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Pattern Thinking

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http://www.patternthinking.com/

Pattern Thinking

 

 

 

Pattern Thinking (known, in academic circles, as Systemic Thinking) is a simple technique for making sense of challenging situations and developing simple interventions for transforming them.

It has its origins in the Theory of Contraints (TOC), The Theory of Inventive Thinking (TRIZ), Systems Thinking and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), but is evident in most cognitive science and systems science arenas.

Pattern Thinking's underlying discovery is the Repeating Pattern Phenomenon: challenging situations are driven by a single repeating interaction-pattern.  This discovery was first made by Gary Bartlett & Lynne Bartlett in 2000.

Pattern Thinking enables people to deliberately and systematically gain significantly deeper insights into challenging situations and complex domains by surfacing the interaction-patterns that underly, drive and govern them.  The human brain is a pattern recognition and application engine - Pattern Thinking merely provides a simple framework and process for turbo-charging the brain's natural capability to see patterns and use them to intervene effectively, at the pattern level.

Pattern-level Intervention enables ordinary people to deliberately and systematically improve any challenging situation dramatically.

Click here to find out why it's so challenging to improve challenging situations...

Click here to see the original Systemic Thinking paper presented at the International Conference on Thinking in 2001.

Click here to download a late draft of a March 2013 article on Systemic Thinking written for the TOC Community ("Echoes of TOC").

Click here to see/download Systemic TOC - Gary Bartlett's chapter in "Echoes of TOC" Volume II - April 2013.

 


 

http://exploringsciencewiki.wikidot.com/background:patternthinking

Pattern Thinking

patternthinking.jpg

Pattern thinking is at the core of all human thinking, in which the brain functions as a pattern recognizer (Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y., 2004; Weinberg, 1975/2001). However, even with this basic functionality, much of the way we approach thinking and learning does not take full advantage of our capabilities as pattern thinkers. Table 2 summarizes the overall characteristics, foci, thinking processes, and concerns involved in a more fully developed sense of pattern thinking. A fundamental operational view of pattern thinking involves a recursive approach to a loosely organized sequence of (a) recognizing patterns, (b) analyzing the functions and/or meanings of these patterns, (c) analyzing how these patterns are situated within one or more contexts, (d) finding these patterns in other contexts, and (e) using (applying, testing, analyzing, etc.) these patterns from one context in other contexts.

Although we have known that the brain functions as a pattern processor for some time, very little work has been done to develop this area in terms of learning. Beyond the early classic works of Weinberg (1975/2001) and Bateson (1979/2002), the only emphasis in this area has been in research on categorization (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991) and more recent work in a revision of schema theory (McVee, Dunsmore, & Gavelek, 2005). However, these research areas have not developed the idea of pattern thinking as an approach to learning. From the perspective of learning that focuses on patterns, we need to consider Gee’s (1997) assertion that,

Because the world is infinitely full of potentially meaningful patterns and sub-patterns in any domain, something must guide the learner in selecting patterns and sub-patterns to focus on. This something resides in the cultural models of the learner’s sociocultural groups and the practices and settings in which they are rooted. Because the mind is a pattern recognizer and there are infinite ways to pattern features of the world… the mind is social (really, cultural) in the sense that sociocultural practices and settings guide the patterns in terms of which the learner thinks, acts, talks, values, and interacts. (p. 240)

From this perspective, Gee is pointing to the notion of transdisciplinary, meaningful patterns and to the mind as a pattern recognizer. Certainly, the embodied nature of patterns in our biological and cultural minds lends itself to pattern recognition as a basic function of the mind.

The notion within pattern thinking that “tests” the applicability of functional patterns across contexts involves another frequently overlooked thinking process called abductive thinking. In other words, abduction is a reasoning process that examines how certain ideas “fit” across contexts. Abduction occurs all of the time and is fundamental to the transfer of learning, but is not addressed in most of the transfer literature. Although abductive reasoning has been utilized in anthropology and served as a major mode of thinking for Gregory Bateson (1979/2002; 1991), it has not been addressed to any significant degree in the psychological literature.

References:

  • Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y. (2004). An integrated theory of mind. Psychological Review, 111(4), 1036—1060.
  • Bateson, G. (1979/2002). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
  • Bateson, G. (1991). A sacred unity: Further steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book/Harper Collins.
  • Gee, J. P. (1997). Thinking, learning, and reading: The situated sociocultural mind. In D. Kirshner & J. A. Whitson (Eds.), Situated cognition: Social, semiotic, and psychological perspectives (pp. 235-259). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • McVee, M. B., Dunsmore, K., & Gavelek, J. R. (2005). Schema theory revisited. Review of Educational Research, 75(4), 531—566.
  • Weinberg, G. M. (1975/2001). An introduction to general systems thinking (Silver Anniversary Edition). New York: Dorset House Publishing.

©2010 by Jeffrey W. Bloom


 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/125513674232534/permalink/876176262499601/?comment_id=895113627272531&reply_comment_id=895501037233790

 

Helmut Leitner Thor, I agree with M Ichael that what is discussed here, among this active group of like-minded soulds, including Esteban and Dmitry, has nothing to do with the pattern approach.

It also feels as if you were perpetuating prejudice about the pattern approach that I have already answered again and again. But, maybe I was not clear enough, sorry.

One very annoying misconcpetion is, that people - when dealing with pattern languages - have to learn a new language. This is not the case. Look into the pattern language of Alexander’s "A Pattern Language" book, and you will find urban patterns lke CORNER SHOP, BUS STOP, and FOOD STAND. Alexander argues for their importance for street life, and how they should be taken seriously as elements of urban design. This can hardly be seen as "new language" that people have to learn. Of course there are higher-level, or more complicated concepts too but they are put in ordinary language, so that everyone can understand them. Patterns reduce complexity, but there is a certain complexity that one can’t avoid who really wants to understand a system and solve problems. Einstein said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". This simplicity can be reached by deep understanding, not by just incorporating all kind of diverse "men of the street" thinking.

In addition, as someone who has 15 years of experience with online systems, I see you living in a dream world, regarding the participation platform you are envisioning but you have never had the chance to implement. You seem to think, that people would play to your rules, use simple language, be consistent, not ideological or overly technical, forget about making propaganda for their interests, just work seemlessly towards the goal you give. I’m sure of your best intentions, but it never works this way.

Platforms tend to be overly complex, by accumulating masses of irrelevant and pluralistic-divergent information that nobody can cope with. Even this small FB group has produced discussion threads that no-one will ever re-read and analyze. Even the innocent assumption that participating people just have to access the platform and do consequent reading, excludes 90% of the people. Alexander has actually worked with people of the slums, even not-readers maybe, and developed a way to communicate the essential patterns to them, and care for their participation, make them understand their options and supporting and respecting their decisions for their own life.

I’m guilty of having not answered your call "what should PL help me"? because it is a lot of work to translate your accumulated experience that you have turned into a platform concept into a pattern language, a modular presentation of concepts that can be easily understood, argued for, and implemented one by one. Of course, such a translation would help your platform concept, if we think it as being on the way to implementation. But this is not an ego-centered way, not a way to create THIS PLATFORM. It is way to be clear about the knowledge, for everybody to use, everybody who is creating a platform. For example, in a way that wikipedia/facebook/other_platforms could take out certain modules/patterns and create soemthing that could fill your requirements too. They would have a much better basis, already a working global infrastructure.

It’s the ego-centeredness, the abundance with new shiny words, that makes Dmitry’s and M Ichael’s concepts, ineffective and useless. D doesn’t explain, what his wiki is more than a personal wiki, that he dreams to be a container for world knowledge, and seeks fancy names for it. Michael does even worse with Nemetics, creating formulas and technical language without communicating what’s the advantage of it for other people. I do not say, mind me, that Dmitry and Michael may not have important things to say - I do not know this and can’t judge this – but I can say that I have tried to find some core insight, and didn’t find it, being blinded by so much bla around it, that I wasn’t able to discern the good from the useless.

It is a sickness of our time, that many people think this is the way to go: invent some fancy words, create hype around it and become a hero. It seems not visible enough, that behind each sustainable success story there is something that is actually working, functional and valuable, and that this is the important core.

The pattern approach is more than being about patterns. It is the "timeless way", against the current mainstream and lifestyle. It suggests that patterns are shared cultural heritage and belong to all, and that everybody should have access. "Everyone is a designer". It means to serve people, and to take the ego out of the equation. Only then excellent design is plausible and possible. Without these attitudes, any pattern approach just becomes an empty formalism.

 


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