Belated 75th Birthday Reflections - On Systems Thinking and Modeling, Pope Francis and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.

Last year, on my 74^th birthday, also celebrated in Singapore, I reflected on the fact 74 years old  was about the same age that Deng Xiaoping consolidated power in China.  Within a few years, his leadership had placed China on a trajectory that would make it one of the world’s two leading economic powers. 

Last Tuesday, on my 75^th birthday, it was perhaps appropriate that I would “celebrate” by spending the day writing a concise summary – the most recent of many I have written – setting forth principles for crafting public-policy oriented system dynamics models.  In the evening, following a discussion of mathematical subroutines that play a role in my students’ present modeling projects, I presented the principles I had first begun drafting several days earlier when the need to do so awakened me at 5:30 in the morning.

The exercise was motivated by an exchange with an outstanding former student who called seeking feedback on important public policy modeling project in which she was playing a leading role.  Her questions made it clear that she had forgotten one of the most fundamental principles of system dynamics model building:  one always models a problem; one never models a system. 

I was reminded of an observation that system dynamics guru Professor Jay W. Forrester has made in writing and in person on many occasions.  By the time students reach graduate school, most have experienced years or creativity-stifling training in linear causal thinking.  They have had little training – mostly none at all – that would prepare them to understand a world beset by problematic behaviors produced by complex systems comprising stocks, flows, and feedback loops.  Both Deng Xiaopeng and Lee Kuan Yew, among their many gifts, possessed this fundamental understanding.  Millions of Singaporeans and many more millions or Chinese have been given opportunities to live better lives because of this.

Here is a listing of the major points, outlining the somewhat passionate appeal I made to my students about the importance of good modeling practice

¨  system dyanmics modeling is, by no means the appropriate method to address every public policy problem.

¨  a system dynamics modeling project often begins with a story, though some do not

¨  What motivates us to undertake a system dynamics modeling project?   We are seeking answers to questions about why some probematic behavior has occurred, is occurring or may occur in the future.

¨  A generic model or generic structures that highlight important dynamics can be important points of departure

¨  In general, the better that a theoretically grounded model, supported by data, reproduces the past the more confident we are about its usefulness in helping us to anticipate and shape the future.  of the two, theoretical grounding must precede reproduction.

¨  The issue of “validity” or “confidence building” cannot be separated from the audience to whom the model is primarily addressed.  “Validity” means different things to different audiences.

¨  However as Donella Meadows emphasized in her writings (cf. the Electronic Oracle) and in her Life, the unquestioned integrity of the model builder should always provide a context within which assertions of validity are grounded.

When I awoke on Wednesday morning, and tuned my iPhone to the BBC, I learned that God had given the Roman Catholic Church a new leader and provided me with a potential new role model.  Cardinal Jorge Mario Bengoglio was 76 years old as he became the spiritual leader of the world’s Roman Catholics.  Apart from his age, I was heartened by fact that Cardinal Bengoglio was a Jesuit, a holy order for which I have great respect.  However he did not chose to name himself Pope Ignatius Loyola (after the founder of the Jesuit order)  but Pope Francis (after St. Francis of Assisi).  I learned that after his election, Pope Francis stopped off at the hotel where he had been staying to personally pay the bill and pick up his baggage.

But was Pope Francis, like Lee Kuan Yew and Deng Xiaoping an instinctive systems thinker?  The Jesuits are known for independent thinking and intellectual brilliance.  Seeking evidence, I turned to the pages of Saint Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises (The P.J. Kennedy & Sons. Edition, 1909 – On Line)  I spent more of the evening than I had intended reading (or in some cases skimming) the entire 100 pp. of this remarkable, influential document.  There was much about spirituality and meditative practice, akin to Buddhist texts I have been reading but – candidly – little about systems thinking.  The only passages I found were these.

ELEVENTH RULE (p. 98) To praise positive and scholastic learning. Because, as it is

more proper to the Positive Doctors, as St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory,

etc., to move the heart to love and serve God our Lord in everything; so it is more

proper to the Scholastics, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and to the Master of the

Sentences, etc., to define or explain for our times the things necessary for eternal

salvation; and to combat and explain better all errors and all fallacies. For the

Scholastic Doctors, as they are more modern, not only help themselves with the true

understanding of the Sacred Scripture and of the Positive and holy Doctors, but

also, they being enlightened and clarified by the Divine virtue, help themselves by

the Councils, Canons and Constitutions of our holy Mother the Church. 

Among those listed, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, the two whose works I know best, would certainly qualify as systems thinkers.

In a section entitled contemplation to gain love  (p. 64) I discovered this passage.

FIRST POINT. The First Point is, to bring to memory the benefits received, of

Creation, Redemption and particular gifts, pondering with much feeling how much

God our Lord has done for me, and how much He has given me of what He has, and

then the same Lord desires to give me Himself as much as He can, according to His

Divine ordination.

And with this to reflect on myself, considering with much reason and justice,

what I ought on my side to offer and give to His Divine Majesty, that is to say,

everything that is mine, and myself with it, as one who makes an offering with

much feeling:

SECOND POINT. The second, to look how God dwells in creatures, in the

elements, giving them being, in the plants vegetating, in the animals feeling in

them, in men giving them to understand:21 and so in me, giving me being,

animating me, giving me sensation and making me to understand;  likewise

making a temple of me, being created to the likeness and image of His Divine

Majesty; reflecting as much on myself in the way which is said in the first Point, or

in another which I feel to be better. In the same manner will be done on each Point

which  follows.

THIRD POINT. The third, to consider how God works and labors for me in all

things created on the face of the earth -- that is, behaves like one who labors -- as in

the heavens, elements, plants, fruits, cattle, etc., giving them being, preserving

them, giving them vegetation and sensation, etc.

Then to reflect on myself…

Will Pope Francis prove to be a systems thinker and will be prove to be a role model for systems thinking in matters spiritual and temporal?  Will he transform the Roman Catholic Church spritually as Deng Xiaoping transformed China economically?  Will he serve as a useful role model for me and one that I can share with my students?

And what will it be my karma to contribute, in the years remaining to me, however many those may be?

What an odd 75^th birthday reflection this became. 

           

OBSERVE THE WORLD CAREFULLY BEFORE THEORIZING

This was a note I shared with my "Modeling of Dynamic Systems" class at Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy the other day. The course's subject matter is the methodology and applications of System Dynamics Modeling developed by Professor Jay W Forrester at MIT, beginning in the 1950s. The best known application is the book, The Limits to Growth, The 40th aniversary of this landmark book, authored by the late Donella Meadows and others, is being celebrated this year.

Dear Class Members,

As you know, I shared an excerpt from Tuesday night’s lecture notes with systems engineering and system dynamics friends, evoking most interesting responses. As I was reflecting on this, the thought that titles this message came to me. It is based on my studies of Urban Dynamics and a classic which I have not assigned, but which, like Urban Dynamics, had life-changing implications for me: Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior. This latter work, which may be the best book on decision-making ever written, grew from field studies of municipal budgeting in Illinois. Forrester’s Urban Dynamics grew from conversations with mayors as you know. His Market Growth model grew from conversations with business executives.

I checked out references to Simon on the web because I wanted to get the exact publication date of Administrative Behaviour - 1947 - which grew from Professor Simon’s dissertation research. Even though I know Simon’s work well, and both reading his work and my very few personal interactions with him were life-changing for me, I was amazed by the compilation of achievements that Wikipedia provided. Since we have spoken frequently about Professor Forrester, but only rarely about Professor Simon, I wanted to share the compilation with you. JR.

Simon was among the founding fathers of several of today's important scientific domains, including artificial intelligence, information processing, decision-making, problem-solving, attention economics, organization theory, complex systems, and computer simulation of scientific discovery. He coined the terms bounded rationality and satisficing, and was the first to analyze the architecture of complexity and to propose a preferential attachment mechanism to explain power law distributions.^[citation needed^]

He also received many top-level honors later in life. These include: the ACM's Turing Award for making "basic contributions to artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and list processing" (1975); the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics "for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations" (1978); the National Medal of Science (1986); and the APA's Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology (1993).

As a testament to his interdisciplinary approach, Simon was affiliated with such varied Carnegie Mellon departments as the School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, Departments of Philosophy, Social and Decision Sciences, and Psychology.

Could there be a member of our class who willl make similar contributions to those of Professor Simon or Professor Forrester in their lives?

Sabbatical Proposal, Part I

It is a practice in many University Communities that faculty members may take a sabbatical every seven years.  In the preface to my most recent book, but one, Paradise Poisoned: Learning About Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka’s Civil Wars, I wrote this:  

Over the project’s life, additional time for writing was provided by three Sabbatical Leaves.  Academic professionals accept this time off - one year out of every seven - as a right, but such an entitlement is unknown, of course, in most professions.  I consider this tradition a great privilege and am grateful that the Trustees of American University continue to sustain it.

Not only are sabbaticals unknown in most professions, they are often viewed with a mixture of envy and resentment.  I am presently in the process of requesting a sabbatical, after eight years as Director of American University’s Center for Teaching Excellence. The process is elaborate and bureaucratic, as, indeed, it should be. At its heart is the ‘Sabbatical Proposal.’  I thought it might help throw light on the practice of sabbaticals if I shared my proposal.  Since the proposal is long, I will post it in three parts of which this is the first. Whether or not it dispels any feelings of envy and resentment will be for those holding such feelings within themselves to judge.  The first proposal excerpt follows.

Reinvigorating my System Dynamics modeling proficiency

Much of my professional work has used System Dynamics modeling as a point of departure. System Dynamics, developed by MIT’s Professor Jay W. Forrester, is both a theory that describes the behavior of complex dynamic systems and a modeling methodology. Nonlinear differential equations and control theory provide the mathematical foundations for the approach.  My contributions to urban systems analysis, my coauthored first model of eutrophication in a large fresh water ecosystem (Lake Erie), which became the basis of a major government study, and my global modeling work, under the auspices of the Club of Rome, were all based on System Dynamics theory and modeling methodologies.  During my 1983-1984 sabbatical year, I worked with Jay W. Forrester at MIT as a staff member of his US National Economic Model project and was chosen by Professor Forrester to make a major presentation of model results to the project’s corporate sponsors group. 

In 1984, with the publication of Ending Hunger: An Idea Whose Time has Come completed I began work on a new research path, focusing on dynamic linkages between conflict and development.  Completion and empirical testing of the model required nearly three years of intense work (I was between marriages for most of this period).  Model results, with applications to dynamic linkages between conflict and development in Argentina and Mexico were described in a seminal 1987 Futures article, ‘Violence and Repression: Unexamined Factors in Development Planning.’  This modeling work provided the theoretical basis for numerous other publications, including my most recent book, Paradise Poisoned: Learning about Conflict, Development and Terrorism from Sri Lanka’s Civil Wars (2005) and the Sinhala and Tamil abridgments, Lessons from the War: Consequences and Failures (2008).

Sustaining proficiency in a modeling methodology is like sustaining proficiency playing a musical instrument.  It requires regular practice.  Staying proficient at the cutting edge requires not only regular practice but disciplined engagement with an evolving literature.  During my tenure as CTE Director, I continued to teach System Dynamics Modeling to a small but enthusiastic clientele, but have not sustained my proficiency.  During my sabbatical year, I intend to change this by devoting a significant number of hours each week to daily practice.  

But practice without a specific project to practice on is less motivating.  Fortunately, I have such a project.  Some years ago, Professor Jay W. Forrester became briefly interested in international development issues.  He produced a prototypical generic model of development dynamics similar to his models of Urban Dynamics and World Dynamics.  I have Professor Forrester’s notes on this model, which exist as an unpublished MIT System Dynamics Group D-memo.  These notes will be used as the basis for a generic development model, focusing on the dynamics of sustainable poverty alleviation at the national level.  The model will also draw upon my own model of conflict and development and on the path-breaking dissertation research of my doctoral student, Mark Hamilton, on the role played by youth militant movements in the Global South.  This generic model will then be applied to a country-level, policy oriented case study focusing on the dynamics of sustainable poverty alleviation in Singapore.