Emergent systems are basically those complex and beautiful entities that emerge from a few basic principles. This is a first seeding at communicating the how to’s of cultivating an emergent system state of awareness using some basic design principles and practices. The principles are inspired by Agile Development, Permaculture design thinking and Deep Ecology. The practices are inspired by Ancient wisdom teachings from across indigenous, western and eastern cultures. The principles and practices are also borne of long periods of observing and exploring how to embrace deep connections within the vital natural systems found in my family, my community and professional relationships and ultimately in my garden as well as forests, mountains, and tidal pools in the bioregion that I call home.
In the world view taken which is the first step towards perceiving as an artist, thinking as an ecologist, and acting with clarity and wisdom, everything including individual human beings, our technology and the organizational groups in which we cluster are considered to be within Nature. Indeed any eco-system provides the inspiration and insight needed to cultivate this state of awareness and to understand oneself as an ecosystem that exists in interdependent relationships with many ‘other’ entities and ecosystems.
Many believe that humans exist outside of Nature, hence the term natural resources. In this very different Cartesian-Industrial world view Nature is something to be exploited. Interestingly we also use the term “Human Resources.” which indicates how many traditional organizations and managers view the complex and elegant creatures that create the relationships which ‘enliven’ the organizations themselves.
The Emergent way of seeing and being is ultimately a humanist approach that embraces Deep Ecology.
Here are some of the Emergent Design principles to keep in mind if you want to align with that which designs with emergence in mind.
- Design from top down and from bottom up simultaneously – appreciate a hierarchy of information but always be open to the design’s desire to emerge spontaneously
- Practice Surrender – Let the design incorporate you into it.
- Practice Patience and Careful Observation – Consider the design as an entity that is attempting to emerge into conceptual reality from a more complex biologic reality– listen and observe carefully to all participants, apparent set backs and spontaneous opportunities. Be patient and observant – let the design reveal itself according to its timeline. Only begin articulating the design when you see or experience the patterns of the system underlying the Emergent Design.
- Practice cultivating adaptive methods rather than prescriptive methods. Once the Emergent Design is engaged then it will exert force on the learning system and the constituent elements that brought the system and design into being. To ensure continued health vitality, resilience and deepening wisdom in the system by encouraging adaptation to changing conditions within the system, discourage reliance on highly prescriptive methods that typically introduces excess rigidity into the design. Safety and rigidity are useful only as a catalytic structure for emergence.
- Practice Continuous Improvement – No sacred cows – Be open to questioning the assumptions behind your conceptualization of the Emergent Design.
- Rely heavily on intuition to know when the design is good enough and when it calls for change.
- Engage rational thinking only to get to the next step but not to make critical decisions.
- Encourage nested wisdom feedback loops and cascades.
- Focus on people and their relationships rather than process – cultivate intelligence and wisdom in human ecosystem of the endeavour in order to act with clarity and decisiveness. Product=Process=Producer. Process is the guide. It is the wisdom and quality of relationships that determines the usefulness of what is produced.
- Cultivate mutualistic respectful relationships; however be aware that negative feedback loops and frictional forces are often critical to the health of a system.
- Seek to become aware of and engage wholes and nested networks of relationships rather than causal relationships and linear hierarchies.
- Seek to resolve or at least accept apparent paradoxes in the design. Paradox indicates the boundary of perception and the designer’s cognitive awareness. Paradox only exists as conflict between conceptual and biologic reality. The best conceptual designs will be close mimics of nature.
- Encourage rapid prototyping. Fail successfully and often.
- Seek slow small simple designs over fast, large, complex ones.
- Follow the basic law of emergence – simple principles can lead to the complex beautiful.
- Engage diversity.
- Seek insight and inspiration in the liminal and the perimeter.
- Enjoy the unexpected with out judgment.
Here are some practices to keep in consider if you want to incorporate emergent awareness into your cognitive toolkit:
- Spend time connecting with the growing living things.
- Treat your body and mind well – exercise, breathe with rhythm and deeply.
- Be committed to your practice – what ever gets you into the zone or flow – it can be in the art studio, running, meditating, whatever, but make it a priority to move into the place of timeless awareness on a daily basis.
- Be kind to others.
- Be kind to yourself.
- Work diligently.
- Play, Sing and Dance and don’t take yourself or your achievements too seriously.
An Emergent Manifesto of Emergent Design by Pravin Pillay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://emergentdesignsolutions.com/contact/.
