The Phenomenology of Informationally Closed Beings:

In Cybernetics, the idea of “informational closure” is an important one. This basically means that information does not enter us from the outside. We do not receive information as an input and process it to create representations. This is a remnant of René Descartes’s ideas. I will be utilizing the famous philosopher Hubert Dreyfus’s take on Martin Heidegger’s ideas. Heidegger realized that we do not create representations of the world in our minds. He noted that the world is not a set of meaningless facts which we take in and assign values to. Heidegger said that the values are more meaningless facts. Heidegger’s most famous example is that of a hammer. If we explain a hammer as a tool for hammering nails, this value statement ignores a whole lot of significance that comes with a hammer. A hammer is best understood through the act of hammering. Dreyfus wrote:

To say a hammer has the function of being for hammering leaves out the defining relation of hammers to nails and other equipment, to the point of building things, and to the skills required when actually using the hammer—all of which reveal the way of being of the hammer which Heidegger called readiness-to-hand. Merely assigning formal function predicates to brute facts such as hammers couldn’t capture the hammer’s way of being nor the meaningful organization of the everyday world in which hammering has its place. “[B]y taking refuge in ‘value’-characteristics,” Heidegger said, “we are . . . far from even catching a glimpse of being as readiness-to-hand.”

Heidegger spoke of at least three manners in which things or equipment interact with us. The first and foremost manner is that of “ready-to-hand”. This is normally how we interact with the world. When we use a hammer, the hammer itself becomes transparent to us. It becomes a part of our body. We are engaged with the hammer so much so that we do not see the materialistic object any longer. Instead, we realize the act of hammering. We do not care about the shiny metal head nor the wooden handle of the hammer. Our hands naturally and automatically form the shape of the handle so that we grab it without realizing it. We just realize hammering. We only realize the possibilities of action in terms of the hammer. There is no separation of subject and object here. This is our normal way of being in the world.

When something goes wrong or when something counters our expectations, we realize the “unreadiness-to-hand”. For example, when the hammer head slips on the handle or the handle breaks, our flow with the hammer breaks. This manner of interaction requires us to readjust our interface so that we can once again realize the readiness-to-hand of the object.

The third manner is “present-at-hand”. Here, we are deliberately breaking from readiness-to-hand and concentrating on the material properties of the object such as the shape of the hammer head, or the size of the hammer, or the color of the handle etc. This is not our normal mode of interaction in the world.

Heidegger’s ideas of readiness-to-hand goes hand in hand (no pun intended) with Gibson’s ideas of affordances. We do not see objects themselves but the action possibilities of the objects. When we come to our office and sit on the chair, we only realize the action possibility of going through the entrance by opening the door. We did not objectively see the door there. When we sat on the chair, we did not objectively see the black leather chair. We only realized the solicitation for the action of sitting. Same with the door, we only realized the solicitation for the action of opening the door. Our hands automatically formed the shape of the door handle without us consciously being aware of it. As Dreyfus wonderfully wrote, for the user, equipment is encountered as a solicitation to act, not an entity with a function feature. Heidegger used the beautiful expression “pressing into possibilities”. When we encounter the door or the chair, we are directly responding to a “what for”. The door is a “what for” for me to go through the entrance and the chair is a “what for” for me to sit down on.

Dreyfus pointed out that to an observer, I could be viewed as objectively using a certain door as a door. However, for me I am not experiencing the door as a door. Normally there is no “I” and no experiencing of the door at all but simply pressing into the possibility of going out. The important thing to realize is that, when we are pressing into possibilities, there is no experience of an entity doing the soliciting; just the immediate response to a solicitation… when we are coping at our best, we are drawn in by solicitations and respond directly to them, so that the distinction between us and our equipment—between inner and outer—vanishes.

At this point, I will go back to the idea of informational closure. As pointed out, we do not get information from the outside, process it and then respond to it. Instead, we are perturbed by the external world, and actions are solicited from us by these perturbations. For example, when a fly appears in front of a frog, the frog’s brain does not process the information that there is a fly, and then tell the tongue to lash out to catch the fly. Instead, the presence of the fly solicits the action of the tongue lashing out. The brain does not say, there is a fly, I should lash out the tongue. The image of a small moving dark object solicits that action from the frog. In fact, any small moving dark object would solicit the same action, and a motionless fly would not solicit that action. This action was deemed useful and necessary for continued viability of the frog’s species. The repeat interactions and success ensured that this action is kept and passed on from one generation to the next. This is a sort of coupling between the frog and its environment. Even though the frog is informationally closed, transduction happens at the information boundary in the form of the perturbation that solicitates the action. Here one should be cautious of the description of the fly as an input causing the action of the tongue lashing out as an output. It was the internal structure of the frog that generated the action. This is a description in terms of action possibilities. The frog is not viewing the fly as a “fly” but rather as an action possibility of lashing out the tongue.

When we view an object as soliciting an action, we can look at the response actions in terms of attractor states. When faced with a perturbation, an agent is essentially making a selection from a set of attractor states. Depending upon the significance of the perturbation, one of the attractor states is selected over the other on a more frequent basis. This view focuses on the dependence of the internal structure and the dispositionality based on past interactions. Further, it removes the need for a cause-and-effect model that is prone to reductionism.

Heidegger’s great insight was that when we are interacting with equipment, we are not dealing with representations of them in our mind, instead we are dealing directly with them. We do not create models, instead one might say that the world itself is our model. There is a totality that we are part of when we are being in the world. We interact with the world around us based on the structural coupling with the world. We are beings in the world, and the world is not separate from us. We are coupled to the world and our structure is determined by this coupling.

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Magical “All Possibilities”:

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Affording What’s In Your Head:

In today’s post I am looking at the idea of “affordances”. This term is attributed to the famous American psychologist, James J Gibson. A loose explanation of affordances is something that offers ‘action possibilities’ or ‘information possibilities’. For example, a seat with its solid and flat surface affords sitting. It also affords standing on it. Gibson explains:

The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.

Gibson was making it very clear that affordances are not exclusively the properties of something. They are the possibilities that are perceived by a user. What is perceived constitutes the affordances. His view was that values and meanings of things in environment can be directly perceived. He did not put the liability for the affordance solely on the object, nor did he put it solely on the observer. He put it instead right in the middle.

An important fact about the affordances of the environment is that they are in a sense objective, real, and physical, unlike values and meanings, which are often supposed to be subjective, phenomenal, and mental. But, actually, an affordance is neither an objective property nor a subjective property; or it is both if you like. An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. It is equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behavior. It is both physical and psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer. 

Gibson expands on the example of the seat:

If a surface of support with the four properties (horizontal, flat, extended, and rigid) is also knee-high above the ground, it affords sitting on… We call it a seat in general, or a stool, bench, chair, and so on, in particular. It may be natural like a ledge or artificial like a couch. It may have various shapes, as long as its functional layout is that of a seat. The color and texture of the surface are irrelevant. Knee-high for a child is not the same as knee-high for an adult, so the affordance is relative to the size of the individual. But if a surface is horizontal, flat, extended, rigid, and knee-high relative to a perceiver, it can in fact be sat upon. If it can be discriminated as having just these properties, it should look sit-on-able. If it does, the affordance is perceived visually. If the surface properties are seen relative to the body surfaces, the self, they constitute a seat and have meaning. 

I enjoyed Gibson’s explanation of a seat in terms of affordances. This is something that I have looked at in the past to discuss the Socratic Method. Socrates was famous for cornering a student by asking for a definition of something such as a seat. For every answer or example that the student gives, Socrates would give a counter that would perplex the student. Gibson, it seems like, would have given the excellent answer – a seat is anything that affords sitting.

Gibson’s ideas were put forth against the prevalent ideas at that time such as mind/body dualism or subject/object dualism. Gibson realized that there is a circularity between the subject and the object. The affordances are not merely properties of the object, nor are they just imaginations of the subject. The affordances lie in relation to each other. They represent the possibilities for the future. They are future oriented, situated in the present, and based on the past. Gibson building upon the ideas of affordances defines niche as a set of affordances. He differentiates niche from habitat.

A species of animal is said to utilize or occupy a certain niche in the environment. This is not quite the same as the habitat of the species; a niche refers more to how an animal lives than to where it lives. I suggest that a niche is a set of affordances… The natural environment offers many ways of life, and different animals have different ways of life. The niche implies a kind of animal, and the animal implies a kind of niche. Note the complementarity of the two.

This brings up an interesting point that when we look at an environment, it must be from someone’s viewpoint. Similarly, when we look at an agent, it must be in relation to their environment. The agent is situated in the environment; they are defined by their environment. The environment in turn is affected/molded by the agent. When we describe an environment, we are describing the affordances it offers with respect to a species, most often us since we are the ones describing it.

There is a history between the agent and the environment. The agent’s actions and inactions are defined by their niche. The agent perceives the affordance because those affordances worked in the past. This regularity of the environment is quite similar to the idea of structural coupling in cybernetics. The structure of the organism and the perturbations from the environment results in a set of interactions. As Maturana noted – “We speak of structural coupling whenever there is a history of recurrent interactions leading to the structural congruence between two (or more) systems.”

Gibson used the example of a baby to expand on these ideas further. He postulated that a baby does not notice the properties of an object. What it notices is the actionable features, the affordances. There is a nice Heideggerian undertone here. Heidegger talked about the idea of readiness-to-hand. When we engage with an object such as a hammer, we just use the hammer without paying attention to the color of the handle or the material of the handle etc. The hammer is ready-to-hand, and we use it for a specific purpose without the payment of our attention to it. What we notice is the action possibility of the hammer, and not the hammer itself.

There is much evidence to show that the infant does not begin by first discriminating the qualities of objects and then learning the combinations of qualities that specify them. Phenomenal objects are not built up of qualities; it is the other way around. The affordance of an object is what the infant begins by noticing. The meaning is observed before the substance and surface, the color and form, are seen as such. An affordance is an invariant combination of variables, and one might guess that it is easier to perceive such an invariant unit than it is to perceive all the variables separately. It is never necessary to distinguish all the features of an object and, in fact, it would be impossible to do so. Perception is economical. “Those features of a thing are noticed which distinguish it from other things that it is not—but not all the features that distinguish it from everything that it is not”.

From a cybernetics viewpoint, the environment always has more variety than us. This means that an object in the environment can have multiple uses. A seat in our previous example, can be used for sitting as well as for standing. It could be used also as firewood if it is made of wood. Another point is that the environment as we define it with respect to its affordances is incomplete. It still has an indefinite number of niches that are not yet occupied. The external variety is always higher!

There are all kinds of nutrients in the world and all sorts of ways of getting food; all sorts of shelters or hiding places, such as holes, crevices, and caves; all sorts of materials for making shelters, nests, mounds, huts; all kinds of locomotion that the environment makes possible, such as swimming, crawling, walking, climbing, flying. These offerings have been taken advantage of; the niches have been occupied. But, for all we know, there may be many offerings of the environment that have not been taken advantage of, that is, niches not yet occupied. 

I will finish with a great note from William M. Mace:

Ask not what’s inside your head, but what your head is inside of. – Mace

 Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Reality for a cybernetician:

Being-In-the-Ohno-Circle:

In today’s post, I am looking at the Ohno Circle in light of Heidegger’s ideas. I will try to stay away from the neologisms used by Heidegger and will only scratch the surface of his deep insights. One of the best explanations of Ohno Circle comes from one of Ohno’s students, Teruyuki Minoura, the past President and CEO of Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, Inc. He had a first-hand experience of it. Minoura noted:

Mr. Ohno often would draw a circle on the floor in the middle of a bottleneck area, and he would make us stand in that circle all day long and watch the process. He wanted us to watch and ask “why?” over and over.

You may have heard about the five “why’s” in TPS. Mr. Ohno felt that if we stood in that circle, watching and asking “why?”, better ideas would come to us. He realized that new thoughts and new technologies do not come out of the blue, they come from a true understanding of the process.

In my case, I thought it was strange when he asked me to go into the circle. But what could I say? I was a freshman and he was the big boss and a member of the board of directors! So, I went into the circle and began to watch the process. During the first hour, I began to understand the process. After two hours, I began to see the problems. After the third and fourth hours, I was starting to ask “why?” Finally, I found the root cause and started to think about countermeasures.

With the countermeasures in place, I reported back to Mr. Ohno what I had observed and the problems I saw and the countermeasures I put in place as well as the reasons for the countermeasures. Mr. Ohno would just say, “Is that so?” and nothing more. He never gave us answers. Most of the time he wouldn’t even tell us if what we did was good or bad. Now I realize what Mr. Ohno was trying to do. He was trying to make us think deeply — and think for ourselves.

I truly appreciate Minoura’s explanation. There are certain aspects of this that resonated with me. First, standing in the circle is not a quick activity. Minoura noted it as an “all day long” activity. The intent is not to simply identify wastes but to gain a maximally possible understanding of the process. Minoura described it almost in phases:

• During the first hour, I began to understand the process.
• After two hours, I began to see the problems.
• After the third and fourth hours, I was starting to ask “why?”

From Heideggerian viewpoint, every “thing” is in relation to another “thing”. There is a realm of totality, and the meaning of an object comes from this interrelationship. We use a hammer in order to nail a wood which is used in order to build a cabinet, which is used in order to… so and so on. Heidegger pushed back on the subject-object distinction that was put forth by Rene Descartes. Much of science is based on this distinction of pretending to be able to separate the subject, the scientist, from an object, the “thing” at hand. In all actuality, we engage with things without the realization that we are engaging with them. When we drive a car, we cannot possibly pay attention to every little action we take. We go with the flow. There is a Zen like aspect to this in that we do not say that we are pushing the pedal down on the gas or that we are rotating the steering wheel to go left. We simply do the needed action by being part of the flow that has emerged around us. We do this by being a part of the environment around us. This includes other drivers in their cars, the objects lying on the road, the animals that may try to cross the road etc. This activity is not about being careless when we are driving. Instead, we are engaging in an embodied activity where the car is part of our extended body, and we are immersed in our environment.

From this standpoint, when we are on the floor, we should not try to “look” for waste without understanding how we are immersed in the gemba. We are not going there to fix issues. Our role is to understand how things are in relation to each other on the floor. We are not rushing in to find problems. We are standing there to understand how the operator is interacting with the artifacts available to them. How are the materials coming in and out of the assembly station? How is the operator engaging with the artifacts and the materials? Are they stopping and looking at their equipment every step of the way? Is the equipment flowing with the operator as an extension? Coming back to the driving example, if we have to search for the gas or brake pedal every time, we will not be driving in a safe manner. Just like knowing where the appropriate pedal is without looking and knowing how much to press on it, the operator should be able to engage with the equipment or the artifact. The equipment or the artifact should not just be present there, but they should be available for them ready to use.

One of the deep insights that Heidegger had was that we do not really understand something until that “something” breaks down and the need of the relationship is exposed. When we are engaging with it fully, we do not always know where the breaking points are. We understand the limitations only when that “something” starts to behave in a fashion that makes its presence conspicuous to us. If the equipment is working well, we do not really notice it. We start to notice things when things are not working the way they should be. To take this thought further with the Ohno circle, if we do not understand how the process should be working, we cannot even get to the numerous possibilities that are present to make the process work even better. When we care about the operator, the process, the product etc., we start to realize the many possibilities of running the operation. In some of these possibilities, the operations may be more ergonomic to the operator, or the product quality may be improved further. We cannot even begin to get to these possibilities unless we are able to understand how things work together. These possibilities will then make us realize where they are not working together. In other words, unless we deeply understand the current state, we should not even fathom to think of an ideal state. This requires us to go back to the gemba as often as possible and as many times as possible, to understand the variations of material, operators etc. Perhaps we can interview the operator, or try and build the part ourselves on the floor. The more we are engaged in, the better we get at improving our understanding.

I will finish with a great Ohno story from Minoura that explains this further:

I want to relay one of Mr. Ohno’s stories here. This is a lesson from a Kaizen attempt on kanban collection. Let me explain the background of this story. Many of you know that Toyota uses what we call Kanban cards to keep track of parts and components. Most of them are small pieces of paper which contain all the information related to a particular part. When a worker begins to use a part from a box, he or she takes the kanban out and puts it in a kanban collection post. The conveyance group comes around to pick them up and take it to the kanban room for processing. They normally drive a tow motor. In order to pick up kanbans they have to stop the tow motor, get off, pick up the kanbans, then get back on the tow motor and head for the next collection area.

Now, as you know, TPS (Toyota Production System) despises waste. Stopping the tow motor, getting off and getting back on the vehicle is a waste of the team member’s time and motion. So, one group went ahead and figured out a Kaizen for kanban collection. The Kaizen was to eliminate the wasted motion and time by making it possible for the kanban collector to gather kanban cards without getting down from the vehicle. They proudly presented this Kaizen to Mr. Ohno.

To their surprise, Mr. Ohno got real angry when he heard the presentation. The group couldn’t understand why he was not pleased, because their Kaizen had eliminated the number one sin in the Toyota Production System: waste. So Mr. Ohno explained: He told them that if they were to implement this Kaizen, the tow motor drivers would be on the vehicle all the time. They would be twisting the accelerator grip for a couple of hours straight. That is not good for the driver’s wrist. Also, Mr. Ohno pointed out that getting off the vehicle and walking a few steps and getting back on provided exercise of different muscles that were not used by driving the tow motor. That would be beneficial for the kanban collector’s well-being.

Mr. Ohno was looking at a bigger picture. He placed the ergonomic well-being of the worker before the short-term goal of efficiency. This happened almost 30 years ago. It was many years before the concept of ergonomics became a household word.

Stay safe and always keep on learning… In case you missed it, my last post was Representations of Reality in Constructivism:

View from the Left Eye – Modes of Observing:

I was introduced to the drawing above through Douglas Harding who wrote the Zen book, “The Headless Way.” The drawing was drawn by Ernst Mach, the 19^th Century Austrian physicist. He called the drawing, “the view from the left eye.” What is beautiful about the drawing is that it is sort of a self-portrait. This is the view we all see when we look around (without using a mirror or other reflective surfaces). If we could draw what we see of ourselves, this would be the most accurate picture. This brings me to the point about the different modes of observing.

Right now, you are most likely reading this on a screen of some sort or perhaps you are listening to this as a podcast. You were not paying attention to the phone or computer screen – until I pointed it out to you. You were not paying attention to how your shoes or socks or clothes feel on your body – until I pointed them out to you. This is mostly how we are in the world. We are just being in the world most of the time. Everything that we interact with is invisible to us. They just flow along the affordances we can afford. The keyboard clacks away when we hit on the keys, the door knobs turn when we turn them, etc. We do not see them until we have to see them. The 20^th century German philosopher, Martin Heidegger called this ready-to-handedness. Everything is connected to everything else. We interact with the objects in order to achieve something. We open the door to go inside a building to do something else. We get in the car to get to a place. We use a hammer to hammer a nail in order to build something. Heidegger called these things equipment, and he called the interconnectedness, the totality of the equipment. The items are in the background to us. We do not pay attention to them. This is how we generally see the world by simply being in the world.

Now let’s say that the general flow of things breaks down for some reason. We picked up the hammer, and it is heavier than we thought and we pay attention to the hammer. We look at the hammer as a subject looking at an object. We start seeing that it has a red handle and a steel head. The hammer is not ready-to-hand anymore. The hammer has become an object and in the foreground. Heidegger called this as present-at-hand. When we really look at something, we realize that we, the subjects, are looking at something, the object. We no longer have the affordances to interact with it in a nonchalant manner. We have to pay attention in order to engage with the object, if needed.

With this background, I turn to observing again. In my view(no pun intended), there are three modes of observing:

1. No self – similar to ready-to-hand, you just “are” in the world, enacting in the world. You just see things without any thought to self. There is no distinction of self in what you observe. Perhaps, we can refer to this as the zero person or zero order view.
2. Seeing self – you make a distinction with this. You draw a line between you the subject, and the world out there. The world is out there and you are separate from the world. This is similar to present-at-hand. The world is out there. This is also the first order in First Order Cybernetics.
3. Seeing self through self/others – Here you are able to see yourself through self or others. You are able to observe yourself observing. This is the second order in Second Order Cybernetics. In this case, the world is in here, within you, as a constructed stable reality.

In the first mode, you are being in the world. Heidegger would call this as “dasein.” In the second mode, you see the world as being outside. And in the third mode, you see the world as being inside. There are no hierarchies here. Each mode is simply just a mode of observing. In the second and third modes, you become aware of others who are like you in the world. In the third mode, you will also start to see how the others view the world since you are looking through others’ eyes. You realize that just as you construct a world, they too construct a world. Just like you have a perspective, they too have a perspective. The different modes of observing lead to a stable reality for us based on our interpretative framework. We cognize a reality by constructing it based on the stable correlations we infer from our being in the world. Sharing this with others lead to a stable societal realm through our communication with others. A community is formed when we share and something common emerges. It is no accident that the word “community” stems from the root word “common.”

When we observe a system, we also automatically stipulate a purpose for it. Systems are not real-world entities, but a means for the observer to make sense of something. We may call a collection of automobiles on the road as the transportation system just so that we can explain the congestion in the traffic. The same transportation system might be entirely different for the construction worker working on the pavement.

We have to go through the different modes of observation to help further our understanding. Seeing through the eyes of others is a practice for empathy. And this is something that we have to continuously practice to get better at. Empathy requires continuous practice.

I will finish with Ernst Mach’s explanation for his drawing:

Thus, I lie upon my sofa. If I close my right eye, the picture represented in the accompanying cut is presented to my left eye. In a frame formed by the ridge of my eyebrow, by my nose, and by my moustache, appears a part of my body, so far as visible, with its environment. My body differs from other human bodies beyond the fact that every intense motor idea is immediately expressed by a movement of it, and that, if it is touched, more striking changes are determined than if other bodies are touched by the circumstance, that it is only seen piecemeal, and, especially, is seen without a head…

It was about 1870 that the idea of this drawing was suggested to me by an amusing chance. A certain Mr L., now long dead, whose many eccentricities were redeemed by his truly amiable character, compelled me to read one of C. F. Krause’s writings, in which the following occurs:

“Problem : To carry out the self-inspection of the Ego.

Solution : It is carried out immediately.”

In order to illustrate in a humorous manner this philosophical “much ado about nothing,” and at the same time to shew how the self-inspection of the Ego could be really “carried out,” I embarked on the above drawing. Mr L.’s society was most instructive and stimulating to me, owing to the naivety with which he gave utterance to philosophical notions that are apt to be carefully passed over in silence or involved in obscurity.

This post is also available as a podcast episode – https://anchor.fm/harish-jose/episodes/View-from-the-Left-Eye–Modes-of-Observing-e1297um

Please maintain social distance and wear masks. Please take vaccination, if able. Stay safe and Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Stories We Live By:

Hermeneutics in Systems Thinking:

In today’s post, I am carrying on some of the ideas from Heidegger. See the last post for more details. I have written about Hermeneutics before here.  Heidegger was a student of the great German philosopher, Edmund Husserl. Husserl pioneered the school of phenomenology. Phenomenology is the study of how things appear to us experientially. The objects we experience are the phenomena. As Susan Laverty notes:

Phenomenology is essentially the study of lived experience or the life world (van Manen, 1997). Its emphasis is on the world as lived by a person, not the world or reality as something separate from the person (Valle et al., 1989). This inquiry asks “What is this experience like?” as it attempts to unfold meanings as they are lived in everyday existence. Polkinghorne (1983) identified this focus as trying to understand or comprehend meanings of human experience as it is lived. The ‘life world’ is understood as what we experience pre-reflectively, without resorting to categorization or conceptualization, and quite often includes what is taken for granted or those things that are common sense (Husserl, 1970). The study of these phenomena intends to return and re-examine these taken for granted experiences and perhaps uncover new and/or forgotten meanings.

Husserl taught that to understand things around us, we have to go back to the things themselves. He gave a detailed methodology to make phenomenology happen. He wanted a structured approach just like in science or mathematics. Husserl believed that how we experience things can be affected by our biases about things. So, he proposed that we “bracket” our presuppositions, biases etc. and approach the thing at hand. This suspension of our presuppositions is a phenomenological reduction. It is said that Husserl would spend days with his class analyzing a trivial object such as a mailbox. His version of phenomenology was free of social, cultural and historical “grasps” on the object. The object was a standalone entity waiting to be experienced, and through this experience an understanding of the entity was possible. He suggested with his method, we are able to come to a descriptive presentation of the phenomena.

Heidegger, as Husserl’s student was very taken by the idea of phenomenology. However, Heidegger realized that we cannot be separated from our presuppositions. We can understand existence only through our existing; the way we are. Heidegger realized that the experience of a phenomenon is a personal activity, and therefore we may come up with multiple descriptions of the phenomenon. Most importantly, the process of coming up with a description is an interpretive process. We make sense of the phenomenon as an interpretive process. Heidegger’s version of phenomenology is thus termed as “hermeneutic phenomenology”, whereas Husserl’s version is termed as “transcendental phenomenology”. Heidegger realized that the knowledge we achieve at any point in time is incomplete, and is contingent on our existence at that point in time. Our relationship to the phenomenon is affected by who we are, where we are, when we are and how we are experiencing the phenomenon.

A key point in hermeneutics is the hermeneutic circle. This circle is actually a recursion. Hermeneutics is generally associated with interpreting a text. Generally, when we start to read a part of the text, we get an idea of what the whole of the text stands for. As we get more into the text, we get a better understanding of the part, which helps with a better understanding of the whole text, and so on. This can be viewed as a recursive function. The uniqueness of our worldview comes from the recursive nature of our experiential living. We keep updating our worldview based on the current worldview which is impacted by our past worldview. And round and round we go.

Heidegger’s view that we cannot assume freedom from our presuppositions is an important thing to keep in mind in Systems Thinking. This reaffirms the idea that we are not able to experience a singularly objective reality. Reality is multidimensional, and have many variations contingent on many social factors. The circularity of hermeneutics is explained well by M. N. Babu:

The most important consequence of the circularity of understanding for hermeneutics that there is no pure starting point for understanding because every act of understanding takes place within a finite historically conditioned horizon, within an already understood frame of reference. It is no longer a question of how we are to enter the hermeneutical circle, because human consciousness is always already in it. We understand only by constant reference to what we have already understood, namely, our past and anticipated experience. The experiencing and reflecting subject is never a tabula rasa upon which the understanding of raw experience inscribes its objective character, rather, all experience and reflection are the result of a confrontation between one’s pre-understanding or even prejudice and new or perhaps strange objects. The inevitable presence of pre-understanding or prejudice is not necessarily the distortion of the meaning of an object by an arbitrary subject, rather, it is the very condition for any understanding of all. Heidegger, however, contends that presuppositions are the very condition for any reception of the object whatsoever. His notions of the ontological character of understanding and the primordial connection of subject and object in their pre- understanding and the primordial connection of subject and object in their pre-reflective relational whole provides the foundation for this contention. For him, all interpretation is a derivative form of a prior understanding, in which the prior relationship between subject and object is brought to explication.

How does one proceed when we realize that we cannot be free of our presuppositions? Heidegger advises that we need to get into the circle in the right way. Hans-Georg Gadamer provides clarity on this. As Jean Grondin notes:

Gadamer takes up Heidegger’s suggestion that the important thing is to get into the circle in the right way, but for him this mainly means that the “prejudiced” nature of our understanding should be recognized as that which makes understanding possible in the first place. This is what he calls the “ontological” and positive aspect of the hermeneutical circle. He emphasizes the ontological nature of the circle to fight against the false ideal of a presupposition‐less type of knowledge which would have been imposed upon the humanities by the objectivity requirement of exact science. His aim in highlighting the hermeneutical circle is to liberate the humanities from this alienating model. But does this mean that all presuppositions, prejudices, and anticipations are valid? Obviously not, since this would call into question the very idea of truth, which a book entitled Truth and Method surely wants to defend. Gadamer does maintain the distinction between adequate and inadequate anticipations. According to his best account of this key critical difference, it is through temporal distance and the work of history that we are able to make this distinction.

The most important thing in the process of making sense of a phenomenon is to understand the context. If the context is not understood, we fall into the trap of relativism. Relativism is the idea that all views are equally valid. A better nuanced version of this is pluralism. Pluralism is the idea that there are multiple views of a phenomenon that are different but equally valid. The difference between pluralism and relativism is in understanding the context. As we have been discussing, this understanding requires hermeneutical phenomenology. When we are aware that our understanding is always incomplete and imperfect, we are more open to going through the self-correcting hermeneutic cycle. We are open to challenge what we think we know, and we welcome scrutiny of our ideas. We put our assumptions open for all to see. Rather than being stuck with the realization that our views are imperfect and incomplete, we learn to cope with the world.

The great Systems Thinker, C. West Churchman said that the systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another.

We can only know things in terms of things we already know. From this standpoint, when we are looking at a new phenomenon, we have to look at it in terms of things we already know. If we are looking at a social “system”, then we have to always start from things that are common. The basis of all that is common in a social realm is the humanity in us all, and that is a good place to start. This is my takeaway from Churchman’s advice.

Please maintain social distance and wear masks. Please take vaccination, if able. Stay safe and Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Being-Question in Systems Thinking:

The Being-Question in Systems Thinking:

In today’s post, I am looking at the Being-question from Martin Heidegger. Heidegger is a philosopher I put off studying mainly because he was a Nazi sympathizer. His ideas are said to be of utmost importance for the twentieth century and he influenced many of the post-modern philosophers such as Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Rorty etc. Heidegger’s main philosophical work is “Being and Time”.

At that time, the prevalent view about how we view the world was based on the distinction between the subject and the object. The subject, let’s say an observer, is able to stand outside and observe the world. The world is independent of the observer. The observer is able to study the world and using their rational mind to come to meaningful conclusions. This view was made famous by the French philosopher, René Descartes. Descartes emphasized the difference between the subject and the object. The observer themselves are not part of the observation. What is observed (the object) is part of an objective reality that is readily accessible to everyone. From this standpoint, we come to see systems as physical entities of the world that is waiting there to be objectively observed and understood by everyone.

Heidegger wanted to turn this view upside down. He viewed the idea of trying to prove an objective reality as a scandalous activity. He did not deny the subject and the object. However, he viewed the subject as being a part of the world; an embedded being in the world. Heidegger thought that the question of “what exists?” is a useless activity. He realized that the question – “what does it mean to be existing?” was more meaningful.

Michael Gelven, who authored one of the most accessible books on Heidegger notes:

Descartes not only asks whether such a thing as material substance exists, he actually tells us what it means for such a thing to exist: if it takes up space it is a material thing that exists. Heidegger, however, argues there is an even more fundamental question that can be asked: What does it mean to exist at all?  The question is not whether something does exist or how to characterize the existence of particular kinds of things, like material things or mental things, but simply to ask about the very meaning of Being.

To ask what it means to exist or simply to be is to engage in the most fundamental kind of questioning possible. Heidegger calls this die Frage nach den Sinn von Sein, “to question what it means to be,” or simply, “the Being-question.”

Here the word “Being” is capitalized to reflect how it was written by Heidegger and it does not stand for a Supreme Being. The Being is basically us in the world interacting with the world.

Gelven gives a great example to further the idea of the “Being-question”:

Suppose I ask “What is a jail? ” You answer, “The jail is that red-brick building down the street with bars on the windows and locks on the cells. ” In this case, the question is about an entity, and the answer provides one with characteristics that describe or identify the entity. Suppose I ask, “What does it mean to be in jail? ” In response, you say, “To be in jail is to be guilty of a crime and to be punished for it by suffering the loss of liberty. To be in jail thus is to be punished, to feel reprimanded, to suffer, possibly to be afraid, to be lonely, to feel outcast, etc. ” The second question is answered by reference to what it means to exist in various ways, such as being guilty or being unfree. The question What is a jail? is answered by the description of other entities, bars in the windows, locks, unsavory patrons; but the question of the meaning of anything is answered by reference to other meanings. In this we simply recognize there must be a parallel between the kind of question asked and the kind of answers given.

But suppose I press this distinction and ask Which question is prior? A moment’s reflection will assure us that what it means to be in jail is the reason or the ground for the jail being built the way it is. In other words, what it means to be in jail is prior to what kind of thing a jail is, for the meaning determines the entity. If I understand what it means to be in jail, I will know what is required to make a jail. So, in the formal sense of what explains what, meaning precedes entity. The inquiry into what it means to be in jail is not only different from the question about what kind of thing is a jail, it is also prior to it, for the meaning ultimately explains the entity.

The problem with believing that there is an objective reality ready for everyone to access is that we take others for granted and also view them as part of the “objective” reality. We don’t realize that most of what we see and believe are contingent on our past experiences, biases, worldviews etc. These are not necessities. It would be a categorical error to assume that the conditions of contingencies are actually conditions of necessities. An easy way to explain the difference between contingency and necessity is to think of a red triangle. The color “red” is contingent on the direction I gave you. I could have said blue instead of red or any other color for that matter. However, it is necessary that you have three sides to the triangle. You cannot have two sides or four sides for the triangle since then it ceases to be a triangle.

When we assume that systems are physical entities of the world, we fall into the categorical error. We bring in our biases and worldviews and impose them on others. Similar to the jail example above, if we simply ask “what is a hospital and how can we improve the hospital?”, we get answers that go nowhere. If instead, we try to ask the question – “what is it like to be a patient in the hospital?”, and try to see this from another person’s viewpoint, we might be able to make some headway. The world as we see it, is our construction of our being in the world. We are in a social realm, and we cope with the world by being part of it, rather than being apart from it.

Gelven also gives another example:

I ask: What is the mind? This question is the traditional metaphysical one; it asks for classification and identification. I also ask: Do I have a mind that is anything more than the physical brain? Here the question is one of whether something exists. Let us now re-ask this all-important question in terms of Heidegger’s revolution. What kind of question could we ask? What does it mean to think? Notice what happens when we rephrase the question in this way. By asking What does it mean to think? I avoid completely the metaphysical questions of whether something exists or what kind of thing it is. Yet, at the same time, the question probes just as deeply into what I want to know.

How we are in the world depends on our affordances to be in this world. As the great Cybernetician/Enactivist Francesco Varela pointed out – Our cognition is directed toward the world in a certain way: it is directed toward the world as we experience it. For example, we perceive the world to be three/ dimensional, macroscopic, colored, etc.: we do not perceive it as composed of subatomic particles. To this, I will also add Cybernetician Bruce Clarke’s quote- We still have a hard time taking for real that all knowledge of the environment depends upon the specific realities of the systems that observe it. The systemic reality of the environment is to be both the precondition and the product of an observing system.

The next time when someone asks you to improve the system, remember to use the Being-question. I will finish with a quote from Heidegger:

In order to be who we are, we human beings remain committed to and within the being of language, and can never step out of it and look at it from somewhere else. Thus, we always see the nature of language only to the extent to which language itself has us in view, has appropriated us to itself. That we cannot know the nature of language—know it according to the traditional concept of knowledge defined in terms of cognition as representation—is not a defect, however, but rather an advantage by which we are favored with a special realm, that realm where we, who are needed and used to speak language, dwell as mortals.

Please maintain social distance and wear masks. Stay safe and Always keep on learning… In case you missed it, my last post was Round and Round We Go: