Narratives and transdisciplines for a post-industrial world

• Published in: Systems research and behavioral science 2006-09, Vol.23 (5), p.595-615
• Main Authors: Allen, T. F. H., Giampietro, Mario
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aristotelian causes; Behavioural sciences; Complex systems; constructivism; Cultural studies; holon; Human behaviour; Industrial development; Interdisciplinary research; Narratives; post-industrial society; post-normal science; Postmodernism; Studies; System theory; Systems analysis; Systems theory; Technological innovations; Technology
• ISSN: 1092-7026; 1099-1743
• DOI: 10.1002/sres.792

As society moves to a post‐industrial posture, technology rescales human activities into new contexts. A changed context makes meaning different. In that new setting, complexity appears because problems arise scaled outside prevailing disciplines. Without the conventions of established disciplines definitions are lost, and that causes complexity to arise in the equivocation that follows. Rosen suggests that complexity cannot be modelled, precisely because of uncertainty and contradiction, which can be defined away, but only at the loss of complexity. Paradigms work to facilitate modelling with narratives told to make complexity simple enough to model. Complexity disappears into mere complicatedness upon deciding what is significant as opposed to incidental, structural as opposed to dynamical, discontinuous versus continuous and rate‐independent rather than rate‐dependent. With those decisions in hand, one can create and test models to improve the meaning of narratives. Meaning is found in the plan embodied in the Aristotelian formal cause (e.g. DNA) and in the significance of whole structure in the final cause. Aristotle's material cause, the existence of the substance of the whole, is constructed by the interaction of the plan of the formal cause with the Aristotelian efficient cause of the driving gradient (e.g. food, energy). The narrative of the biological or social system moves forward each time an updated material cause forces change on the meaning of the final cause. Narratives can address complexity because they are not about objective reality, but are statements of what is significant. Narratives facilitate commensurate experience as humans construct a post‐industrial society, invoking post‐normal science and post‐modern postures. Transdisciplines face complexity until they self‐consciously develop a new story of their own. The complexity arising from technological rescaling and redefinition of our world can be addressed with sophisticated use of narrative, a central device in systems science. This paper presents a protocol for employing narrative with precision. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.