termsexpressing key concepts in complexity science have their beginnings as expres-sions of mathematical concepts as do strange attractors, fractals, and landscapefitness, we move from mathematics to prose in seeking to recognize and expressthe essential ideas or organizing principles implicated. We then take these or-ganizational principles into our chosen field, that of social inquiry, and evolveapplications. Where, for example, in complexity science it may be stated that “theunfolding of complex dynamics occurs in fractal dimensions. . . ” we work with“fractal narratives.” Or where vorticity may be described as “the emergent propertyout of alternate forces,” we work with “vortical emergence” or “vortical analysis”to understand how new understandings, points of view, or ways of doing thingsemerge.

A COMPLEXITY COSMOGRAPHY

This section outlines the most basic organizing ideas of a complexity world-view. A complexity cosmography or kosmographia construes a world that is self-organizing, dynamic, and emergent, and that comprises organic unities, which tooare self-organizing, dynamic, and emergent. These three organizing principles of

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178 LESLEY KUHN AND ROBERT WOOG

self-organization, dynamism, and emergence are introduced below and discussedin relation to implications for social inquiry.

Self-Organizing

The concept of self-organization refers to an entity’s capacity to evolve into anorganized form in the absence of external constraints and stimuli. This meansperceiving complex organic unities, from individual cells, individual humans, so-cieties, and through to the whole world, as each holding the locus of control forits own ongoing evolution or existential forming. Each and all are understood toevolve according to internal, autonomously located structures. That is to say, theprinciple of selforganizing capacity holds at all levels. For example, we as individ-uals do not usually consciously direct the cells of our liver about how to operate orevolve. Liver cells operate and evolve in ways congruent with liver cells, albeit inrelationship with their environment. They self-organize as liver cells and this is de-termined by the liver cell itself. If we then consider an individual human being, wesee that each of us evolves (albeit in interactions with our environments includingother people), in ways that are self-generating. We maintain ourselves as ourselvesover time and through many different experiences. Similarly, households, families,neighbourhoods, cities, nations, and cultures, and so on, all self-organize.

To further illuminate the concept of self-organization it is informative to con-sider an intriguing instance that has been observed by Toshiyki Nakagaki (Johnson,2001) in the behavior of slime mould (Dictyostelium discordeum). Nakagaki foundthat slime mold oscillates between being a single creature and a swarm of distinctcells, depending on the conditions in its environment. Evidently, slime mold spendsmuch of its life as thousands of distinct single-celled units, each moving separately.However, when conditions are inhospitable, the slime mold coalesces into a singlelarge organism. Without having an identified leader, aggregation is triggered byalterations in the amount of a substance called “cyclic AMP” released by each cell.The cells then follow the pheromone trial encountered.

The triggering of slime mold toward forming a single large entity or a myriadof single cells constitutes self-organization. Each cell is self-organizing, and yet“local” relationships and interactions result in some kind of discernable macrobehavior. In his book Emergence (2001), Johnson argues that slime mold behaviorcan form a metaphor for understanding how change occurs in an array of com-plex entities, from brains, through to cities. The principle is that change occurswhen self-organizing entities self-organize in certain ways in response to theirenvironment, both internal and external.

Dynamic

To be dynamic is to have energy, to instigate, to respond and react, to be change-able and excitable. The descriptor dynamic refers to the way in which there iscontinuous movement with all entities responding to and influencing others andthe environment or landscape within which they exist. Complexity science’s em-phasis on the dynamism of the world marks one of its distinguishing features fromclassical science. Whereas the practices of classical science were more geared to

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focusing on prescribing dynamism in some ways, complexity takes dynamism asan essential characteristic of life. Rather than emphasize stability, and look foroptimum states of entities, complexity expects ongoing dynamism.

This perspective is well suited to working with human beings and their insti-tutions. Often social inquiry practices have attempted to simplify by binding offelements not to be focused on or by imagining there is a stable norm that is acces-sible. Unfortunately these organizing strategies create research findings that aresomewhat artless and inept in their congruity with people’s lived experience.

Both dynamism and self-organization emphasize that context and circumstanceschange for all, and that all “things” (people, environments, organizations, and soon) are in ongoing flux. Changes may be different in time, scale, and importancefor each of those who are interacting. Therefore in social inquiry we should lookfor manifestations of the dominant change processes, rather than seeking to controlthem through putting in place particular inquiry devices.

Emergent

The notion of emergence refers to the capacity of complex entities to exhibit un-expected, emergent properties or features not previously observed as a functionalcharacteristic of the complex self-organizing entity. There are debates amongstcomplexity scientists as to what properly constitutes “emergence.” Some arguethat the term emergence may only correctly be applied when things happen that arenot at all predictable. However, such distinctions are problematic because the mind-set or observing apparatus of the observer is not taken into account. Is somethingthought to emerge simply because we do not have a particular way of observingthat would have picked up earlier indications of the “emergent” phenomena?

In dealing with people, perhaps this distinction is not really so important, butrather the principle that because of people’s self-organizing, self-reflective capac-ities and complex characters, they are more likely than not, to behave as emergentbeings and to surprise not only others but themselves as well.

It is very easy to think of experiences of emergence in the social realm. In amundane sense, many adults, when asked about their life experiences, commentthat “I never expected to experience. . . [being a parent, not becoming a parent,being divorced, getting cancer, winning an Academy award]” and so on.

Within a broader arena, consider the recent emergence of a popular touristattraction. This attraction relates to a man who from being a jailed felon, becameleader of his nation. Who would have expected the penitentiary home of NelsonMandela on Robbin Island to become a “not to be missed” site when visitingSouth Africa? Who would have predicted a twenty-eight-year imprisoned activistto become State President of South Africa? Or that this “felon” would come toaccept a Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of all South Africans?

HUMAN EXPERIENTIAL SPACE

Assuming self-organization, dynamism, and emergence describe the basic way theworld is organized, we move now to discussing how we approach social inquiry.We position our work as inquiry into human experiential space.

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We use the descriptor “human experiential space” as an all encompassing labelfor all that may be described as within the realms of human experience. Thisincludes physical experiential capacities such as hearing, sight, sense of smell,kinetic sensibilities, and so on, as well as all of the various ways that people makesense of their world, from personal, individual foci through to social or culturalperspectives.

Remaining at an abstract level, the main characteristics of human experientialspace (after Dimitrov and Ebsary, 1998) may be described as:

1. Chaotic:• Future experiential patterns are unpredictable.• Small changes in personal and social narratives about the world and ourselves

generate dramatic changes in daily experience.2. Multidimensional:

• Infinite external and internal interrelated and often parallel factors contributeto experiential dynamics.

• Out of the turbulent interplay of these emerges people’s ongoing self-organization.

3. Nonlinear in time and space:• The past and potential futures meet in present experience.• People’s engagement and activity is emergent out of multiple constructions

(cognitive and emotional) of past events and experiences, as well as theirpredictions about the future.

• The nature of an experienced event directly reflects human perceptions oftime span.

• A sense of relatedness or closeness to others may transcend distance in timeand space.

• Activities and conceptions of others distant in time and space can haveextraordinarily strong influences on experiential dynamics.

4. Organized around attractors:• Strange attractors (organizing motifs) appear and disappear.• People move from one attractor to another.• More than one attractor may be simultaneously influential.

From beginning with such a general modeling of human experiential space wethen look to ways of describing this that are useful, beneficial or insightful. Theemphasis of our complexity-based techniques is on facilitating awareness andfamiliarity with dominant change processes.

FROM PHASE SPACE TO PHRASE SPACE

In complexity science phase space is conceived of as comprising all of the pos-sible states of a complex entity. For example, H2O may exist in a solid (ice),liquid (water), or gaseous (steam) state. In practice an entity occupies only aminute proportion of its possible phase space. In relation to human activity we

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refer to the infinite possibilities of states as human experiential space. Althoughexpansive in possibility, human experiential space too can be viewed as limitedto preferred ways of making sense and construing meanings with relation to lifeevents.

Phase space can be mathematically represented in terms of time, place, anddynamics, allowing explanation of the location of multivariate dynamic entitiesor systems. However, instead of a mathematical explanation, we bring to phasespace a literary explanation: phrase space. The mathematics of phase space givesin mathematical terms, an explanation of the preferred co-ordinate location of thevariables. This is very interesting if you are a mathematician and you want toknow things relating to phenomenon such as protons or rocket ships. For a socialresearcher working with human beings this is rather less interesting and useful.Phrase space however, in paying attention to narrative and discourse, is usefulin describing preferred co-ordinate locations in relation to human experience andsense making.

With social entities phrase space has more to do with, first, time and spacedimensions, then a whole host of other organizing principles, depending on the“phrase space” one wishes to delineate. For example, we may talk of the phrasespace of ancient Greek culture, influenced by Caesar Augustus, and by pantheisticreligious notions. Or we may talk of the phrase space of a contemporary historyof ancient Greek culture class, where the phrase space will include the contextof the course (university or community development class), prevalent ideas abouthistory and philosophy as well as the country within which the class is taken, and soon.

Generally speaking the idea that humans have their being within certain socialworlds, as mediated through language, has been well described. Some write ofdiscourse and others of narrative or “languaging.” Contemporary philosopher JohnShotter recognizes the importance of what we are here calling phrase space, formutual self and society shaping in suggesting that “Not only do we constitute andreconstitute our own social worlds, but we are also ourselves made and remade bythem in the process” (1993, p. 13).

Chilean neurobiologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela describeconsciousness itself as so related:

Consciousness and mind belong to the realm of social couplings. Moreover, sincewe exist in language, the domains of discourse that we generate become part of ourdomain of existence and constitute part of the environment in which we conserveidentity and adaptation. (Maturana and Varela, 1987, p. 234)

However, in constructing phrase space as an image to facilitate research or as a kindof researching tool, we are using this concept to do more than redescribe a sense ofsocial constructedness. We argue that humans have the capacity to become awareof their determined locality or position in human experiential space. In describingthe position, increased understanding is built about the contextual interrelatednessbetween time and place. It is this capacity to discuss and describe, or talk intobeing, that we now call phrase space.

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Various writers have posited an array of processes that lead to preferred co-ordinate locations. That is they describe and theorize about processes of sensemaking and knowledge construction.

Vickers (1984), drawing on a systems view, describes a process of appreciation,that he terms “appreciative systems.” Vickers argues that:

. . . the standards by which human order is defined are in part culturally set bythe human societies which they organize, and change with time by a processwhich is not wholly beyond human understanding or control. The developmentof standards is a dialectical process in the sense that it breeds its own change.(Vickers, 1984, p. xx)

Vickers highlights how societies shape their members and prescribe what is think-able and possible, and in this way societies both design and predict their ownfuture, in such a way that:

. . . there are limits to the possible rate at which human history can change withoutdisintegration, since coherent change involves change in the whole set of culturalstandards by which a society interprets its situation; these standards are relatedto the life experience and hence life span of individuals. (Vickers, 1984, p. xv)

Cognitive psychologist George Kelly (1955) wrote in terms of personal construc-tions of reality. Kelly developed the idea that human actions are conditioned by aperson’s own sense-making frameworks. According to Kelly, people construct in-ternal models or representations of the world, with each construction being uniqueto the individual. These constructs he sees as created by individuals for their ownuse.

Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky made the same basic point as Kelly, butin a slightly different way. Vygotsky (1978) argued that humans make sense ofthe world through mediating intellectual tools that profoundly influence our sensemaking, and further that we are imbued with these intellectual tools by virtue of ourexistence within particular societies, or human experiential spaces. Whereas Kellyemphasises personal constructions, Vygotsky stresses intellectual developmentas the growing capacity of individuals to master reading sign systems, such aslanguage. For Vygotsky, the sets of sign systems a person internalizes from theirinteraction with particular cultural groups or communities will significantly informthe kind of understanding of the world that the person can then construct. Againthere is emphasis on the way that human preferred co-ordinate locations emergefrom existence in particular phrase spaces.

Many have also sought to guide human appreciations or constructions in the faceof complexity toward a perceived positive direction. Paulo Freire (1972) describesa process of conscientization whereby people learn to “perceive social, politicaland economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elementsof reality” (1972, p. 15). For Freire it is important that all people have opportunityto construct their own knowing, or as he terms it, “naming” of the world, ratherthan have a situation where the naming of some must be accepted by others. A

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positive direction of human appreciation or sense making for Friere is when truedialogue between people is possible. He argues that such dialogue cannot existwhere the views of some dominate others, or where there is not “love” for otherspresent.

Because dialogue is an encounter between men who name the world, it must notbe a situation where some men name on behalf of others. It is an act of creation;it must not serve as a crafty instrument for the domination of one man by another.. . . Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for theworld and for men. . . . Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue anddialogue itself. (Friere, 1972, p. 62)

Generally speaking, theologians and philosophers can be understood as endeav-oring to direct human appreciations or constructions in the face of complexitytoward a perceived positive direction. Discussion of morality and ethical “laws”represents such efforts toward guidance in a positive direction in terms of hu-man beings relating to one another and the whole of the world. Martin Buber’s(1878–1965) “I and Thou” is a perfect example. In contemplating religious andsocial dimensions of the human personality, Buber advocates that treating oth-ers as a “thou” means we stand in an intimate relationship of appreciation of theother, a stance that builds rather than destroys the richness of human experientialspace.

If I face a human being as my Thou, and say the primary word I-Thou to him, heis not a thing among things, and does not consist of things.. . . I do not experience the man to whom I say Thou. But I take my stand inrelation to him, in the sanctity of the primary word. Only when I step out of it doI experience him once more. In the act of experience Thou is far away. (Buber,1958, pp. 8–9; emphasis in original)

We use the term phrase space to describe where people (as individuals or groups)produce their specific organizational dynamics (views of themselves and the world)while at the same time evolving and shaping themselves in a contextual couplingwith the environment. It seems that just as for other complex entities, people toomove quickly from having the potential for an infinite range of possible states orways of being, to occupying a limited space through communicating experiencesand interpretations such that particular habitual perspectives appear. A Marxist, forexample, will be inclined to interpret all history as a struggle between an exploitingclass and an exploited class, whereas a feminist will see history in terms of genderrelations, and a committed Christian will see history as the inevitable downfall ofhumanity in need of salvation.

COMPLEXITY-BASED INQUIRY IMAGES

The next section outlines some of the complexity-based methods and techniques wehave evolved for social inquiry: coherent conversations; fractal narrative analysis;

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attractor analysis; fuzzy logic based analysis; vertical analysis; and the edge ofchaos and the chaotic edge.

Coherent Conversations

The aim with this technique is to have a group of people generate a narrativethrough coherent group conversations. Whereas with a focus group the aim is forthe conversation to be focused around a particular topic, the aims with coherentconversations are for the conversation to be:

� Permissive, accepting of the entirety of knowledge, information, and opinionsthat people bring in to it.

� Critically self-reflective of the processes via which the conversation emerges.

The assumption is that the more information that a group or social system has aboutthe views held within it, and the processes by which people converse, the better thegroup is able to understand itself, and hence move forward with less unintentionalfriction caused by unacknowledged tensions. Engaging with a group of people incoherent conversations about their fields of interest and expertise makes it possibleto examine the dynamics involved in the emergence of different points of view.

Narratives generated through coherent conversations can then be examinedfor meaning, explored in broader terms in order to construct a composite under-standing, or common sense wisdom. Through processes of critical reflection andanalysis and synthesis the foundational knowledge or taken for granted assump-tions held within the group are made visible. The ways that individuals’ viewshave been shaped by the cultures to which they have an affinity, along with theirvalues, hopes, and lived experiences can be made visible and thus open to criticalreflection and perhaps even review.

Coherent conversations as a research technique have the following characteris-tics. They:

� Bring in information from inside and outside the system.� Are permissive.� Make the discursive process as evident as the thematic content.� Are intuitive as well as logical.� Have recourse to ethics.� Are self-reflective.� Seek to heal.

Narratives generated through coherent conversations can be analyzed and/or syn-thesized through complexity-based techniques such as Fractal Narrative Analysisor Attractor Analysis.

Fractal Narrative Analysis

Mandelbrot (1977) introduced the concept of fractality as a mathematical frame-work for studying irregular, complex shapes. He argued that when the complexity

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of a structure increases with magnification, it might be useful to describe the struc-ture in terms of fractal dimensions. Essentially, according to Mandelbrot, an entitywith characteristics that are simultaneously apparent at many scales of focus maybe termed a fractal. Stated differently, a structure is described as exhibiting frac-tality if it has look alike features, or characteristics of self-similarity, such that ifwe viewed a portion of an “ideal” fractal, we would not know the magnificationthrough which we were viewing.

William Blake wrote a poem called “Auguries of Innocence,” in which hepoetically invoked fractal images throughout this whole, lengthy poem. It beginswith:

To see a World in a Grain of SandAnd a Heaven in a Wild FlowerHold Infinity in the palm of your handAnd Eternity in an hourA Robin Red breast in a CagePuts all heaven in a Rage . . .

Human beings can be seen as fractally organized. Contemporary French philoso-pher Edgar Morin evocatively describes human fractality as:

In human beings as in other living creatures, the whole is present within theparts; every cell of a multicellular organism contains the totality of its geneticpatrimony, and society inasmuch as a whole I present within every individual inhis language, knowledge, obligations and standards. (Morin, 2001, p. 31)

Social entities (individuals, organizations, communities, nations, and so on) canbe depicted as having fractal properties, where the smallest part represents thewhole based on the understanding that the whole is always greater than the whole.Each fractal is a whole, but at a different scale. Each individual fractal existsbecause of the existence of the whole. The geometric representation of fractalsconsists of similar images nested one in another. Each fractal is similar (but notnecessarily identical) to the whole. The notion of fractal properties is particularlyuseful for social inquiry. Study of a fractal may lead to generalizations that inturn facilitate understanding of much larger phenomena from which the fractal isderived. It may be argued, for example, that the most revealing fractal socially isthe individual. Human dignity is another important fractal. Creative examinationof an individual with recourse to a variety of approaches and perspectives willreveal in glimpses every attribute that characterize organizations, however complexthose organizations may appear to be. When talking about the examination of anindividual we may, for example, focus on simple narrative explorations for suchcharacteristics as hope, fear, ambition, greed, ethics, aesthetics, tolerance, and soon. An example of a generalization and an emergent interpretation from a fractalmay be seen in the following proposition: “No organization may persist or prosperif it does not take into consideration the full range of human values, including notonly utilitarian, but spiritual as well. Therefore, an organization must be able tosupport, develop and balance both physical and metaphysical imperatives.”

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In applying the concept of fractality to social research, it is necessary to recog-nize that the fractal relationship selected for study by the researcher is not merelya part of the whole, but that it is representative of the whole. It represents an aspectof the social system that is present at all scales of the system, and which may beexamined at certain, chosen scales. In a business organization, for example, onescale of focus may be the Australian business development team, whereas anothermay be the shopfloor evening shift team. With a fractal approach, the organizationunder study at a smaller scale remains an equally complex microcosm of the whole.In this regard reduction does not simplify, because every fractal is a complex wholethat embraces many interactive forces. Its capacity for self-organization and emer-gence represents the dynamics and the capacity for emergence of the system asa whole. Although the study of the dynamics and emergence associated with afractal is representative at all scales, it is recognized that the information obtainedis proportional to the scale chosen by the researcher.

In summary, the idea of fractality is that organic systems or entities such ashumans as individuals or in groups may be examined for patterns of similarity.The key principles are:

� Fractals exhibit the same degree of irregularity at different scales.� Observing a fractal you get information proportional to the scale.� The small scale remains an equally complex microcosm of the whole.

Fractal narrative analysis is a useful way of making sense of narratives as by ex-amining and identifying a fractal in a narrative, despite the proportional limitationof the scale focused on (as represented by the group involved) one can glimpse themacrocosm. Organizations can be thought of as “processes of communication andjoint action” (Griffin, 2002). Fractal analysis focuses on understanding significantfeatures in these processes of communication. For an organization this means thatone can expect to see revealed in the narrative of one group, such as a certaintask-related team, views held by other teams at more micro and macro scales.

Attractor Analysis

Stated in a most general way, an attractor can be described as that which attracts.Attractors serve as organizing forces or motifs. The sun is an attractor for oursolar system. It influences the movement and spatial arrangements of planets. Afriendly gregarious person is an attractor at a party. The will to power is a deeplyfelt attractor of a psychological type.

In the social realm people may be under the influence of certain attractors forprolonged periods of their lives. One of the most obvious examples is the attractoraround which a working life is organized. This realization is evident in the workinglives of artists, musicians, scientists, lawyers, jockeys, or bank robbers.

Even in the most chaotic situation there emerges organizing principles, whichon careful examination reveal a pattern and hence a shape. Politics, religion, eco-nomics and environmentalism may all act as potential strange attractors in a socialphenomenon’s dynamics. The bureaucratic-industrial-age machine, as described

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by Gorz (1994) may be thought of as a strange attractor. This is an attractor ona large scale where almost all of the scientific, technical, financial, and militarysystems are implicated.

Albert Einstein demonstrated his thoughts about the attractors for scientists ina speech given in honor of his colleague Max Planck’s sixtieth birthday. Einsteinfirst set out two major attractors:

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they thatdwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science outof a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sportto which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; manyothers are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brainson this altar for purely utilitarian purposes . . . (Einstein, 1954, p. 224)

However, for Einstein himself, neither of these attractors holds. His own, and theone he ascribed to Planck he described as:

. . . I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men toart and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopelessdreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires. A finely temperednature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perceptionand thought . . . (Einstein, 1954, p. 225)

People may move from being organized in relation to one attractor to being orga-nized around another. An historical example of such a shift is the movement in theSoviet Union from socialism to capitalism. All of the characteristics that are asso-ciated with divergence and decline of influence of one attractor and the formationof a new strange attractor are evident. The senescence of the old attractor and theformation of the new took place in an environment of chaotic dynamics of greatintensity. What happened in the Soviet Union was unexpected, some would evensay beyond comprehension. The repercussions are most surprising with politicaland social processes unfolding that no one would have associated with Russia, oldor new.

With relation to strange attractors there is some sense of predictability associatedwith social entities undergoing critical transitions in phase space. Although it ishard to know when the transition will occur, symptoms of instability, such asrapidly increasing complexity and the appearance of chaotic dynamics, serve asindicators of approaching transition. As well, the emerging neophyte shape of astrange attractor may be used to speculate about likely ongoing development andits ultimate character. It is through such speculative predictions that we are nowlearning to make sense of systems in critical transition.

Attractor analysis of narratives enables us to make sense of the narrative with-out simplification. Identification of an attractor or number of attractors assists inbuilding an understanding of a complex system, even beyond the group of peopleinvolved in the coherent conversation. From the attractor one can make inferences

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about the self-organizing character of the system including interpretation of formand dynamics.

Fuzzy Logic Based Analysis

Social phenomena can be conceived of as fuzzy, in that they represent multiple andvirtual realities. They are amenable to multiple levels of interpretation dependingon who is doing the interpretation and the framework of interpretation broughtto the events. We have argued (Woog, Dimitrov, and Kuhn-White, 1998) that inseeking to understand and work with complex systems that are chaotic and turbu-lent, the contributing strength of fuzzy logic is the capacity it provides for copingwith multiple constructions of reality, as well as other forms of circumstantial andconstructed complexity.

Fuzzy logic is a conceptual framework for the systemic treatment of vaguenessand uncertainty. Fuzzy logic can help in answering questions such as “Is whathappened in the Soviet Union good or bad?” Instead of providing a categoricalanswer, fuzzy logic allows explanation in both good and bad terms. The answeror explanation is fuzzy. It depends on who is doing the asking, who is doingthe answering, and at what level the inquiry is focused. At a meta-level of worldtransformation, and in terms of the dramatic reduction in the arms race, the changesmay be described as good. On a smaller social scale, in terms of the degree oflawlessness where the powerful and greedy are preying on the weak, the changesmay be described as very bad. Complex social entities seldom lend themselves tosimplistic good or bad classifications, or to yes and no decision making. They aremuch more suited to an alternate, non-predictive logic, where “more or less” and“both yes and no” are useful in accommodating the vital ambiguity of reality.

Vortical Analysis

Vorticity describes a situation where there are radically different, nonlinear dy-namics occurring in close proximity to each other. Probably the most familiarexperiences of vorticity are with whirlpools, firestorms, or tornadoes. With eachof these, it is the irregular or mismatched dynamics, such as radical differencesin direction of movement, pressure, or temperature, which generates the vortexor situation manifesting vorticity. In simpler language, we experience a whirlingmovement as well as a sucking force.

Out of this “whirling movement” come unpredictable properties. Rather thanlooking for an orderly unfolding of dynamics, it is suggested that we imaginesituations as having a vortical character, thus allowing us to look for the unexpected,for the coming forth of something that has not previously been in existence.

Humans are immersed in narratives—we narrate ourselves and our existence toothers as well as to ourselves. Moreover, we are born into a number of dominant,less dominant, and emergent discourses. From this perspective we can argue that itis through discourse that the world and our meaning-making come into being, bothindividually, and as social and cultural collectives. Human sense making in thisregard can be described as having a vortical character, where there are streams ofcommunication, ideas, and emotions permanently in motion and interacting with

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each other and exhibiting emergence. In a sense, our discourses evolve from, andare constructed by, those unpredictable (and predictable) dynamics that constituteall human interaction.

Norbert Wiener in 1950 (1967) evocatively portrayed humans as themselvesconstituting vortices in the form of whirlpools:

We are whirlpools in an ever changing river.We are not stuff that abides but patterns that perpetuate themselves. (Weiner, 1967[1950], p. 130)

For the purpose of describing vorticity as a technique for social analysis, thespecific way that the concepts of emergence and irregular dynamics are used needsto be described.

There is a physical manifestation of the dynamics of vorticity that, to a degree,describe the presenting character of the vortex. In a tornado the movement of airor wind can be perceived, whereas in a whirlpool, the rush of water. The vortexof social action can be thought of as characterized by narratives in which can beseen the flow and rush of ideas, emotions, and actions. It is in the observation ofthis narrative-based vortex that we can observe and identify the forces that lead toemergence, as well as the characteristics of the emergent properties themselves.

We may conceive of many life events where there is mutual and ongoingconstruction of fragmentary narratives where certain themes and understandingsemerge more or less temporarily. This view sees lived experience as being sponta-neously co-created. The metaphor of vorticity no less applies to the interpretation ofresearch experience. This should also be understood as spontaneously co-created.

As social researchers, although we cannot design specific emergences, we cansupport conditions that may inspire movement in certain directions. The sourceof irregular dynamics in a social systems context may be the repeated cycles ofdialogical, pedagogic, or polemic stimulation.

The Edge of Chaos and the Chaotic Edge

The Edge of Chaos represents a far from equilibrium zone in a complex entity’sphase space. This dynamic place lies between order and disorder, and is wherecomplex entities tend naturally to gravitate. It is here that innovative transforma-tions are most likely to take place. Norman Packard coined the term “Edge ofChaos” in the mid 1980s, although the concept was first written about by ChrisLangton as “the onset of chaos.” These scientists along with Stuart Kaufman sawthe Edge of Chaos idea as describing a phenomenon that had also been describedas critical phase transition, with the principle being that there exists a transitionspace between order and chaos, where innovation and rearrangement takes place.

In social application, we differentiate the Edge of Chaos from what we callthe Chaotic Edge. We use the term the Chaotic Edge to describe when peopleperceive of themselves as being in a situation where the dynamics are not justrich, but fearful and dangerous. Here people see themselves as vulnerable andunder threat. This is a little like interpreting a situation as constituting a crisis

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or an opportunity. Whether in terms of one’s personal life, or in relation to theprocesses of communication characterizing an organization or group of people,a sense of being threatened leads to radically different behaviors and ongoinginterpretations.

This difference between the Edge of Chaos and the Chaotic Edge calls to mindan old party game, “blindfolded walk the plank.” In this game one person is blind-folded and asked to walk along a long, narrow board, which is held aloft by twopeople. The person walking is led to believe that the board will be quite somedistance above the floor. To make the walk feel even more precarious those hold-ing the plank move it about while the blindfolded person wobbles about trying tomaintain his or her balance. After the blindfold is removed it can be seen that theplank was never more than an inch above the floor. Now if the blindfolded walkerhad realized this, and stayed calm he or she could be said to be at the Edge ofChaos. However, because of the presumption about the difficulty of the task, thewalkers usually operate as if they are at the Chaotic Edge. The irony of course isthat no matter the height of the board, an Edge of Chaos attitude would ensure abetter performance than a Chaotic Edge presumption.

In a great many situations people may take an Edge of Chaos or Chaotic Edgeview, with each having a huge impact on lived experience. Take for example, aonce partnered, newly single person. This person may live as if life has dealt them atremendously undermining blow, leaving them with no opportunities for the future.In contrast, another newly single person may embrace their freedom and potentialfor change.

That people can have a sense of being at the Edge of Chaos or at the ChaoticEdge highlights a key difference in working with cognizing human beings. Theseimages relate perhaps more to a person’s perspective on the situation than to its merephysicality. Suggesting these images to people provides unusual and sometimescognitively challenging nonlinear perspectives. There is value in the images aswell as in the challenge they constitute to assumed ways of thinking.

These metaphors are not used so much for traditional forms of data generationin an inquiry process. Rather, we use them to enable greater understanding ofsituations.

In employing the Edge of Chaos in the social domain, we suggest that socialentities, be they individuals, families or other types of conglomerations (such aspolitical, economic, or educative institutions) can be thought of as operating atthe Edge of Chaos. From this perspective, social entities are thought of as lessthan stable, open, and interacting rapidly with other systems or entities, and theirrespective environments. They can be conceived of as experiencing rapid energyflows that may be directed inward for self-organization or outward for changing theenvironment. We can think of their self-organization as consisting of adjustmentswithin the existing framework of the system, or as adjustments so major andtransformative that the particular social system re-invents itself. Viewed in thisway, it can be argued that it is necessary for social systems to be operating nearthe Edge of Chaos for significant transformations to take place. In other words, thelong-term survival of complex systems can be viewed as dependent on exposureto managed and controlled risk.

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This assumption that operating at the Edge of Chaos is not only normal,but also healthy for the perseverance of social systems departs radically fromtraditional perspectives that instead focus on minimizing and managing exposureto chaos either from within or without the system. Inviting such re-thinking aboutthe nature of, for example, organizational management and development, asksfor a realignment of basic assumptions about the functioning of human socialsystems.

Business organizations that are highly dynamic and in a state of flux may bethought of as operating at the Edge of Chaos. This is deemed a natural and desirablelocation where the vital processes of organizational adjustment, adaptation, anddevelopment are energized. In contrast the Chaotic Edge can be used to describewhen the organization is perceived to be under threat from almost any change orperturbation, which are viewed as potential hazards leading to negative, unpre-dictable and perhaps even catastrophic consequences. We have found that whetherthe Edge of Chaos or the Chaotic Edge becomes the perceived operating envi-ronment for an organization is determined by the level of coherent connectednessamong the people within the organization.

CRITICAL REFLECTION (2)

Complexity science’s description of life as self-organizing, dynamic, and emergentis sympathetic with Martin Heidegger’s view that life is essentially mysterious:“the essential trait of what we call mystery is that which shows itself and at thesame time withdraws” (1966, p. 55).

It is fitting to turn to Heidegger, the German philosopher credited as founderof existentialism, for like existentialism, our concept of human experiential spacefocuses on a distinctively human mode of being.

Heidegger’s perspective is that the nature of existence, the particularities ofour human experiential space, co-arises with our understanding or views of theworld. His sense of co-arising matches a complexity view that also sees humansas collectively changing the world through their acting in it, with at the same timethis changing world changing them.

For Heidegger, authentic human living involves “being open,” that is, hav-ing a meditative attitude (he calls this “releasement”) to the mystery of theworld. Such a meditative stance allows the possibility of change and of self-organizing emergence. Heidegger’s view is that fundamentally we are: “Med-itative being[s] . . . [who] stand at once within the realm of that which hidesitself from us, and hides itself just in approaching us” (Heidegger, 1966,p. 55f).

Heidegger is concerned that when people do not have the potential to engagein contemplative or meditative thinking, but instead become habitually “calcu-lative” thinkers, they come as a result to take a singular and quite unthoughtfulview of life. They become caught up in planning and calculation, caught in arut where they are no longer thoughtfully reflective. Without “thinking whichcontemplates the meaning which reigns in everything that is” (Heidegger, 1966,p. 46) it is easy to assume life is simpler than it is and to not value ambiguity,

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unknowing, or conflict. This type of thinking leads to a way of being that is notdeeply thoughtful, but rather that gives to others the dunamis of our being. WithHeidegger we wish to encourage people to be open to the world, to pay atten-tion to what is around them, and in so doing to bring a mediative stance to life’smystery.

We see the potential of complexity to emphasize uncertainty, and the illusorynature of truth as useful for social inquiry. Reviewing past “truths” should warn of“the romance and the idealistic hopes that have traditionally been elaborated in arhetoric of the pursuit of objective truth” (Rorty, 1998, p. 41). From a perspectiveof distance we can now see these hopes as more tied to the pursuer than to the“objective truths” thought to have been identified. For example, it was once ac-cepted as truth that American Negroes and Australian Aboriginals were not quitehuman; a “truth” at one time verified both scientifically and theologically. Nowthis has become a “truth” that we would wish to describe as mistaken or illusory.Similarly, ideas about human intelligence, once thought incontestable, are nowthought of as quaint and obviously incorrect. In 1898, for example, Alfred Binetstated confidently that:

The relationship between the intelligence of subjects and the volume of theirhead . . . is very real and has been confirmed by methodical investigators withoutexception . . . As these works include several hundred subjects, we conclude thatthe preceding proposition must be considered as incontestable. (Binet, 1898,pp. 294–295).

It is salutary to note the reflection in later life of mathematician and philosopherAlfred North Whitehead about the changes to what is regarded as secure knowledgein science and mathematics that occurred in his lifetime:

“Fifty-seven years ago it was,” he said, “when I was a young man in the Universityof Cambridge. I was taught science and mathematics by brilliant men and I didwell in them; since the turn of the century I have lived to see every one ofthe basic assumptions set aside; not, indeed, discarded, but of use as qualifyingclauses, instead of as major propositions; and all this in one lifespan—the mostfundamental assumptions set aside. And yet, in the face of that, the discoverers ofthe new hypotheses in science are declaring, ‘Now at last, we have certitude’—when some of the assumptions which we have seen upset had endured for morethan twenty centuries.” (Price, 1956, pp. 109–110)

Rather than viewing our accepted ideas as correct and true, in the face of com-plexity in the world and within each of us, we believe notions of usefulness andtentativeness are more important because they may promote further explorationand openness.

Thus it is that we do not set the material of this article as material to be “learnt”but as an example of the sense making of two people in their “wholeness whollyattending.” We trust that our ideas will for others become the stuff of the world towhich they bring their own full and critical attention.

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REFERENCES

Binet, A. 1898. Historique des recherches sur les rapports de l’intelligence avec la grandeuret la forme de la tete. L’Annee psychologique, 5: 245–298.

Buber, M. 1958. I and thou. Trans. Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, MacMillan.

Dimitrov, V. and Ebsary, R. 1998. Intrapersonal autopoiesis. Internet publication,http://www.pnc.com.au/%7Elfell/vlad2.html

Einstein, A. 1954. Ideas and opinions. London: Souvenir Press.Freire, P. 1972. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. London: Penguin

Books.Gorz, A. 1994. Capitalism, socialism, ecology. London: Verso.Griffin, D. 2002. The emergence of leadership. London: Routledge.Heidegger, M. 1966. Discourse on thinking. Trans. J. Anderson and E. Freund. New York:

Harper and Row.Johnson, S. 2001. Emergence. Ringwood: Penguin Books.Kelly, G. 1955. The psychology of personal constructs Vol. 1 and 2. New York: W. W.

Norton.Mandelbrot, B. 1977. The fractal geometry of nature. New York: Freeman.Maturana, H. and Varela, F. 1987. The tree of knowledge. Boston: Shambahala Publishers.Morin, E. 2001. Seven complex lessons in education for the future. Paris: UNESCO.Price, L. 1956. Dialogues with Alfred North Whitehead as recorded by Lucien Price. New

York: New American Library.Rorty, R. 1998. Truth and progress, philosophical papers Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge

Uni Press.Shotter, J. 1993. The cultural politics of everyday life. Buckingham: Open University Press.Vickers, G. 1984. Human systems are different. London: Harper and Row.Vygotsky, L. 1978. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Wiener, N. 1967 (1950). The human use of human beings. New York: Avon Books.Woog, R., Dimitrov, V., and Kuhn-White, L. 1998. Fuzzy logic as an evocative framework for

studying social systems. In Fuzzy systems design, social and engineering applications.105–116. New York: Physica-Verlag.

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From Complexity Concepts to Creative Applications