CONSENSUS AND COMPLEXITY UNDERSTANDING
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 632 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Human sciences |
Stafford BEER writes:
Science offers the means:
- to measure and manipulate complexity through mathematics
- to design complex systems through general systems theory
- to devise viable organizations through cybernetics
- to work effectively with people through behavioral science
- to apply all this to practical affairs through operational research“.
The knowledge and the skills exist, but… “Society proceeds instead by consensus… The consensus simplifies, distorts and makes trivial the real problems of complexification which are inherently too difficult for all to understand.
- “Thus we come to manage an oversimplified model of the world that exists only in the mind of the consensus, instead of the real world out there.
- “This mismatch lies at the root of our incompetence” (1976, p.381/2).
Consensus is a neutral tool in itself. While it is the only practical way to reach common understanding in human systems and thus to be able to insure autopoiesis or innovation in them, it does not by itself guarantee satisfactory results: consensus may be disastrous, since the needs of a nonlinear complex system are frequently counter-intuitive and conflictive with common sense (generally addict to linear ways of thought).