Title: Rewinding history: paradoxes, evanescence and hubris in learning/knowledge explorations

Authors: James Falconer

Addresses: Eagna Research and Consulting, 95 Grenadier Road, Toronto, Ontario M6R 1R1, Canada

Abstract: Complexity science|s occasional regression from its fundaments of holism, interconnection, adaptation, emergence, and harmony with uncertainty, to an antipodean ground of control, simplicity, and order leads inexorably to a misguided quest for |parts| to model in systems of interest. Deeply and multifariously flawed, philosophically, methodologically, and practically, this quest has retrograded the discipline yet produced no fruitful revelations. The core of this misdirection is echoed in three intellectual generations of failed attempts to circumscribe human/organisational learning and knowledge, by utilising, in turn, heuristics, artefacts, and mechanisation and quantification. Overcoming these errors and returning to first principles can illuminate the way for future explorations therein; complexity can provide the means to break the cycle in this way.

Keywords: complexity; simplicity; modelling; reductionism; holism; learning; knowledge.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLIC.2011.037356

International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, 2011 Vol.8 No.1, pp.18 - 29

Published online: 27 Nov 2014 *

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