Complexity and thermodynamics

Schneider, Eric D.; Kay, James J.

doi:10.1016/0016-3287(94)90034-5

Cited by 210 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The first guiding concept, social-ecological asymmetry, builds on Schneider and Kay's (1994) ecological applications of thermodynamics to establish that, much as the capacity of ecological self-organization to create persistent structures separates it from physical-chemical self-organization, socio-cultural self-organization stands apart from ecological self-organization because of reflexivity (Trosper 2005, Stengers 2010). The second concept, conscious power, identifies self-awareness and reflexive agency as main driving forces of social-ecological organization and change, and highlights the need to effectively account for people's perspectives and biographic trajectories in SES theory and analysis.…”

Section: Whenever I Go To Take Care Of the Crops I See That They Arementioning

confidence: 99%

Double coupling: modeling subjectivity and asymmetric organization in social-ecological systems

Manuel-Navarrete¹

2015

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Social-ecological organization is a multidimensional phenomenon that combines material and symbolic processes. However, the coupling between social and ecological subsystem is often conceptualized as purely material, thus reducing the symbolic dimension to its behavioral and actionable expressions. In this paper I conceptualize social-ecological systems as doubly coupled. On the one hand, material expressions of socio-cultural processes affect and are affected by ecological dynamics. On the other hand, coupled social-ecological material dynamics are concurrently coupled with subjective dynamics via coding, decoding, personal experience, and human agency. This second coupling operates across two organizationally heterogeneous dimensions: material and symbolic. Although resilience thinking builds on the recognition of organizational asymmetry between living and nonliving systems, it has overlooked the equivalent asymmetry between ecological and socio-cultural subsystems. Three guiding concepts are proposed to formalize double coupling. The first one, social-ecological asymmetry, expands on past seminal work on ecological self-organization to incorporate reflexivity and subjectivity in social-ecological modeling. Organizational asymmetry is based in the distinction between social rules, which are symbolically produced and changed through human agents' reflexivity and purpose, and biophysical rules, which are determined by functional relations between ecological components. The second guiding concept, conscious power, brings to the fore human agents' distinctive capacity to produce our own subjective identity and the consequences of this capacity for social-ecological organization. The third concept, congruence between subjective and objective dynamics, redefines sustainability as contingent on congruent relations between material and symbolic processes. Social-ecological theories and analyses based on these three guiding concepts would support the integration of current structuralist-functionalist methods, which sufficiently and appropriately characterize ecological organization, with ethnographic and narrative methods exploring human intentionality, reflexivity, and biographical development.

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Section: Whenever I Go To Take Care Of the Crops I See That They Arementioning

confidence: 99%

Double coupling: modeling subjectivity and asymmetric organization in social-ecological systems

Manuel-Navarrete¹

2015

E&S

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“…Although Yencken (2000: 25) Secondly, I am puzzled by Yencken's assumption that models for analysing and approaching environmental problems should be 'simple' and 'widely applicable'. My point here is itself simple and need not be laboured: recent developments in many fields of science and technology have exposed the limits of simple, reductionist, context-free models for analysing and predicting change in complex, dynamic systems, including those we think of as evolutionary and ecological (see, for example, Khalil andBoulding 1996, Schneider andKay 1994). 7 A third difficulty with Yencken's formulation of 'contemporary concepts' is the assumption that they can meaningfully be shared across cultures in ways that might be helpful in framing global environmental problems and their possible solutions.…”

Section: Thinking Globally In Environmental Education: Current Positionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking/acting locally/globally: Western science and environmental education in a global knowledge economy

Gough¹

2002

International Journal of Science Education

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“…Lastly, the goal of systems biology to understand the structure and dynamics of biological systems (Kitano 2002) is important, but too largely focused on the molecular level and computer simulation. Living, open systems seem to defy the 2 nd Law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy (disorder) must increase, or be maximized (put another way, systems must reach equilibrium) (Schneider and Kay 1994). Quite the opposite, living systems tend to create order from disorder; entropy seems to decrease rather increase (Hornborg 1998, Schneider andKay 1994).…”

Section: Systems Theories: Abstract Conceptualizations Of Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Living, open systems seem to defy the 2 nd Law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy (disorder) must increase, or be maximized (put another way, systems must reach equilibrium) (Schneider and Kay 1994). Quite the opposite, living systems tend to create order from disorder; entropy seems to decrease rather increase (Hornborg 1998, Schneider andKay 1994). The theory of dissipative structures offers a work around to this conundrum…”

Section: Systems Theories: Abstract Conceptualizations Of Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As high quality energy enters a system, it pushes the system away from equilibrium (Kay et al 1999). In response, the system builds new internal structures that make use of the energy by dissipating it (Abel and Stepp 2003, Hornborg 1998, Kay et al 1999, Kay and Schneider 1994. Hence, open systems export entropy in order to maintain internal negentropy, or order (Naveh 2000).…”

Section: Systems Theories: Abstract Conceptualizations Of Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Systems Thinking in the Forest Service: a Framework to Guide Practical Application for Social-Ecological Management in the Enterprise Program

Kmon¹

2000

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The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Enterprise Program (EP), which provides fee-forservice consulting services to the USFS, is interested in integrating systems thinking into its service offerings. Despite there being several excellent sources on the range and diversity of systems thinking, no single framework exists that thoroughly yet concisely outlines what systems thinking is along with its deep history, theoretical tenets, and soft and hard approaches. This thesis is an attempt to create such a framework, aimed specifically at practical application in a land management agency, through literature synthesis injected with original analysis. The usefulness of the framework is then tested using three case studies within the EP and the agency as a whole.The framework highlights several important aspects of systems thinking, both generally and related specifically to social-ecological management. First, systems thinking is the transdisciplinary study of complex phenomena from a holistic, rather than reductionist, perspective. The world can be viewed as a massive set of embedded systems -elements with relations that lead to nonlinear behavior -making the role of the observer essential in identifying scales of interest and interactions amongst them. Second, the deep history of holistic thinking suggests that its modern scientific study could benefit from exploring the East's long-standing cultural and spiritual approaches to holism through cognitive unity and oneness with mankind and nature. Third, categorizations of systems approaches as "soft" versus "hard" are helpful but can distract us from the ultimate goal of systems thinking, which is to understand the various tools in the systems thinking toolbox so as to apply them critically and creatively to make a meaningful difference in the world. Fourth, I see the soft systems approaches as having a distinct systems thinking orientation and the hard systems ii approaches as overlapping substantially with operations research, the close cousin of systems thinking. Fifth, I identify a spectrum of complexity, contending that systems thinking tends to be concerned with what I call subjectively and computationally complex systems, as well as complex adaptive systems, leaving simple systems for other approaches. Finally, I contend that it is the soft systems approaches and the two theoretical pillars of hierarchy theory and cooperation theory that will aid wicked social-ecological problem solving the most.The framework is applied to three case studies. Examination of the EP reorganization using a hard systems approach revealed two critical high-level functions that were absent in the current structure, paving the way for new designs that could take those functions into account. Analysis of an initiative to increase citizen recreation on USFS lands showed that a systems approach had been improperly applied and how the application of a soft approach at the onset could have systematically framed the problem and offered unique normative insights for giving voice to relevant ...

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Complexity and thermodynamics

Cited by 210 publications

References 21 publications

Double coupling: modeling subjectivity and asymmetric organization in social-ecological systems

Double coupling: modeling subjectivity and asymmetric organization in social-ecological systems

Thinking/acting locally/globally: Western science and environmental education in a global knowledge economy

Systems Thinking in the Forest Service: a Framework to Guide Practical Application for Social-Ecological Management in the Enterprise Program

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