Holiday Greetings to all LOers!
At de Lange wrote in LO20163:
>With such rich pictures, it is not possible to respond to all of the things
>which one connects to. Hence one has to select what one wants to
>connect to in writing. I will select "causality" to respond to because
>I think it is vitally important to our Systems Thinking.
...huge snip...
>What is causality?
>I have to stop now, making this contribution a real cliff hanger!
>But I hope I have shown that causality EITHER does not exist at all OR
>does exist in such a unique manner that unless we shift our paradigm, we
>will not be able to perceive it. Which case will it be?
>Jon, it is in this spirit which I want to caution that the last words on
>causality has not been written. In fact, I believe that the dialogue on
>causality has merely outgrown its "addoloscent phase".
Hello At,
After this post, I am convinced that you are right in saying that
causality does play a vitally important role in systems thinking, but not
in the way that causality has been typically understood. In LO20211, I
wrote:
>I suspect that one of the areas where we may not be connecting here
>has to do with the idea of causation and cause-effect relationships.
>Much of the thinking that has been done on causation has debated
>such ideas as whether the concept of causation is an ontological
>phenomenon, an epistomological phenomenon, or both. In the
>behaviorist concept of causation, this type of debate has little relevance.
>This is because the behaviorist perspective does not adhere to any
>traditional definition of causation. Coincidentally, this debate has little
>relevance in systems thinking for the same reason.
The epistomological, ontological, or both debate that has been waged
around causation that is largely deemed irrelevant from the behaviorist
perspective is limited to the definitions of causality which are like in
kind to that articulated by Kant, Hume and others (linear, cause-effect
relationships such as have been discussed in my post (LO20211) and in your
response in LO20163. I have never come across a discussion such as yours
where someone has illustrated so well why this conception of causality is
so potentially limiting. I have sensed that it was the case, and Skinner
and other behaviorist quickly rejected this kind of argument because it
wasn't adequate for explaining their observations. My last statement in
the above quote, "Coincidentally, this debate has little relevance in
systems thinking for the same reason.", was result of my extension of the
conclusions drawn by the behaviorists to my own understanding of systems
thinking. After reading your post, I agree that causality is important to
systems thinking (and, in the same way, to the behaviorist perspective).
If you have an answer to "What is causality?" to get us off of the cliff
on which you left us hanging, I, for one, would love to hear it.
You suggested that I might be able to explain the epistomological,
ontological, or both debate for the benefit of the list. I am not sure
that I will be able to explain it clearly, and I also sense that there is
a fairly high level of sophistication amongst those on the list to these
issues. However, for what it is worth, I will briefly try to lay out my
understanding.
Simply put, ontology is the science (metaphysics) of being. With respect
to causation, the ontological position suggests that the cause-effect
relationship is the result of an actual, necessary, existing relationship
inherent between two entities, the event classified as cause and the event
classified as effect. Through observation and study, we are able to
ascertain/discern the nature of this relationship and the laws and
characteristics which govern/define it. It is relatively easy to
understand this position with respect to the physical world (for example,
the ontological existence of physical objects), but it is much harder to
comprehend when it comes to arguments for the ontological existence of God
or of Truth, or of the ontological existence of the relationship between
cause and effect.
In contrast, epistomology is a philosophical attempt to study and
understand the nature and limits of human knowing. Simply put, it tries
to answer the question, "How do we know what we know?". Perhaps the most
famous epistomological statement of all time is Descartes' assertion, "I
think, therefore I am.". The epistomological position on causality begins
with the assumption that all humans make causal inferences at various
points throughout their lives, and that this is a manifestation of human's
epistomological nature. These inferences of the process of causation are
the result of the perception on the part of humans of certain phenomenal
(though not necessarily ontological) arrangements in their environment.
The causal relationship may possibly be ontological as well, but this is
not necessarily the case (for example, we often make errant causal
attribution based on mere contiguity - an example of a phenomenal
arrangement). Therefore, our epistomological inferences of causality may
be entirely a fabrication on our part, and/or they may not accurate
represent the ontological relationship between cause and effect.
At, as you elegantly demonstrate, there is evidence that conflicts with
the traditional, epistomological explanations of causality, suggesting
that there is much more to causality than has been thought. As a result,
the behaviorists chose to basically opt out of the debate (their
epistomological perspective has even been labelled "agnostic" - see Robert
Lana's book, Assumptions of Social Psychology, 1991). This label would
probably also sum up the behaviorist perspective on intention.
In LO20163, you wrote:
>Please note that all what I have written up to this point, concerns causes
>for changes in the organisation of only the physical (material) world .
>Behaviourist psychology began with the need to understand the cause for
>changes in the organisation of the psyche (mind). ...snip...
>However, in their desire to establish the relationship between cause and
>effect in the COMPLEX system body&mind, the behaviourists began to loose
>focus on finding the PRINCIPAL CAUSE (a cause which could act in either
>body or mind and have an effect in either body, or mind or both). The most
>confusing thing (let us call it the "on-off" facet) was that many causes
>could produce either some effect or no effect at all. They began to
>digress into different theories of causality rather than focusing on
>finding a principal cause of which this "on-off" facet is part of its
>makeup. Finding no consolation in any of those theories, they began to
>invoke prematurely feedback loops onto the stimulus-reponse pattern which
>soon led to their unique viewpoint called behaviourism.
This is an excellent summary of how the behaviorists ended up where they
did. I'm sure by now that you are well aware of the fact that I identify
strongly with many of the ideas that the behaviorists proposed. This is
certainly true. However, back in LO19894, I asserted that I was not a
radical behaviorist/Skinnerian. In identifying the invokation of
premature feedback loops onto the stimulus response pattern, you have
picked up on why I have never fully bought into the behaviorist
perspective - the truncating of the world that they would consider to
explain away the "world inside of me" (WIM). In an attempt to compensate
for the "limited" scope of the behaviorist perpective, I have been trying
to supplement it by extending many of these concepts to the "production"
of attributions, attitudes, mental models, etc... I have been continually
trying to make these connections for myself as I have tried to integrate
many of the findings of social and organizational psychology,
organizational behavior, and organization development into my own
framework of understanding.
Ironically, from what I have been able to uncover, even Skinner was not as
radical a behaviorist on a personal level as he presented in his
professional persona. Several years ago, I was attending the
international conference for the Association for Behavior Analysis and met
Richard O'Brien, a behavioral psychologist who has done a bit of
behavioral consulting with world class and professional athletes. He told
the following story of an interaction that he had with Skinner:
At a previous conference, O'Brien was on an elevator, going down to the
main conference area from his room. At one of the floors on the way down,
the elevator stopped, and Skinner got on, along with a couple of other
people that were accompanying him. Skinner glanced over at O'Brien and
said, "Hey, aren't you the guy who does the consulting work with
athletes?"
"Why yes, I am!", O'Brien replied, flattered that Skinner would both
recognize him and be aware of his work.
Skinner asked, "Have you ever done any consulting with baseball pitchers?"
O'Brien - "Yes, I have."
Skinner - "You know how some pitchers are called into the game in the 9th
inning with the bases loaded and have to get their team out of a jam?"
O'Brien - "Yes, Sure I do!"
Skinner - "I've always wondered what they were thinking!"
And the doors opened and Skinner walked away leaving O'Brien there
dumbfounded.
My own educational background is based in social and organizational
psychology, not behavioral psychology. I have not personally done any
research involving rats or pigeons. I did not really even begin to get
into behavioral psychology until I had completed my master's degree and
was working on my doctorate (I went straight through, so this was a
continuous transition). I actually began graduate school with the goal of
informing Deming's management theory (which I had been introduced to by a
friend from my church), particularly the Psychology portion of his system
of profound knowledge on which he wrote the least.
Several years into graduate school, I had learned much about attributions,
attitudes, power and influence tactics and a plethora of other topics that
would seemingly relate, but I still was not satisfied that I was really
able to fill in the blanks, and I had already begun to branch out of the
field. By this time, I had read the Fifth Discipline and some of Jay
Forrester's work, and had thereby been introduced to systems thinking. I
had also read a couple of "user friendly" books on chaos theory and
complex, non-linear systems. Deming's work, and these other areas
resonated very strongly with me. However, mainstream social and
organizational psychology did not seem to provide much fodder for thought
or insight into these types of processes as they operated in humans and
behavior, other than some anecdotal types of connections. When I finally
was introduced to the application of behavioral psychology to
organizations (by a new faculty member who, very shortly thereafter,
became my advisor), I was ecstatic. Finally, here was the cross over that
began to tie all of these areas together.
I believe the real issue was not that social and organizational
psychology, organizational sociology and organizational behavior were
studying the wrong areas, only that they too had left out a critical piece
of the picture. Social psychology, with its roots in philosophy, had
tacitly adopted the traditional understanding of causality, and was
viewing the world of the mind and of behavior through the linear,
cause-effect chain. In other words, they were looking for the antecedents
(what I have proposed as the entropic force) of the psyche (attributions,
attitudes, intentions, personality characteristics, leadership, motivating
conditions, etc...) that "caused" the behaviors observed in society and in
organizations in particular, while excluding the consequences the resulted
from these actions and the resulting feedback loops that completed the
system (what I have proposed to be the entropic flux). The paradigm shift
of the behavioral perspective, that it is the consequences that reinforce
the behaviors and ultimately determine their strength over time, allowed
me to begin to put many things together (one example is that the
attitudes, attributions, inferences, intentions, etc... that are proposed
as causes are also the outcomes of our behavior, as I have been trying to
explain).
Interestingly, if you look back over the history of social and
organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and organization
development, they have all had periods of self-termed "crises" where they
have debated their relevance as a field of study to the practice of
organization and management and the curing of societal ills, despite the
seeming face validity of the topics in each field. In each case,
explanations for the irrelevance of the fields to practical issues have
had a recurring theme, that the field was in a preparadigmatic state,
resulting the fragmentation of these individual fields, the lack of any
clear definition of what the fields were intended to study, and a slow
rate of theoretical growth. I believe that this is the direct result of
attempting to learn by studying an incomplete system (they are only
looking at the leg of the elephant without an understanding of the whole).
While the behaviorists have largely bounded their field of study to a
complete system (albeit one that is not THE system), other areas of
psychology have basically bounded their field of study to an incomplete
system (no feedback loops), and have, not surprisingly, floundered in many
ways. Behaviorists have been studying a lesser whole, but at least it is
a whole (maybe this accounts for why behaviorism resembles in many ways
irreversible self organization through entropy production as you have
explained it). Other areas of psychology and the organizational sciences
have violated the essentiality of wholeness - hence their many struggles
and the perception that they are a "soft science", not like in kind to the
so-called "hard sciences". I think that we are discovering together that
the world of the psyche is very much like the physical world.
At, your journey to this point may have been a lonely one, but I, for one,
would like to join you as we move forward.
Sincerely,
Jon Krispin
--"Jon Krispin" <jkrispin@prestolitewire.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>