there is an awful lot of valuable and necessary thinking in your blog entry. It goes very deep and even touches on the need for a "new metaphysics", i.e. a new religious or philosophical foundation, for "civilisational renewal". But if we want to deal with the metacrisis you are talking about it seems to me we need to optimise our thinking through exchange, just as we enhance computing capacity through hooking different computers together. What is missing in your complex analysis from my personal perspective is structure, or "systemic" structure, as one result your complex analysis still lacks simplicity, a "red thread". It also lacks one thing, linguistic simplicity. As I was told many years ago, if we want a better world we must aim to write so everyone understands (this does not mean that I achieve this necessarily).
What we agree on is the fact that we (humanity) has many problems, the most urgent and pressing one appears to be the Climate Crisis. One key question is whether it is solvable at all. You speak of global systemic inertia. Stephen Hawking suggested in 2016 that in order to solve the many problems humanity is facing "With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present", and "more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together". This means in my understanding, humanity has to overcome its inherent egotism and bounded rationality, if it wants to survive. Can "we" achieve that at all? It might seem impossible. If we were to answer the question concerning the solvability of our "metacrisis" still with "yes", then the question arises, how do we solve the problem? In your blog entry you speak about "naive" problem solving. But whichever way you turn it, we seem to have severe "problems to solve", of different kinds, and largely interconnected. That appears to be a reality which we cannot deny. The question then is, how do we solve a complex problem? Since our own thinking is possibly limited and faulty, it makes sense to test it and guide it through problem solving methodologies. Systemic problem solving methodology is useful and perhaps necessary to identify the logical connections between the many aspects you mention in your blog. Once we understand, how everything is connected we can then possibly answer the question how to set an effective problem solving process into motion. One issue which systemic thinking suggests is that an organism requires leadership, a driver to solve problems. I plan to have an exploratory debate in September on what we might still be able to do to stop the Climate Crisis even at the advanced stage of global warming we are in. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploratory-debate-how-to-stop-the-climate-crisis-tickets-681550504907?aff=ebdssbdestsearch. Why not check out what a systemic approach might offer for the solution of the various interconnected problems? Are the problems solvable at all? Is human nature in the way? If, yes, what must an effective approach look like to solving the various issues connected with the climate and the metacrisis you are talking about? I would greatly appreciate discussing these issues with you and the other participants in the meeting. Hans Peter Ulrich
Dear Jonathan,
there is an awful lot of valuable and necessary thinking in your blog entry. It goes very deep and even touches on the need for a "new metaphysics", i.e. a new religious or philosophical foundation, for "civilisational renewal". But if we want to deal with the metacrisis you are talking about it seems to me we need to optimise our thinking through exchange, just as we enhance computing capacity through hooking different computers together. What is missing in your complex analysis from my personal perspective is structure, or "systemic" structure, as one result your complex analysis still lacks simplicity, a "red thread". It also lacks one thing, linguistic simplicity. As I was told many years ago, if we want a better world we must aim to write so everyone understands (this does not mean that I achieve this necessarily).
What we agree on is the fact that we (humanity) has many problems, the most urgent and pressing one appears to be the Climate Crisis. One key question is whether it is solvable at all. You speak of global systemic inertia. Stephen Hawking suggested in 2016 that in order to solve the many problems humanity is facing "With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present", and "more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together". This means in my understanding, humanity has to overcome its inherent egotism and bounded rationality, if it wants to survive. Can "we" achieve that at all? It might seem impossible. If we were to answer the question concerning the solvability of our "metacrisis" still with "yes", then the question arises, how do we solve the problem? In your blog entry you speak about "naive" problem solving. But whichever way you turn it, we seem to have severe "problems to solve", of different kinds, and largely interconnected. That appears to be a reality which we cannot deny. The question then is, how do we solve a complex problem? Since our own thinking is possibly limited and faulty, it makes sense to test it and guide it through problem solving methodologies. Systemic problem solving methodology is useful and perhaps necessary to identify the logical connections between the many aspects you mention in your blog. Once we understand, how everything is connected we can then possibly answer the question how to set an effective problem solving process into motion. One issue which systemic thinking suggests is that an organism requires leadership, a driver to solve problems. I plan to have an exploratory debate in September on what we might still be able to do to stop the Climate Crisis even at the advanced stage of global warming we are in. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploratory-debate-how-to-stop-the-climate-crisis-tickets-681550504907?aff=ebdssbdestsearch. Why not check out what a systemic approach might offer for the solution of the various interconnected problems? Are the problems solvable at all? Is human nature in the way? If, yes, what must an effective approach look like to solving the various issues connected with the climate and the metacrisis you are talking about? I would greatly appreciate discussing these issues with you and the other participants in the meeting. Hans Peter Ulrich