Desilofication
Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down with a number of colleagues at the NASA Ames Research Center for an all-day meeting related to understanding a coherent approach to global water sustainability. One of the themes that seemed to run throughout the day was that we have put our efforts (in this particular case for water sustainability efforts) into fragmented silos that often remain isolated. This, of course, reflects a fragmented approach to the generation of knowledge whereby we have put knowledge in these silos and have gone to great lengths to keep them separate. One university professor in the group referred to his own division where he spoke of 3 different chairs of different areas of water management that never interacted with each other. For any of us that have spent any length of time in academic institutions this comes as no surprise.
If we believe that reality is an integrated whole, then a fragmented approach to the generation of knowledge will never approximate an accurate understanding of the underlying structure of reality. No wonder then that our social systems (i.e. governance, economies, etc.), built upon our perception of the structure of reality, often don’t seem in line with the rest of the biosphere.
I am happy to say that one of the central elements that will guide our efforts in this particular project over the next 6 months and beyond is that we will focus on the integration as a central theme. More later!
Tags: academia, nasa, secondmuse, systems
November 19th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Todd, if you haven’t already, you have got to read Capra’s “The Turning Point.” Also, if you can stomach a 2 hour heady pseudo-documentary on systems-theory, check out the film “Mind Walk”. These sources really challenge the Newtonian/Cartesian method of examining the universe. We are trained that the natural world is like the inside of a clock with moving gears that can be replaced if necessary. (as a medical doctor you are no doubt familiar with Descartes’ idea of the body as a machine). This completely ignores the complexity of the relationships found in nature. If you ask anyone to describe a tree, they’ll tell you it consists of a trunk, branches and leaves. They’ll completely ignore both what’s unseen (the roots) and the relationships that are essential for a tree to exist (soil fungi, pollinators, the water cycle, etc.). Without these relationships you don’t have a tree, you have a dead stick. When you consider this it becomes really difficult to draw a boundary around a tree and say “this is a tree.” Our educational/economic/governmental systems function this way. They draw boundaries around things and ignore the relationships that are essential for their continued existence.
Here’s some other awesome readings on this subject if you’re interested.
- Jones, A. 1987. “From Fragmentation to Wholeness: A Green Approach to Science and Society.” (Part 1) The Ecologist 17:6:236-240.
- Taylor, D. 1992. “Disagreeing on the Basics: Environmental Debates Reflect Competing World Views.” Alternatives 18:3:26-33.
- Skolimowski, H. 1978. “Ecophilosophy vs. the Scientific World View.” The Ecologist Quarterly 227-248.
- Regal, P. 1990. “The Illusion Organ,” Chapter 3, in The Anatomy of Judgment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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