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Paul Grobstein's picture

the need for a emergent/intentional evolving system perspective?

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 10:18am.

Thanks all for further stirring the pot this morning.  A few quick thoughts for further mulling by me, and anyone else interested ...

All this is of both practical and conceptual significance.  Among the current practical issues is the interplay between the emergent and the intentional in economics (cf Paul Krugman's "How did economists get it so wrong") as well as in health care, and politics/social planning in general.  And among the important conceptual issues is how to deal with the problem that our own understandings always have both an emergent and an intentional component to them. 

For both, the phenomena of "unintended consequences"/"unconceived alternatives" is of central concern.  These are generally regarded as "bugs" or "failings" from an intentional posture.  From a blended emergent/intentional posture, they might instead be regarded as "features" or "assets," in that they provide the wherewithal to continue the ongoing process of evolving.

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