http://www.slideshare.net/helenefinidori/plast-presentationpurplsoc-v3

Towards a Fourth Generation Pattern Language

1. 1. Pattern  Languages for  Systemic  Transformation

1. Towards  a  4th  Generation  of  Pattern  Languages      
2. PURPLSOC  2015  
3. Helene  Finidori  –  Sayfan  Borghini  

1. 2. Bridging  multiple  paths  

1. “On  each  continent  and  in  each  nation  one  can  find  creative  bubbling,  a  multitude  of political initiatives  in  the  direction  of  economic,  social,  political,  cognitive,   educational,  ethical or existential  regeneration.

1. But  everything  that  must  be  connected  is  yet  dispersed,  compartmented,  separated {Resources Fragmentation - DVS}.   These  initiatives  are  not  aware  of  each  other,  no  institution  enumerates them,  and  no   one  is  familiar  with  them.  They  are  nonetheless  the  livestock  for  the  future.  It is  now  a   matter  of  recognizing,  aggregating,  enlisting  them  in  order  to  open  up transformational  paths. {Methods of aggregating and enlisting, in Unified Conceptual Space? - DVS}

1. These  multiple  paths,  jointly  developing,  will  intermesh  to  form  a  new  Path  which  will   decompose  into  the  paths  each  of  us  will  follow  and  which  will  guide  us  toward  the still invisible  and  inconceivable  metamorphosis.” - Morin,  E.  (2011).  La  Voie:  Pour  l'avenir  de l'Humanité.  (Paris:  Fayard).  Pp.  34.  Translated  by  H.  Finidori. {Resources Unification Fundamentals? - DVS}

1. 3. The Challenges of Societal Change 

1. From  a  big  picture,  aggregated  perspective?
1. Are  we  actually  changing  something?  And is the change we ‘design’ going in the ‘right’ direction?
2. What  is  my  ‘place’  my  ‘position’  in  the  space  of  societal  change? And how can my own endeavor benefit the whole?
3. How can what others are doing benefit my own endeavor? And how can my own endeavor benefit others? {"Knowledge Sharing" problem? - DVS}

1. 4. Pattern Languages & Societal Change  

1. The Pursuit of Pattern Languages for Societal Change involves
1. 1. The development of domain specific or project specific {Definitions of domains and projects in this context? - DVS} Pattern Languages towards societal change {Societal vs Cultural Change? - DVS}.
2. 2.  Looking at how pattern languages can help coalesce various societal change efforts to increase collective awareness and multiply the impact of disparate initiatives.

1. 5. Mulifaceted  Engagement  in  Social  Change

1. What we chose to focus our attention, efforts and resources on

2. Why we do what we do, what drives us

3. How we function, process information, interact with systems and people

4. Learning styles

5. Mental functions

6. Creative styles

7. Values

8. Beliefs

9. Motivations

10. Technologies

11. Language; Paradigm;

12. Telos: the  intentionality through which the why becomes a what

13. Know-How: the praxis through which the How becomes a What

14. Paradigm: the thought patterns through which the Why becomes a How 

• 6. Shaping the paradigms our systems arise from. Donella Meadows – 12 Points to intervene in a System  

• 7. Dimensions,  prioritized  

1. This applies to social change too: Independently from their actual paradigm, telos and know-how, change agents individually or in groups may prefer to intervene on the ‘thing’ itself, on the practices or on the intentions and motivations of stakeholders (Commons, commoning, commoners)…   etc…  

• 8. Agency, multifaceted and distributed

1. Individuals or groups assemble in clusters around one or several shared dimensions of change, engagement or action, with variable degrees of cohesiveness on all preferences. {Mechanisms of Formation of Self-Organising Teams }
2. Change is driven from a whole variety of clusters that cannot or do not necessarily want to align on any if not all of these dimensions.
3. Note that a How or a Why for one group can be a What (object of attention and care) for another, and that the development of a how or a what can be invoked as a why… {IVAN consists only of the topics/knowledge nodes and links/associations between the topics - DVS}
4. Which makes things rather complicated when talking about strategies for change. {It would be nice to show that on examples. - DVS}

• 9. Agency,  clusters  and  interconnected

1. These bubbles of agency, or islands of language and knowledge are effective in their own cohesive domain of focus.
2. They function effectively and convergently within their own boundaries, with new ideas that permeate through areas of overlap with other clusters. {Ideas on same topic are collected in IVAN in same node of the HashAt Space, found instantly and "ready" for reuse - DVS}
3. For change to cross boundaries and be sustainable it needs to occur in a variety of ways and come from a variety of places in the system. A network of interventions on whys, hows and whats that can cross pollinate each other. {Can we elaborate on "iii" together please? - DVS}
4. “Social networks influence how ideas and beliefs can spread around a society. In this study, the University of Pennsylvania's Damon Centola shows that networks that are very diffuse (left) make it hard for ideas to catch on, while networks with very strong group  boundaries (right) make it almost impossible for ideas to spread. A network that was moderately "grouped," however, was most conducive to spreading complex ideas.” Credit: University of Pennsylvania
5. Read  more  at:  http://phys.org/news/2015-06-social-networks-group-boundaries-ideas.html and Why Being The Most Connected Is A Vanity Metric as a method of transfer from "right" to moderately "grouped". {The question here, how do we measure/control shapes of networks? Would IVAN concept and practice be sufficient for the successful exchange of ideas? - DVS}

10. The  Challenges  of  Societal  Change

• Are we actually changing something? And is the change going in the ‘right’ direction?
• We must find ways to make sure our designs and their evolution responds to the intended directionality of the system in a sustainable way (telos)
• What is my ‘place’ my ‘position’ in the space of societal change? And how can my own endeavor benefit the whole?
• We must find ways to understand and recognize each other across domains and paradigms, and accommodate our divergent priorities and intentionalities. {Goals, Objectives, Methods? Would @ and # planes of HashAt Space be a solution? - DVS}
• How can what others are doing benefit my own endeavor? And how can my own endeavor benefit others?
• We must find ways to exchange and cross pollinate experience and know-how across domains {Synchronisation of Associative Networks? - DVS}
• How to increase collective awareness and make ‘agency’ more effective at the collective level?

11. Addressing  the  challenges  of  social  change  from  a  systemic  perspective 

How to increase collective awareness and make ‘agency’ more effective at the collective level?

12. Pattern & Pattern Languages

They addresses the three dimensions of change in each of their specific domains

13. Systemic elements in Pattern Languages

Christopher Alexander was on a quest to integrate complexity into Design.

In the words of Alexander: “The creation of fine-tuned, well-adapted Complexity must now take shape as a major topic of scientific thought. Our ability or failure to master this science is crucial to our survival”

However, design patterns as problem solution constructs became a way to reduce complexity while we need more than ever patterns to support our understanding of complexity and that can help us expand  opportunities and alternatives.

The recent decades achieved a greater maturity in the understanding of organized complexity allowing us to better see the rich set of dynamics and effects produced by systems. We need to bring these insights into pattern languages. {Can we discuss slides 13- as applied to solving a particular problem please? - DVS}   

14. Systemic elements in Pattern Languages

Alexander asked “what is the criteria of success for a complex system?”

We design systems, over time they take their own dynamics, and we have little means to monitor the evolution of systems in relation to their intended directionality.

We do need to introduce and build a transversal knowledge for the navigation and orientation of systems along their evolution in time.

Patterns are a critical tool in this, in the possibility they embody to connect general abstract theory to the local practice across contexts and cultures. {Conventional scientific method and practice suggests existence of multiple and "contradicting" hypothesis and theories applicable to each particular problem: Incompleteness Theorem. Compared to the conventional scientific practice, STA postulates co-emergence of concepts and experience as well as theories and languages and the systems as such that are created/adjusted to suit processes of consideration and solving of each particular problem at each given period of time (considering Scientific Knowledge Half-Life Time Is 50 Years and is expected to be significantly dropped along with our journey to "Singularity"). In other way, patterns created for consideration of a problem in one cultural environment can be observed at different cultural environment, or not. What seems being a pattern can well be a critically different thing, see patterns in living creatures mimicking appearance and even behavior of other organisms, elements of flora and other elements of nature. - DVS}

Patterns can be connected through systemic elements, which also establish a semantic connection across pattern languages and domains of practice.

{In other words, criterion of success for a complex system is following it's intended directionality? - DVS}

15. Systems adapt and evolve in time

There is a correlation between structural aspects of a system, the behavior of it, and the possible ways in which it evolves its initial behavior over time, that pattern languages can encode and decode in order to orient and evolve our designs.

16. Towards a 4th Generation of Pattern Languages

Adapted from Takashi Iba – Comparison among generations of Pattern Language

17. Patterns & Pattern Languages as a response

How can this be put to work so that these various pattern languages interconnect, ‘serve’ and complement each other?

18. PLAST: a collective interpretation and systemic orientation System

19. How PLAST Operates