Difference between revisions of "USF Understanding"

UNDERSTANDING SYSTEM FUNCTION

The Story

Chapter One - A Pattern of Bridges

"I am frightened teacher. There are so many bad things happening in the world."

"Do not be afraid my student. Life is short and fear only interferes with what we must do in life."

"But teacher, I do not know what I must do in life."

And the teacher said, "You will know what to do when you understand where you fit."

"What do you mean by, where I fit?"

"Remember this my student. All living things have a gift. We are all richer when each of us can express our gift. We are all poorer when any of us cannot express our gift. Go forth into the world and be aware of the gift of everyone and every creature you meet. They will each want to trade gifts with you. Be open to trade because every trade you make creates bridge - and there is more in the world with each new bridge - there is less in the world with each bridge that is lost."

"I do not understand teacher. What is a bridge?"

"Yes, it is hard to see. Right now you see only that which you desire. You seek to obtain the object of your desire before someone else gets it. Yet, you do not see how that object came to be - what gifts were traded to make that which you desire?

Chapter Two - The Money Cycle

"Teacher, I hear what you say about the gift each of us brings - but there is not enough money for every one to have what they need."

"So you think that what people need is money?"

"No teacher, but it takes money to get what people need."

"Why does it take money, my student? Why can't we just make what we need?"

"I do not understand teacher."

"Remember this my student; the goal of life is life itself. If we think the goal is money, then life will suffer. Making money is taking nature's resources and making it into something else. We call these financial resources - and these financial resources often have no where to go except to make more of themselves. The natural balance requires that these financial resources be cycled back into nature's resources."

and the teacher continued, "A business is an organization for the purpose of converting resources into financial resources. A family is an organization for the purpose of converting financial resources back into living resources. But, we are out of balance. Families cannot compete with corporations to fully complete the cycle. We need more powerful organizations in our communities to help convert financial resources back into resources to produce the things that people need."

"But teacher, will that not take money?"

"No my student. It will take more bridges - and the money will follow."

"Now we are back to bridges?, said the student."

"Of course, always one thing is related to another - and everything is related to everything else. Tell me, what is it that people need?"

And the student said, "Well, people need food, they need to stay warm."

And the teacher said, "Yes, and they need clean water, and basic health care. Those are things we need to survive. What do people need to express their gift?"

"I see teacher. People need information about the world so they can find out where the fit?"

"That is good insight my student. But information is not enough - when you can use information to accomplish some task we will call that knowledge - when you can understand the flow of gifts across all the bridges we will call that wisdom, because, then you will be able to see the gifts that are not being realized and know where we need more bridges."

Chapter Three - Complexity Spirals

“Teacher, if everything already depends on everything else how can anything ever change?”

“Another insightful question. But, I ask you, what is the difference between more and less and many and few?”

and the student thought a moment and said, “we can have more of a few things, and less of many things?”

“Yes my student. What is the difference between a corn field and a rain forest in that respect?”

and the student said, “In the corn field we have more of only one thing and in the rain forest we have less of many different things.”

“Precisely,” said the teacher, “with many different things we cannot have as many of any one thing, but there are many different ways for things to interact. We call this complexity. What is the difference between a market economy and a state run economy?”

The student responded, “in a market economy each business is free to adjust its strategy to the conditions of the market.”

“Very good”, said the teacher, “with a complex of potential interactions, each actor has more options and the system is said to be dynamically stable. What is the difference between a closed agricultural economy and an open trading economy?”

and the student said, “well, there will be many kinds of businesses in an open trading economy. In either each actor is free to adjust its strategy to market conditions.”

And the teacher responded, “Yes, both of those are true, but there is something more. In the closed agricultural economy there are a limited number of source materials. In the trading economy there are more source materials allowing the production of a larger amount of a greater variety of goods. We call that increasing productivity. And so my student, what is the benefit of increasing productivity?”

“The more we produce of more different things the more room there is for new things?”

“Yes, yes, yes. We have just described the cycle of change. Diversity leads to complex interactions which leads to dynamic stability which leads to increased productivity that in turn makes room for increased diversity. With each turn through the cycle the system accumulates energy and we call that an upward spiral – new bridges being built with each turn – more people and more creatures able to find their fit and share their gift. But what happens if we reduce the number of actors? There are fewer potential interactions, the system has fewer responses to changing conditions, with fewer options production declines, and now there is even less room for new things. We call that a downward spiral – bridges being lost with each turn – fewer people and creatures able to find their fit and share their gift.

Chapter Four – Finding the Missing Pieces

_____________________________

This is an invitation to help me tell the story of how humans came to live in peace and plenty. It starts with one community figuring out how to obtain all that they needed to thrive while healing their local environment. What does it mean to "thrive" as a community? Can we merge human and natural systems so that we live in healthy ecosystems rather than preserve them elsewhere? Can we recreate the garden of eden?

There are parameters to the story. It is about discovering what is missing in the "typical" community - what do we need so that people here can live a decent life? How do we make more places for more people to fit in? We can only supply what is missing by employing members of the community to realize unused human and biological potential that already exist in the community.

In the story everyone gets to make their own choices. The future is the cumulative result of all the choices each of us make - but we each choose based on what is best for us and our families. We cannot force what we think are better choices for the community - we can only create options that work better for the members of the community - otherwise they will not choose them.

In the story there is no one else to blame. Our community is the result of our choices and only we can choose to make it different.

And the story goes on with another community around the world hearing about what that first community did - and they improved how it was done. How to we make this a story with more and more people helping to write it?

And then more communities heard about it and tried their own methods - until everyone in the world had the opportunity to contribute value to the system and lived in a healthy diverse environment.

That is the story of How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty.

OUTLINE

We can understand the system, and our community, as a pattern of flows. Flowing through the system is energy, materials, nutrients, information, knowledge, wisdom, entertainment, emotional support, belonging and contributing. These are the things that we humans value and therefore, I am using value as the generic term for those flows. The goal of the story is a way that every member of the community - and every species in our ecosystem - are contributing value to the flows.

Civilization is a structure composed of bridges that we use to direct the flow of value. We could say connections, bonds, relationships, agreements or contracts for different ways that value flows between humans. We use bridges in the sense of structure where an exchange of value between two humans creates a bridge, the volume of the exchange determines the width of the bridge and the duration of the exchange determines the strength of the bridge. Civilization is the sum total of all the bridges each of us chooses to maintain. Poverty results from the inability to maintain adequate bridges - not producing the value necessary to maintain the required bridges - and the system's inability to obtain the value that those people could have contributed is a waste of human potential.

Creative destruction - expanding choices - diminishing choices - increasing opportunities - decreasing opportunities - upward spirals - downward spirals. Market limitations - systems to complement the market.

We also maintain bridges with the ecosystem - Environmental degradation - permaculture - waste of biological potential

People will live in poverty until such time as we have systems of production in which everyone can contribute value and thereby maintain adequate bridges into the value flows. The environment will be at risk until such time as humans obtain what they need and desire through systems of production that cooperate with natures processes - enhancing diversity rather than diminishing it.

We are awash in information. When we are able to assimilate information into our understanding of how the world works, we call that knowledge. Some of us are more knowledgeable than others. When our knowledge is accurate, and we are able to predict how a particular choice will play out in the world, we call that wisdom. Some of us are wiser than others but I do not think any of us can be satisfied with where we are but, it is also said: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." What can of world do we want?

Growing from birth to death

If we are going to create a future conducive to human life, we must first understand how the system functions. Next we must understand that we create the future with every choice we make. Finally, we must set about creating those choices that will lead to an inclusive and abundant future.

Nothing exists that does not depends on the existence of something else for its own existence. One thing is always dependent on another thing and all things depend on everything else. All things are systems and ultimately there is only one whole system. So we cannot change one thing without affecting everything else. We cannot solve problems one at a time because they are systemic.

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Comments

You frame it an invittion to help craft a story... the invitation itself is more storylike than the outline that follows 11:39 PM

Can we in fact make the outline more story like and less tratise and series of defintiions? This is a challenge 11:39 PM

I do like the invitation a lot

Tropology