Narratives and transdisciplines for a postindustrial world T

Narratives and transdisciplines for a postindustrial world. T. F. H. Allen, Botany, University of Wisconsin

A time for complexity and systems thinking • Complexity science is no accident. • Deep uncertainty prevails. • Science is at its limits. • Working out narratives is the hard part.

Technology changes scale • Plastic bags and plant field collections. • Efficiency makes things so fast they become different. • Remote sensing. • The hard part is not doing the computation, but is working out what to compute.

Biosphere B i o m e Landscape Ecosystem These are Community TYPES Population Organism T. F. H. A SCALE NO WAY

Community Organism (tree) Ecosystem (decaying log) Landscape (upper surface of log) Population (of mosses on log) T. F. H. A

Type vs Scale • TYPE • SCALE • Identifies what is in the foreground • Gives criteria for observation • Gives equivalence to a class • • Grain Extent Spatial size Natural frequency in time Allen TFH & TW Hoekstra (1992) Toward a unified ecology. Columbia Press

• Ecology emerges as a transdiscipline a century ago, under the pressure of a scale change. • All transdisciplines appear through failure in scaling. And they still do now.

With Roscoe Pound, Clements tried to link: Biogeography Physiological adaptation They used quadrat data, a new rescaling tool They failed ! Biogeography is too large while the quadrat is too heterogeneous, diverse and far from laboratory control for physiological explanation.

But instead he found the Plant Community, which is association between species. The community does not have adaptation as its explanation. Rather it has ecological explanations: succession invasion ecesis, etc.

1890 -1920 • Draves & Coates (2004) say in Nine Shift 75% of lives changed unrecognizably. • Where is Frankfort’s nearest opera house? • Farm to Industry. • Rural to suburban. • Boys and values. • Automobile.

1990 -2020 Internet = automobile • • • Work at home Intranets replace offices Pyramids collapse Trains replace cars Dense neighborhoods replace suburbs Society flattened $ Cheating becomes collaboration 50% learning is online Education becomes web-based

At this time we Clements and can expect greatto Cowles attempted scale changes, get an account of invoking nature before it went complexity under mechanical plowswill force that and urban expansion. transdisciplines upon us.

• Complexity • Transdiciplines • Science at its limits • Narratives to the rescue

Complexity • Rosen (2000) suggests that a system is complex when it cannot be modeled. • A system cannot be modeled when: – parts have multiple identities – terrorists. – units of measurement are incommensurate – scale changes become so large as to have qualitative implications – gas liquifaction. – adequate description demands more than one level of analysis.

Narratives and Analogies Hamiltoncan’t usedictionary for Newtonian So if we wrote a reduction and models, particlesdo? Rosen(2000) says we can what to into Optical Geometry. (c. f. Voltage ≈and tellpressure. ) use analogy water narratives. Newtonian particles Optical geometry Reduction Quantum mechanics Wave mechanics

No Paradigm No! With Paradigm Properties of Complex Systems Hierarchical Many levels of constraint Links: large and small fast and slow different types Highly organized The story you told to make it simple.

Narratives Rate-dependent processes are re-scaled to zero to become rate-independent events A narrative is a series of events A narrative is a set of elaborate scaling operations that make things of different sizes commensurate – earthquake, pestilence, drought Narrative Scale in Time and space Nothingness after the end of the story Time = Scaled event T. F. H. A

The point of science is to improve the quality of the Narratives it tells. So, what is quality ?

The point of science is to improve the quality of the Narratives it tells. So, what is quality ?

Development of Quality • Novice - become dexterous • Apprentice – become a craftsman strong on structural quality. • Master – break the framework for structural quality giving dynamical quality

Models improve quality of Narratives • Structural quality – Gives quantified precision to narratives – unequivocal constraints – explicit boundary conditions. • Dynamical quality – comes from the alternatives – challenges the narrative. T. F. H. A

True Narratives • Narratives for science must be compatible with what we know or suspect happened. • But that does not make a story true • A full chronicle would not only be impossible to capture, it would not be a narrative. No narrator decisions, no story!

Tragedy If a piano falls on your head, It is not a tragedy It is only unfortunate! A tragedy is: He didn’t know it was his mother

Tragedy

Level N-1 Formal identity: Finite set of relevant attributes for one observer

Shared Experience

Level N+1 Semantic identity within the culture. Past/present

Anticipated decline in resources influences plan Physical system processes Actual External Gradient Plan Linguistic planning element. Internal to System, external to thermodynamics

Anticipated decline in resources influences plan Structured by emergence to look to environment for resources Actual External Gradient Plan Monitors internal elements to save capital

Aristotelian Causality Type of cause Example House Material Bricks mortar Efficient Formal Final Level Dynamic/Linguistic N, the works, Thermodynamics Workers apply N+1, force applied force to matter Thermodynamics Blueprint N -1, Planning inside Linguistic element Need for N+1, Meaning of whole housing Linguistics outside

Final cause Semantic Identity (meaning) at N+1 Level N Material Cause Efficient Cause Immediate actor Formal Cause N-1

Thermodynamics Linguistics/Meaning N+1 Efficient cause N Material cause N-1 Final cause Formal cause

Thermodynamics Linguistics/Meaning N+1 N N-1

Final cause N Material Cause Efficient Cause Immediate actor Formal Cause N-1

N+1/ N dentity Semantic I Formal Id Unplanned adjustment in dissipation External Gradients Plan Past vs Present vs Future entity N/ N-1

• But it gets worse • Each level of causality has its own time frame dt d. T dθnv dθnr

Becoming dt EXPERIENCED 3 EXPERIENCED 2 Transduce 3 EXPERIENCED 1 ED BLISH ESTA 2 D LISHE ESTAB 1 D CTE E EXP t n rese dt 3 D CTE E EXP Rep Simple time Act 1 ED BLISH ESTA 2 D CTE E EXP Nar e ativ r dq

Becoming dt dq nv tive rd a arr orwa N f ves mo EXPERIENCED 3 EXPERIENCED 2 Transduce 3 EXPERIENCED 1 ED BLISH ESTA dθ 2 D LISHE ESTAB Act 1 ED BLISH ESTA Rep Simple time dt 3 D CTE E EXP t n rese 1 D CTE E EXP 2 D CTE E EXP r ato arr es N ang dθ nr ch

d. T and after that nothing happened d ive t a arr N q Becoming dt Unplanned adjustment in dissipation Simple time dt External Gradients Plan Simple time dt

And after this nothing happened. . . Plenty Coups Chief of the Crows referring to the history of USA after the buffaloes “went away” d. T evolutionary time Life expectancy of the observer/observation complex Death, Extinction, Societal Collapse

And after this nothing happened. . . Plenty Coups Chief of the Crows referring to the history of USA after the buffaloes “went away” d. T evolutionary time Life expectancy of the observer/observation complex The end of the grant

OK, Allen, isn’t all this just a model • No ! It’s a narrative. • The different causes and different time frames are incommensurate. • So if I model with different time steps, am I too only telling a narrative? • Not if you link the time steps formally, then there’s internal consistency. You’re modeling. • But in the end even you need a narrative, because models only serve the ultimate story.

Narratives Rule • They develop commensurate experience, not of an external observed, but of unifyied observerobservation complexes. • They link incommensurate situations. • Modeling without a narrative is dangerous. • Systems thinking links narratives to models, so as to find transdisciplines to address a complex, post-modern world.

And that is the And after this nothing happened end of my story Plenty Coups Chief of the Crows referring to the history of USA after the buffaloes “went away”