Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
Unrau, Mike
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
This manuscript-style dissertation assists to fill the gap in the social innovation literature of social intervention methods that account for worldview bias and the nonlinear dynamical processes of social systems innovation. I investigate a critical consciousness approach to worldview bias and link the result to a nonlinear dynamical approach to creativity in systems transformation so that social innovators may uncover novel transitions in systems dynamics and generate creative solution spaces for beneficial change. The dissertation results in a transdisciplinary theoretical framework for “systemic-dynamic creativity” and four publishable manuscripts on key topics that help guide changemakers in an internal and external reflexive process on social innovation. In the first manuscript I investigate an “internal” approach to Freire’s critical consciousness and how it relates to a complex systems approach to creative consciousness. I show that by making novel distinctions between static and dynamic worldviews, social innovators may become mindfully aware and transform internal bias. In the next manuscript, I move to an “external” approach and examine nonlinear dynamical systems theory to identify the “birthplace” of creativity as it arises applies to multiple systems. I produce a novelty assessment that can aid changemakers in finding “transition points” for systemic innovation, and offer four preconditions to novelty to leverage such points in a Meadows-like intervention toward systemic change. In the third manuscript, I take this nonlinear understanding, apply it to social systems, and find that Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” resembles entropic processes of disordering also found in collective worldviews. I show that the oppositional “negentropic” processes may transform social complexities toward the ordering of creative solutions. Such “internal” and “external” approaches to social change are then synthesized in the fourth manuscript, where I build upon other social innovation methodologies (e.g., Checkland’s soft systems methodology and “social labs”) to generate a method informed by nonlinear dynamics and worldview bias considerations for social innovation intervention. The four publishable manuscripts contribute to scholarship on creativity and social innovation by offering a conception of “creative critical consciousness,” a low-recurrence approach to novelty generation, and a practical social innovation method for changemakers to use when addressing complex social systems challenges.
THE CREATIVITY OF SOCIAL INNOVATION: A COMPLEX SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL SYSTEMS INTERVENTION by Mike Unrau A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) December 2021 © Mike Unrau, 2021 ii COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a dissertation entitled: The Creativity of Social Innovation: A Complex Systems Framework for Social Systems Intervention submitted by Mike Unrau in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies. Dr. Ashok Mathur, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies . Co-Supervisor Dr. Greg Gerrard, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies . Co-Supervisor Dr. John Graham, School of Social Work . Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Mike Evans, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences . University Examiner Dr. Dan McCarthy, University of Waterloo . External Examiner Additional Committee Members include: Dr. Darcy Riddell . Supervisory Committee Member August 3rd, 2021 . (Date) iii ABSTRACT This manuscript-style dissertation assists to fill the gap in the social innovation literature of social intervention methods that account for worldview bias and the nonlinear dynamical processes of social systems innovation. I investigate a critical consciousness approach to worldview bias and link the result to a nonlinear dynamical approach to creativity in systems transformation so that social innovators may uncover novel transitions in systems dynamics and generate creative solution spaces for beneficial change. The dissertation results in a transdisciplinary theoretical framework for “systemic-dynamic creativity” and four publishable manuscripts on key topics that help guide changemakers in an internal and external reflexive process on social innovation. In the first manuscript I investigate an “internal” approach to Freire’s critical consciousness and how it relates to a complex systems approach to creative consciousness. I show that by making novel distinctions between static and dynamic worldviews, social innovators may become mindfully aware and transform internal bias. In the next manuscript, I move to an “external” approach and examine nonlinear dynamical systems theory to identify the “birthplace” of creativity as it arises applies to multiple systems. I produce a novelty assessment that can aid changemakers in finding “transition points” for systemic innovation, and offer four preconditions to novelty to leverage such points in a Meadows-like intervention toward systemic change. In the third manuscript, I take this nonlinear understanding, apply it to social systems, and find that Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” resembles entropic processes of disordering also found in collective worldviews. I show that the oppositional “negentropic” processes may transform social complexities toward the ordering of creative solutions. Such “internal” and “external” approaches to social change are then synthesized in the fourth manuscript, where I build upon other social innovation methodologies (e.g., Checkland’s soft systems methodology and “social labs”) to generate a method informed by nonlinear dynamics and worldview bias considerations for social innovation intervention. The four publishable manuscripts contribute to scholarship on creativity and social innovation by offering a conception of “creative critical consciousness,” a low-recurrence approach to novelty generation, and a practical social innovation method for changemakers to use when addressing complex social systems challenges. iv LAY SUMMARY Methods on social innovation generally lack a critical examination of how “worldviews” bias the way complex issues like climate change and discrimination are understood. They also miss out on a “nonlinear dynamics” perspective of how creativity arises in social systems. To meet this need, I offer a theoretical framework and four publishable “manuscripts” to help guide changemakers on a reflective journey from their internal experience of worldviews to an external understanding of how social systems change. The first is about our internal creative experience of the world and discusses how to bring awareness to unconscious biases with a critical perspective. In the next two manuscripts, I analyze how creativity arises in nonlinear dynamical ways across multiple systems (e.g., like in nature and society). The last manuscript synthesizes the previous three and offers an updated method on social interventions to incorporate a critical and creative complex systems view for social change. v PREFACE The entire contents of this dissertation are of original authorship, except the manuscript entitled, “The cultural evolution of creative ideas and social innovations: A complex systems approach,” which was co-authored with Dr. Liane Gabora (UBC Okanagan). We jointly wrote the introduction and conclusion, and I wrote paragraphs 12–32; thus, the total original contribution is about 76% of the text. The entirety of that manuscript, including Dr. Gabora’s contribution, is included in the chapter titled “Manuscript #3” (authorship is distinguished in the footnotes). Copyright information: Unrau, M. & Gabora, L. (2021). The cultural evolution of creative ideas and social innovations: A complex systems approach. In G. Cattani & M. Mastrogiorgio (Eds.) New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation: Novelty Creation in a Serendipitous Economy (pp. 185–210). Oxford University Press. This dissertation was made possible with funding from the University of British Columbia, Canada, and through Alberta and Canada Student Grants. I also received funding from Mitacs Accelerate for a year-long empirical study; however, due to a serious car accident where I was a passenger, I had to return the funding and continue my research with a theoretical focus (details are covered in the Conclusion chapter). vi TABLE OF CONTENTS COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION ........................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. iii LAY SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................... iv PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ ix LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... x GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................................. xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... xviii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................. xx INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 Overview of Study ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1.1 An Introductory Narrative ........................................................................................ 1 1.1.2 Background of the Problem ...................................................................................... 3 1.1.3 Contexts of Research ................................................................................................ 7 a. Personal and Professional Context ................................................................... 10 b. Research Outline .............................................................................................. 12 Research Focus ........................................................................................................................... 18 1.2.1 The Nature of a “Problem” ..................................................................................... 18 1.2.2 Problem Statements, Research Questions, and Purpose ......................................... 20 Research Approach ..................................................................................................................... 22 1.3.1 Research Background and Worldview Bias ........................................................... 22 1.3.2 Transdisciplinarity, Multiparadigms and Complementarism ................................. 24 1.3.3 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 27 Organization of Dissertation ....................................................................................................... 31 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .............................................................................................. 35 A Review of the Conceptual Background and Literature ........................................................... 35 2.1.1 Background ............................................................................................................. 35 2.1.2 Conceptual Review ................................................................................................. 37 a. A Qualitative Approach to Complex Systems Science .................................... 38 b. Generalizability ................................................................................................ 40 c. Transsystemic Research and a Five-Point Metric ............................................ 42 2.1.3 A Social Systems Review ....................................................................................... 47 a. Worldview Bias and Metric ............................................................................. 48 b. Social Systems & Collective Worldviews ....................................................... 53 c. Social Systems Intervention ............................................................................. 56 2.1.4 Complexity, Creativity, and Social Innovation ...................................................... 60 a. Complexity ....................................................................................................... 61 vii b. Creativity: A Contextual Review ..................................................................... 63 c. The Four Preconditions of Novelty .................................................................. 67 d. Social (Systems) Innovation ............................................................................ 72 A Systemic-Dynamic Creativity Framework .............................................................................. 78 2.2.1 Creativity as a Driver .............................................................................................. 78 2.2.2 Creativity as Tension and Transformation ............................................................. 79 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 86 2.3.1 Creativity as Dynamic Transformation .................................................................. 86 MANUSCRIPT #1 ........................................................................................................................ 88 Systems in Internal Process: Creativity as Mindful Change ....................................................... 88 3.1.1 Background and Narrative ...................................................................................... 88 The Manuscript: Creative Critical Consciousness ...................................................................... 93 3.2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 94 3.2.2 Creative Consciousness .......................................................................................... 98 3.2.3 Critical Consciousness .......................................................................................... 104 3.2.4 Creative Critical Mindfulness ............................................................................... 112 3.2.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 117 MANUSCRIPT #2 ...................................................................................................................... 119 Systems in External Complexity: Novelty Generation ............................................................. 119 4.1.1 Background and Narrative .................................................................................... 119 The Manuscript: Novelty Generation and Assessment ............................................................. 123 4.2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 124 4.2.2 Contextualizing a Definition ................................................................................ 126 4.2.3 Causality and the Chance of Novelty ................................................................... 130 4.2.4 Nonlinear Dynamics, Bifurcation, and the Preconditions for Novelty ................ 135 4.2.5 Novelty in Nonlinear Dynamical Processes of Low-Recurrence ......................... 139 4.2.6 Novelty Assessment: A Generalizable and Complex Systems Approach ............ 143 a. Subjective Quality in Novelty Assessment .................................................... 145 b. An Objective State Form of Novelty Assessment ......................................... 148 c. Heuristic for Novelty Assessment .................................................................. 151 4.2.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 153 Application to a Social Context ................................................................................................ 154 4.3.1 A Negentropic View of Social Systems & Collective Worldviews ..................... 154 MANUSCRIPT #3 ...................................................................................................................... 160 Systems in Social Complexity: Social Systems Innovation ...................................................... 160 5.1.1 Background and Narrative .................................................................................... 160 The Manuscript: The Cultural Evolution of Creative Ideas and Social Innovations ................ 163 5.2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 164 5.2.2 In What Sense Does Technology Evolve? ........................................................... 164 5.2.3 Creativity: The Process That Drives Cultural Evolution ...................................... 167 viii 5.2.4 How Creativity Drives Innovation in a Social System ......................................... 169 5.2.5 The Role of Creative Destruction ......................................................................... 171 5.2.6 An Economic Example and a Social Innovation Response .................................. 173 5.2.7 A Complex Systems Approach to Social Innovation and its Relationship to Worldviews ........................................................................................................... 176 5.2.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 183 MANUSCRIPT #4 ...................................................................................................................... 184 Systems in Social Intervention: A Methodology ...................................................................... 184 6.1.1 Background and Narrative .................................................................................... 184 The Manuscript: Social Innovation Intervention ..................................................................... 188 6.2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 189 6.2.2 A Creative and Critical Approach to Complex Systems ...................................... 199 6.2.3 Toward a Social Innovation Intervention Methodology (SIIM) .......................... 202 a. Seven Principles ............................................................................................. 205 b. The Process: Overview .................................................................................. 207 c. The Process #1: Inquiring .............................................................................. 208 d. The Process #2: Creating ............................................................................... 216 e. The Process #3: Iterating ................................................................................ 227 f. The Process #4: Implementing ....................................................................... 229 6.2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 230 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 232 7.1.1 Background and Research Overview ................................................................... 232 7.1.2 Research Findings and Contributions to Research ............................................... 234 7.1.3 Limitations of Research ........................................................................................ 241 7.1.4 Theoretical Implications ....................................................................................... 245 a. Transsystemic Research and Worldview Bias ............................................... 245 b. Toward a “Breakthrough” Theory of Novelty & TransdisciplinaryCreativity .............................................................................................................. 247 7.1.5 Future Research Direction .................................................................................... 250 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 254 APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................. 314 Appendix A. A List of Biases ............................................................................................. 314 Appendix B. Applied Example ........................................................................................... 316 a. The Report: Indicators for Social Innovation ................................................ 317 ix LIST OF TABLES The Table # refers to the chapter number, section, and subsection. Table 6.2.3.1. A table that compares Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), Social Labs, and the Social Innovation Intervention Methodology (SIIM) ................... 206 Table A.B.1. A Social Innovation Report of outcomes given to the town council of Bonavista, NL, of four key indicators or possible industries the town may want to support. ........................................................................................... 320 x LIST OF FIGURES The Figure # refers to the chapter number, section, and subsection. Figure 1.1.3.b. A graphical representation of the journey or “arc” of this dissertation ............................................................................................................. 13 Figure 1.4.1.a. An updated graphical representation of the arc of this dissertation ......... 33 Figure 2.1.2.c. A graphical view of hierarchical and heterarchical system ...................... 45 Figure 2.1.3.a. A graphical representation of the four “worldview biases”. .................... 52 Figure 2.1.4.d. A systemic view of social systems innovation and its variants ............... 74 Figure 2.1.4.d2. The four phases of social system transitions .......................................... 76 Figure 4.2.4.a. A graphic model of a noisy-state system far-from-equilibrium bifurcating, with a resulting microstates in low-recurrence ................................ 138 Figure 6.2.1.a. Spectrum of micro to macro elements of social innovation ................... 191 Figure 6.2.1.b. A visual representation of the four key “worldview biases” ................. 193 Figure 6.2.1.c. A graphical view a hierarchical and heterarchical system. .................... 198 Figure 6.2.3.a. The four phases of SSIM intervention. .................................................. 204 Figure 6.2.3.b. The four phases of the SIIM method occurring concurrently ................ 207 Figure 6.2.3.d. A time-scale graphic of a system moving toward a critical point, entering chaos and through dissipation ............................................................... 220 Figure 6.2.3.d2. An adaptive cycle, adapted to also indicate an entropic–negentropic relationship ...................................................................................... 221 Figure 6.2.3.d3. A SSIM innovation Model example .................................................... 226 Figure 7.1.4.b. The Transdisciplinary Approach to Creativity, within the Systemic-Dynamic Creativity Framework. ......................................................... 249 xi GLOSSARY The following glossary offers key terms found in this dissertation, both as a cursory overview of their meaning, but also with some basic literature review to contextualize the terms in order to understand how they are used and cited in this dissertation. The descriptions are slightly expanded to give the reader preparatory meaning, and to reduce cumbersome definition interjections within the main text. Changemaker: please see social innovator. Conscientization: please see critical consciousness. Creativity is a systemic and dynamic transformational process between two features of a system, and thus, it is the transitional driver across multiple systems (i.e., human and natural systems). While the “standard definition” of the term as it is found in the discipline of psychology describes creativity as novel and effective (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 92), I choose to use in this dissertation a transdisciplinary definition (see the Transdisciplinarity in chapter 1.3.2, and the Conclusion for further details) as part of the work’s overarching theme. * Please note, I use the term “creativity” inclusively, linked together by novelty with other terms such as “innovation” and “emergence.” While each term is distinct in its own separate definition (see Manuscript #2), I propose that creativity drives innovation and emergence and systemic change, and novelty is what makes creativity “new.” In this view, novelty, innovation and emergence are part of creativity. Creative destruction is a term proposed by economist Joseph A. Schumpeter (1943/2003) to describe the natural creative processes of destruction in systems. In economics, for example, it is a process that “incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one” (p. 83). In this dissertation, I liken creative destruction as a force similar to entropy (Schrödinger, 1944/1991), as in a disordering of systemic structures toward chaos. However, while I use the term “creative destruction” to refer to forces of destruction (which are also creative in their destructivity), I introduce a balancing term of oppositional tension called “restruction” (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 543). For a definition, please see below. Creative restruction is a term I use to refer to the dynamic forces of creation, or the ordering of systemic structures toward equilibrium. I use “restruction” as a combination of the words “restructuring” and “construction.” I make this choice to veer away from the philosophical underpinnings of constructionism while remaining inclusive of xii construction as a creative or generative process as in the “putting together of parts” (OED, 1893). I then merge the conceptual background of construction with the “rearrangement” or “restructuring” (OED, 2010) of previous material. Gabora contends that the restructuring of the mind’s contents through a honing process involves an associative mode of thought (2017, p. 1). This type of restructuring is creative. As such, I shall use the term restruction to be inclusive of construction and restructuring, and will use the term specifically to describe the creative part of the process of Schumpeter’s “creative destruction.” Critical consciousness, or conscientization (from the Spanish conscientização), is a term used primarily by pedagogical philosopher Paulo Freire (1970/2000); the term refers to “learning to perceive social, political and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (p. 35). Complementarism is a transdisciplinary approach to critical systems theory that finds the complementary strengths of different disciplines, paradigms, and worldviews to align each of them with the context of the situation to provide “the most suitable reasoning” (Flood, 1990, p. 203). Complexity refers to a dynamical relationship between interacting constituents of a system, and the dynamical interaction between the system and its environment, when causality is not linear and novel features arise due to the emergent features of self-organization (Cilliers, 1998, p. ix). The root of the word comes from the Latin complexus, which means woven and interlaced together into a single fabric (Morin, 2005, p. 2). In fact, one “of the characteristics of complexity is its unity in diversity” (Montuori & Purser, 1997, p. 10). Constructive-theoretical analysis is a term that I use to describe a multi-methodological heuristic that takes salient features of both constructive conceptual analysis (Kosterec, 2016, p. 221) and theoretical analysis (Jasso, 1988) to offer a four-step process to analyze pre-existing relations between concepts in a theoretical landscape with the proposition of generating new conceptual or theoretical material (see the Methodology in chapter 1.3.3 for further explication). Dowry death is the murder or suicide of a woman due to violence or harassment from the groom or groom’s family when a monetary wedding arrangement has not been fulfilled as expected (NCRB, 2019). A dowry is often described as a financial compensation by the bride’s family to the groom’s family for the lifetime expense in providing for the bride. Alternatively, it is a gift to honour the groom or a payment of “‘streedhan’ in lieu of her share of the family wealth at the time of her marriage” (Belur et al., 2014, p. 2). When the dowry is not paid satisfactorily upon the wedding day, sometimes harassment from the groom or his family increases until the bride commits suicide or is killed. The bride may not have much choice in whom she is marrying or the family she marries into, and the bride herself often plays no part in the fact that her family could not afford to assuage the demands of the groom’s family. xiii Entropy is “nature’s statistical tendency to disorder” (Wiener, 1950/1989, p. 28), and the term is associated with the second law of thermodynamics, which tells us that thermodynamic systems move toward maximum entropy (Clausius, 1867, p. 365). While entropy can be quantitatively measured, I use a qualitative heuristic approach that links science and the humanities. From this perspective, entropy is based on Weiner’s usage of the term to mean “disorder,” while also being inclusive of Shannon’s usage as “missing information,” “noise,” or the “uncertainty” in a system (Shannon & Weaver, 1949/1964, pp. 8, 11, 20). Entropy, negative: please see negentropy. Entropy, psychological refers to “the experience of conflicting perceptual and behavioral affordances” (Hirsh et al., 2012, p. 304), which describes the experience of uncertainty as anxiety, and how cognitive-behavioural systems attempt to dissipate entropy to more predictable, stable behavioural patterns, and thus seek a type of psychological equilibrium or balance. Gabora (2017, p. 10) proposes that psychological entropy is a key factor in how creativity arises in psychological systems. Heuristics are “rules of thumb that let one simplify a decision task or problem to make it more tractable. Their use typically does not guarantee that one will find the optimal or even any solution at all, but they can make practical the achievement of many tasks that would otherwise fall beyond the reach of human memory and cognition” (Langley, 2004, p. 461). While I do not use the term as Ulrich in his “Critical Heuristics” (Ulrich, 1987, p. 276), I will include in my usage the notion that Ulrich uses, which is an awareness of the normative evaluations being used for practical approximations. While there is criticism that suggests heuristics are an unreliable means of inference that limit knowledge making (Alfano, 2014, p. 107), others point out that heuristic-based inferences have shown remarkable accuracy in communication and perception (Bland, 2018, p. 1). I choose to use a heuristics approach because, “despite its imprecision, the field of heuristics is very rich and refers to experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery” (Martí et al., 2020, p. v). As Simonton (1999b) tells us, the creative endeavour does not depend on algorithmic problem-solving as much as heuristic principles (p. 66). Negentropy, or “negative entropy,” is the natural tendency of a system to avoid rapid entropic disorder and instead move toward “order” (Schrödinger, 1944/1991, pp. 70, 73). The term “negentropy” was introduced by Brillouin (1953/2004) after Schrödinger’s (p. 70) “negative entropy” concept, to describe the drive of life that evades entropy. I use “negentropy” as Schrödinger does, as a science-based heuristic and measure for order or the ordering principle of creativity as a “generative order” (Bohm, 1987, p. 192). However, negentropy as a term is not usually used as a formal scientific term, other than in regards to the free energy outside the system (i.e. Gibbs free energy; Gibbs, 1906, p. 50). Mahulikar and Herwig (2009) re-contextualized negentropy in terms of the entropy deficit with respect to the system’s surrounding chaos (p. 1943). xiv Novelty applies to the novel patterns, behaviours, processes, or functions, as well as novel structures, ideas, characteristics, or products (Martin et al., 2019, p. 2; Mayr, 1960, pp. 351–352; Wagner, 2010, p. R49). It is the “creation of new things, or new combinations via natural or human process, and innovation is the process whereby humans develop novelty” (Allen et al., 2014, p. 585; Allen & Holling, 2010). In this text I propose that novelty has both a quality and a state, that is, a qualifiable and quantifiable form. The quality of being new refers to the subjective features that society places on the novel form, and is a social construction limited by the worldviews of the observer and the domain and field in which the observation occurs (Csikszentmihalyi, 2015, p. 164). The state of being new is a mutually agreed objective observation of the difference or the comparison of current to past conditions in space and time, and thus measurable (see Manuscript #2 for further explication). Novelty is a term that is part of the definitions for creativity, innovation, and emergence. Social innovation is the “routines, resource and authority flows or beliefs of the social system” (Westley & Antadze, 2010, p. 2), which increases broader societal value in addressing a social challenge (Andrew & Klein, 2010; Caulier-Grice, Davies, Patrick, & Norman, 2012; Phills, Deiglmeier & Miller, 2008; Ward, 1903/1970). While I acknowledge that the term is often used to describe social entrepreneurial efforts like innovative technologies used in a social context, I use this term to describe the innovations that are implemented in social structures (i.e., in a systems innovation context). In general, I will use the term social systems innovation to describe the broad-scaled innovation of social systems, and the term social innovation to refer to the novel solutions in society (such as social ideas or social businesses) that generally benefit society as a whole. McGowan (2017) points out that not all social innovations are benevolent; some, like the “intelligence test” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, have challenging or even damaging outcomes. Social innovator, or Changemaker, are individuals or collectives with creative ideas who generally want to make holistic beneficial change in society by addressing complex challenges. They are agents or actors passively engaging in the world who stimulate social change as secondary or tertiary goals, but also may be active participants in thought-design processes that clearly articulate specific outcomes through interventions in social contexts. Social innovators can be those who make innovative changes in social structures through theoretical applications or practical know-how in the business, non-profit, and governmental sectors. This dissertation focuses on social innovators that address complex social challenges through broad-scale or systemic social change (i.e., in social systems innovations). System, is a conceptual structure that helps describe a boundaried grouping of relations between parts or constituents. Bertalanffy (1950) defines a system as a “complex of interacting elements” (p. 143), and offers a measure of quantitative aspects of those elements, from a functionalistic perspective of hard science. A xv transdisciplinary approach, however, considers more than a mono-paradigmatic interpretation of reality, and suggests that a system is a non-entity except as a concept framed by the observer (Cilliers, 1998, p. 4; Flood, 1990, p. 91). According to this view, a system is “a subjective reflection of the researcher’s observations and that, as a result, there are as many interpretations of a system as there are observers” (Rotmans & Loorbach, 2010, p. 114). A feminist epistemology similarly argues a subjective reflection through “situated knowledge:” knowing about any system is reflected through the location and perspective of the knower, and thus, knowledge is as diverse as each knower (Anderson, 2020, paras. 4–6). I investigate two broad categories of systems throughout the dissertation: human systems (i.e., psychological and social systems) and natural systems (i.e., living and non-living: ecological, biological, physical, and chemical systems). System, social, is a socially constructed conceptual structure about observed patterns of social relations. While patterns of relations do have implications and impacts in the physical world, such patterns are often believed to be real entities that are “out there” in an externalized world. Such relations can become objectified through a separated, divided, and categorized view of the world (Morin, 2008, pp. 46, 74, 90), which may ignore the natural interconnectedness of living and non-living things (Alteo, 2004, p. xiv; James, 1950, p. 110). James (1950, p. 181) tells us that such “separateness is in the brain-world” and thus disconnection is created through thought and concept rather than a real separation. Objectification of the world may lead to the belief of an external causality that is perceived of as inconsequential to the internal reality, and thus, imposes presuppositions hidden from conscious awareness. Relations might then be seen as absolutes with “means” leading to an “end”, which are value-laden in evaluative contexts and deterministically applied with positivistic rationality (Flood, 1990, p. 168). When social systems are thought of as “real,” the taken-as-given assumption is that they may be engineered to work “better” (Checkland, 2000, p. S17), and thus they may be actioned as “real” without checking normative assumptions. This approach is particularly challenging in society, when the “constituents” of the system are human beings with internal complex histories, identities, and worldviews. The challenges of a “systemology” of thinking has led to a contemporary rejection of social systems science due to negative connotations associated with the term “system,” because it is linked with “rigidity, constraint, impenetrability, insensitivity, inhumanity” (Schwanitz, 1995, p. 137) and other semantics of a physicalist-only or a predominantly functionalist worldview. Flood explores a critical perspective of social systems in his Liberating Systems Theory (1990, pp. 124-130). Transdisciplinarity occurs in the coordination of the disciplines and interdisciplines, and a transdisciplinary approach is at once between, across, and beyond all disciplines (Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39). It is an organizational system in academia that is, in effect, an emergent process of meaning-making as a multilevel, multigoal system that embraces the multitude of epistemic patterns across disciplines (Jantsch, 1972, pp. 16–17). It could be said that it is used by deviant inter-disciplinarians (Fuller, 2013, p. 1900). xvi Transsystemic research, as I propose in this dissertation, is an approach based in complex systems theory that looks specifically at the gap between, across, and beyond systems (Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39). I use the term based on McGill University’s transsystemic learning model (Bedard, 2001, pp. 237–297). I use the term in two distinct ways: (1) of system-relations through a multisystemic and interconnected approach to complex systems that acknowledges hybridity and unmeasurable system dynamics across, between, and beyond traditional system boundaries; (2) as a critical study of those systems, including a pluralistic, cosmopolitan, and dialogic interactive approach to understanding systems. Thus, transsystemic research acknowledges that systems are socially constructed observable patterns rather than concrete realities while not deterministically equalizing general contexts across systems (Flood, 1990; Jukier, 2017; Ulrich, 1987; Walby, 2007). The earliest usage of the term “trans-systemic,” as I will be using it, was in Systemic Causation by James Austin (1978, p. 86). Worldview, is an individual’s set of associative pathways and networks of weaving narratives and concepts in an integrating and self-organizing web of understandings about the world (Aerts et al., 2009, p. 434; Gabora & Smith, 2018, p. 5). The term comes from the German Weltanschauung, which was coined by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement (Kant, 1790/1987, pp. 111–112) “for an intellectual conception of the universe from the perspective of a human knower” (Naugle, 2002, p. 59). Heidegger (1982) tells us that a worldview is “a self-realized, productive as well as conscious way of apprehending and interpreting the universe of beings” (p. 4), which generally attempts to create a unitary total historical perspective of one’s mind and philosophy on life. It can also be described as a “map of reality” (Hiebert, 2008, p. 15) that is “based on presuppositions that are regarded by its exponents as, at least, reasonable, and, more boldly, as firmly established or even indubitable” (Baxter, 2007, p. 1). Ultimately, a worldview translates the experiential into the cognitive, drawing upon the everyday ingredients of one’s life, such as one’s parents, friends, the environment, media, literature, education, religion, or polities, to contextualize and frame the ingredients into a constructed sense of meaning (Baxter, 2007, p. 1). Worldview, collective, is a term I use to describe a collective of the individual worldviews of a group or society and their connected web of interrelations, as opposed to a single entity worldview operating independently (such as a grand worldview, grand narrative, or metanarrative—see below; Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. xxiv). Here, the term “collective” is not meant to indicate collectivism, nor any political structure. It is instead used to refer to a multitude that includes the plurality of all actual variations of individual worldviews within it (Aerts et al., 1994, p. 21; Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). Worldview, grand, is a term I use to describe a single common worldview of a group or collective that can be categorized and grouped per the community, culture, religion, philosophy, economy, nationality, spirituality, and linguistic structure, etc., or other “in-group” norms. It is similar to a grand narrative or metanarrative xvii of a group or culture, in the paradigmatic sense, as a “big story” or shared belief about the world by a group (although socially constructed from other worldviews) and is consciously or unconsciously used to legitimate knowledge about the world as a truth (Buchanan, 2018, p. 318; Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. xxiv). Here, I differentiate a “grand worldview” from a “collective worldview”, where a grand worldview is a belief structure shared by many about the world, such as Marxism or Christianity, rather than a collective of individual worldviews. Grand worldviews have had significant impact. For example, a eurowestern colonial grand worldview sees the world as being a resource to be colonized, exploited for specific (individual or national) gain, and as such a logic of hierarchy justifies conquest and theft (Freeland, 2021, p. 3). A mechanistic worldview may see natural and social systems as things that can be “broken” and thus “fixed.” Other grand worldviews, such as in several Buddhist cultures, tell us all of life is interconnected. As the 14th Dalai Lama says, “Inter-dependence, of course, is a fundamental law of nature. Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness” (Gyatso, n.d., para. 9). A similar grand worldview also exists in some Indigenous cultures. For example, in the Nuu-chah-nulth language, “heshook-ish tsawalk means ‘everything is one.’ Heshook-ish tsawalk is a Nuu-chah-nulth perspective that is inclusive of all reality, both physical and metaphysical…. Heshook-ish tsawalk poses the theoretical proposition that everything is one. Thus it is called the theory of Tsawalk” (Alteo, 2004, p. xi). Worldview bias is a term that I use in the context of complex thinking to describe overall biased, favoured, or privileged views of the world that individuals or groups form for a clear understanding of reality. Worldview biases arise in four main areas of understanding when an individual or group: (i) furthers inequity; (ii) sees the system through a single paradigm; (iii) views reality from an objectivist- or subjectivist-only ontology; and (iv) assumes systems are either causally deterministic or stochastic. When biased worldviews are relied upon or identified with, decisions are made on socially constructed inferential assumptions and presuppositions, which can hinder a solution-making process (Dörner, 1997; Hovmand, 2013, p. 2; Senge, 1990, p. 370), because they “feed back” the consequences of actions into the system at an exponential rate that might even escalate the original problem trying to be addressed into a disaster (Hovmand, 2013, p. 2). See the section on Worldview Bias for further explication and its associated worldview bias metric. xviii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was written for individuals who want to make change that is not categorized by siloed disciplines, and who are open to exploring the interconnections between philosophical, psychological, sociological, and scientific views of reality. It offers a “complex unity” way of seeing the world that recognizes a deep drive of creativity and does not see only through limiting lenses of separation and division. To these individuals and groups, the social innovators, changemakers, and creators who have and are already working hard to inspire, initiate, inquire, and intervene in complex social systems in order to bring greater health, interconnectivity, and humanity to the challenges we face I write this dissertation, that we may all more equitably thrive in this world. I would like to acknowledge the traditional territories on which I have worked as an uninvited settler scholar, specifically three territories which include regions now known as Calgary, Alberta, St. Catharines, Ontario, and Kelowna, British Columbia. I acknowledge and send appreciation to the Blackfoot Nations, the Sarcee Dene of Tsuut’ina and the Stoney Nakoda of Morley, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta, Canada. I would like to acknowledge and thank the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee people, whose traditional territory is covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and who have traditionally made their homes in what is now known as southern Ontario. I would also like to acknowledge and send gratitude to the Syilx (Okanagan) Peoples, who have lived on the unceded territory that is now Kelowna, British Columbia long before settlers were ever there. Importantly, I would like to thank my co-supervisors who, despite joining me on an unknown journey of seemingly disparate interests, supported my direction with curiosity and generosity. Ashok, your support and dedication were astounding throughout this journey. Greg, thank you for coming in and assisting in the final stages; your critical eye was appreciated. Thanks also to my dissertation committee, who kept offering their time, advice, and expertise even when the road seemed unclear and meandering. Darcy, your extra time and passion for the topic was unexpected and greatly appreciated. John, despite joining me on a topic that was not within your direct background, I thank you deeply for your interdisciplinary insight. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the University of British Columbia faculty and staff who worked to assist my academic needs, particularly Dr. Karis Sheerer, Dr. Lisa Grekul, Cindy Leonard, and the DRC office. Thanks also to Dr. Liane Gabora for her interest and support in my creative research and for offering co-authorship and research assistantship on multiple occasions and in various contexts. I would like to thank the following supportive people in my research journey: Ian Prinsloo, Tejaswinee Jhunjhunwala, and Brenna Atnikov from Reos Partners for their review and xix stories to inform the thinking behind one of my papers on social intervention. I would also like to thank Natalia Zoldak, Alla Guelber, and Parastesh Afshordy, for contributing their time and insight into the first workshop of a social intervention method I put forth in this dissertation. I also greatly acknowledge the skill and talents of the following people for their tutelage and editing support: Mathieu Aubin, Ellen Campbell, Rebekka Augustine, Bret Klein, Parastesh Afshordy, Heather Saunders, Monique J. Ling, and the staff at Editing Press. You all were awesome! Mathieu, your dedication and work in particular was exceptional overall. I would also like to thank both Nancy Holmes and Lori Mairs for your kindness and poetry connections, Markus Alexander for your philosophical stimulations, and philosopher and non-dual teacher Fiona Roberson for your attentive ear. A particular thanks to philosopher Kevin Krumrei for reading early drafts and your ongoing interest and support of this project. I would like to next acknowledge my ancestors and heritage, that of the Mennonite people (and lineage from the Molotschna Colony, Ukraine), who have shown great innovative spirit in thriving through even the most trying difficulties. I owe a great debt and gratitude to my parents for their ongoing support: without your generosity this dissertation would not have been possible. Thanks for your sunroom with the incredible cherry blossom views! Most importantly, I want to thank Talia for joining me on a wild and unforgettable journey. All that you have given and done cannot be summarized, but what I can say is say that I deeply acknowledge your generosity and heartedness during these last few years and cherish what you have done as a blessing. I love you. xx DEDICATION To Natalia Zoldak. For your incredible support, patience and love. xxi One of the main purposes of this book [is] to draw attention to the key importance of liberating creativity, if human life is to have a worthwhile kind of survival. Indeed, of all the discussions that have taken place over the various crises that face humanity, this essential factor has not been adequately emphasized. (Bohm, 1987, p. 269) 1 1 INTRODUCTION Overview of Study When we limit ourselves to fragmented approaches of dealing with systemic problems, it is not surprising that our solutions prove inadequate. If our species is to survive the predicament we have created for ourselves, we must develop a capacity for whole-systems thought and action. (Korten, 1995, p. 11) 1.1.1 An Introductory Narrative In 2008, I worked on an internationalization project in India as part of my master’s thesis research using arts as a tool for social transformation. I was invited by Dr. C. Usha Rao, a professor of social work at the University of Mysore, to develop and co-organize a project called “Rehearsal for Reality” based on the groundbreaking work of Augusto Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 1979/2008, p. 120). We spent five months in rural Indian villages working with residents on challenging topics to generate communal voices for collective change. Through interactive theatre programs, audience members were able to get on stage and change the outcome of the presented social problem. I invited four other undergraduate Canadian students to join me, and together we worked and lived in rural home-stays to offer local residents simple artistic tools to create and perform short plays on the topics of women’s empowerment, HIV stigma, and the problem of money-sharking in small Indian communities. The participants then performed the plays on tour to other villages, including a final performance at the University of Mysore, which was a particular highlight for the performers. Following the project’s completion and after the Canadian students had left the area, I said goodbye to the community of people I had worked with and grown to love in the villages where we had lived. Dr. Rao and I walked for 20 minutes down a dirt path through the countryside and rice paddy fields toward a main road where I would wait for a bus to the main city and start my long journey home. While waiting, I noticed about 40 people dressed in formal attire walking in a procession through a distant rice field. Four of them had a platform on their shoulders with a woman seated atop in a regal pose on an ornate chair with many floral decorations. I remember asking Dr. Rao, 2 “What kind of festival is this?” Although I had already travelled to India and worked on other projects with her several times, I was always learning about local and regional traditions. “Oh, that’s not a festival,” she responded, adding, “It’s a funeral. The woman on the platform is deceased.” She revealed to me that the woman died on her wedding day after her husband became angry because the bride’s family was unable to provide the previously agreed-upon financial contribution. In a dispute resulting in domestic violence, he had beaten her until she died in what is known as a “dowry death.”1 Her family was devastated, and the entire community was affected. I was stunned because I knew the family. The bus ride to the airport was a solemn one. I plumbed the depths of my memory to try to remember the families’ circumstances. Why would he do this? How could murder have ever been an option? I was tempted to isolate the cause of this tragedy to that man and his anger and a single action over a few moments on a particular night. However, as I considered the situation deeply, I realized that the cause of the murder was not simple. Embedded within that single brutal act were not only individual emotions and personal behaviour but also wider circles of social and psychological pressures, relational dynamics, gender and cultural roles, familial expectations, communal circumstances, traditional values, and collective beliefs steeped in enculturated norms. All of these factors were intertwined with modern societal structures informed by contemporary religious, political, social, and economic factors. In other words, the cause had many parts to make a whole; the situation was systemic and complex. As I sought to understand the roots of this complex challenge in the weeks that followed, I realized any intervention of lasting change to end dowry deaths would need to happen beyond de-escalating anger in a single event. Lasting change would need to happen in all the systems connected to the actualized incident, and an impactful intervention would need to be systemic. If the anger in that man needed to change, anger itself as part of the problem would need to change within all systems and people. Not only anger as an emotion, but anger as a systemic phenomenon. As I am part of the system, I would also need to change any anger in myself. The popular maxim attributed to Mahatma Gandhi seemed to apply: “be the change you want to see in the world.”2 Wanting to overcome these systemic problems, I began wondering about the 1 See Glossary. 2 While doubtfully stated by Gandhi, the closest accurate written ascription by him is “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him” (Gandhi, 1964, p. 158). 3 relationship between my “internal” experiences (i.e., emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and how I view the world) and my “external” experiences of that world (i.e., perceptions of objects, nature, society, and culture), as well as how those experiences impact the multiple systems I encounter daily. Broadly speaking, I wondered, how do changemakers transform complex social problems in the world in innovative ways across multiple systems? Also, how does one pursue change while deeply considering the impacts of one’s internal experiences and perceptions of how they see the world as well as how worldviews shape one’s understanding of complex social systems of change? These questions became the driving force as I entered my doctoral research and this dissertation. 1.1.2 Background of the Problem “Problems” like the dowry death described above are complex because they are not isolated to a singular part of life but are instead multiscaled, multifunctional, and interconnected in dynamic and nonlinear ways to other complex elements (Turnbull et al., 2018, pp. 1–49). In the case of the bride’s murder, the problem is not limited to an individual personality with an internal experience of anger. The problem is systemic in how the dynamics of the family, community, local politics, and regional economics effected the specific situation of the event as well as the post-event impact and its feedback into other systems and problems (Shamai, 2016, pp. 46–48). The groom’s personality can be considered an individual “system” embedded within a larger social system (Jung, 1923/2017, pp. 91, 484; Krippner & Combs, 1998, p. 81; Rothenberg, 1969, p. 552; Tan, 2013, pp. 30–31).3 A personality system (what I will refer to in this dissertation as a “psychological system”) is an internal personal system of subjective experience (i.e., emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and worldviews) that is not separate from an external social system that appears to be experienced as an objective reality—that is, through perceptions of objects, nature, and society.4 As sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin states, “the subject and the object emerge 3 According to Tan (2013, pp. 30–31), “[a]n individual is regarded as a system. She/he interacts with other individuals who are collectively termed contact persons. Within an individual, there are various subsystems: biological, psychological, sociocultural, etc. For an individual to function well, the subsystems have to regulate efficiently.” 4 There are multiple global theoretical frameworks and/or philosophies that tie together an interconnected internal/subjective and external/objective view of human experience. For example, the Advaita Vendanta philosophy 4 like two ultimate inseparable consequences of the relation between the self-organizing system and the eco-system” (Morin, 2008, p. 23). Applied to the example above, the groom’s anger (i.e., the “problem”) is the result of not only an internal psychological system in crisis but also the inseparable external social system in a type of crisis that enabled the individual event to occur. An internal (subjective) and external (objective) lens will be helpful to this dissertation to understand the multiple systems involved, particularly from a psychological and social system perspective, for events like a dowry death (Ritchey, 2011, p. 23). A subjective lens of reality cannot be equated to internal experience, and similarly, an objective lens of reality cannot be equated to external experience. I couple these terms to specifically point out the common impulse to see an internal reality as the only place of subjective experience, and an external reality as an assumedly objective experience. I set up this dichotomy to highlight the potential for unconscious assumptions, and will decouple these terms and link subjectivity to objectivity as the dissertation progresses. Complex social challenges such as the dowry death example require a unitive approach of intervention inclusive of both internal (psychological) and external (social) realities of subjective and objective experience, so that “problems” can be transformed into novel and adaptive responses to systemic individual and collective challenges. A unitive approach to social change is required. Complex social challenges need to be addressed with creative new perspectives, frameworks, and methods for change that cross traditional dualistic boundaries. Although the need for innovative solutions for social challenges is amply recognized (Checkland, 1981; Freire, 1970/2000; Hassan, 2014; Haynes, 2018; Rittel & Webber, 1972; Westley, 2013), there is a limited understanding of exactly how social innovations lead to social change (Howaldt et al., 2014, p. 1). Solving complex social problems remains difficult because of the sheer complexity of ill-defined, ambiguous, nonlinear, adaptive, disorderly, and dynamical challenges (Morin, 2008, p. 22; Ritchey, 2011, p. 4; Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 161). These key challenges need to be understood by using “innovative concepts and methods” (Lawrence & Després, 2004, p. 398; emphasis added). Scientifically grounded methodologies such as the engineering-based “design thinking” cannot be applied to such psycho-social problem spaces alone. While traditionally of non-duality based in Hinduism (Deutsch, 1980, p. 28), and the notion of Indra’s Net in both Buddhism (Cook, 1977, p. 122) and Hindu Vedic philosophy (Malhotra, 2014). 5 scientific methods hold promise in abstracting knowable facts and values from uncertain relationships, the uncertainty of knowledge itself suggests that factual determinants have less to do with the problem than with the worldview that attempts to understand the complex nature of reality (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1993, p. 744).5 Scientific methods applied to social contexts such as design thinking tend to find a “problem” that needs to be “fixed,” privileging the designer by limiting stakeholder participation in the process (Iskander, 2018, para. 3; Jen, 2018, para. 39), thereby revealing a fundamentally privileged and functionalist worldview.6 As Morin states, fostering creativity and innovation… cannot simply be confined to giving individuals “creativity tools.” The process needs to be systemic, and more than cross-disciplinary, it should be transdisciplinary [emphasis added], in order to, among other things, include the inquirer in the inquiry, the innovator in the innovation. (2008, p. xxvii) Transdisciplinary research works across, between, and beyond traditional disciplines (see section 1.3.2 for more detail; Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39). Using functionalistic “tools” of creativity to address social challenges separates the subject and object of research and siloes individuals and information into fixed notions of social change. The limitations of sectoral-based knowledge that is static in its development is a failure to address large-scale and dynamical complex issues. Such limits are due to the shortcomings of privileged scientific worldviews and require a revisioning of ontological frameworks to embrace the complexities of natural and human-oriented systems (Lawrence & Després, 2004, p. 398). New frameworks and methods that address complex social systems are needed. While the field of social innovation is growing in applied contexts, systemic frameworks of complex social and ecological multisystems and associated methods are not well represented in the academic literature even though they are necessary for mapping out interrelationships and interdependencies that assist in understanding and predicting complex changes (Bowd et al., 2015, p. 40). While theoretical frameworks such as panarchy theory (Gunderson & Holling, 2002), Theory U (Scharmer, 2009), social labs (Hassan, 2014; Westley, 2013), and soft systems methods (Checkland & Poulter, 2010) are growing in number, each approach is limited to its own specialization. For example, panarchy theory is elaborate in its theorization of systems change 5 See the subsection called Social Systems Review in chapter 2.1.3 for further details, or the Glossary. 6 For example, in his literature review of social innovation, Howaldt (2014) states: “it is becoming ever more important to devote greater attention to social innovation as a mechanism of change” (p. 2; emphasis added). 6 processes within ecological systems, but it was not originally designed with critical theory in mind to effectively describe the power dynamics of social systems or the biases that researchers have. Frameworks are needed to address the fundamental methodological problem: namely, the relationship between the researcher or “observer” (subject) and the clients or “observed” (object) (Morin, 2008, p. xviii). A methodological framework needs to consider the inseparability of humans and their environment (i.e., the internal/subjective and external/objective), address complex systemic processes of how systems innovate, reflexively analyze worldview limitations, and develop a complementary approach to an objective science and subjective observation of complex system dynamics. In other words, social innovators need a “complex unity” (Morin, 2008, p. 10), a phrase which comes from the Latin word complexus, which means “different elements interlaced together to form a single fabric. In fact, one of the characteristics of complexity is its unity in diversity” (Montuori & Purser, 1997, p. 10). In the context of this dissertation, complex unity investigates fundamental processes beyond a binary understanding of reality and generates a transdisciplinary link between multiple interconnected systems (Bohm, 1985, p. 125; 1993, pp. 5, 47; Nicolescu, 2012, p. 23; Rousseau et al., 2018, p. ix). Segmenting the disciplines to specific phenomenal research is a disservice to the complex interrelated parts and wholes of systemic interaction. As Ackoff and Emery state, “Nature does not come to us in disciplinary form. Phenomena are not physical, chemical, biological, and so on” (2006, p. 4). A main problem in addressing complex social challenges, then, is the lack of systemic frameworks that address the complex unity of systems change across multiple systems in conjunction with a practical methodology for changemakers to apply the roots of a critically reflexive approach to complex systems. A theoretical framework and practical method that contextualize and describe the ever-creative and deeply interconnected world through a critical self-awareness of internal and external experience is necessary to offer a participative and intentionally conscious relearning of how social transformation can advance a sustainable world with an engaged global citizenry (Sterling, 2009, p. 63). By following an approach that emphasises transdisciplinary research beyond traditional disciplines, changemakers or social innovators who want to make systemic innovative changes in social systems can address the complex realities of the inseparability of personal and natural phenomena. Doing so would involve reflexive self-awareness or a critically conscious 7 approach to the inherently problematical bias of worldviews. It would also involve complex thinking—a way of thinking that unifies seemingly irreconcilable or separate ideas and concepts (Morin, 2008, p. 81)—to support efforts that investigate broad-scaled transformations and work with the associated nonlinear dynamics as such transformations occur across, between, or beyond multiple systems. A critically conscious and complex thinking approach can develop a social innovator’s understanding of the nonlinear self-organizing structures in the transformational processes of social system change through mindful, reflexive processes that reveal worldview assumptions and biases. As a result of such processes, social innovators would discover novel ideas about how to alter or leverage complex social systems when intervening in communities easier in order to implement co-created processes of lasting social impact. 1.1.3 Contexts of Research In this manuscript-style dissertation, I generate a theoretical framework as well as a practical method toward developing a complex unity between internal and external creative processes of systemic change (particularly broad-scaled system innovations across multiple systems). I do so through four publishable manuscripts. I will use the term “manuscript” to define the previously published academic text or material which is prepared and presented for future publication, and use the term “Manuscript” to describe the chapter that holds the publishable manuscript along with an introductory Background and personal Narrative subsection to set up each publishable text. Each manuscript examines or points to different change-making theories, methods, or approaches that will enable social innovators to follow a journey of transformation toward implementing social interventions when addressing complex social challenges. A theoretical framework and practical method for social innovators to connect nonlinear and systemic processes of social change with the critical reflexive processes of conscious awareness has imminent practicality: our social world is made up of complex problematical situations, from systemic violence exemplified in the dowry death narrative above to local economies impacted by climate change. I will now offer four salient examples of complex social challenges that I will return to throughout the dissertation and that will be useful for further examination. 8 The first example, per the introductory narrative above, is structural discrimination that leads to systemic violence against women. Dowry deaths in India are reported to occur once per hour (NCRB, 2019, p. 2),7 and 31.1% of all married Indian women experience domestic violence (NFHS, 2016, p. 5).8 The psychosocial impact of normalized violence such as this affects not only individuals but also families and communities in what is called “collective trauma” (Erikson, 1976, p. 302; López, 2011, p. 301; Somasundaram, 2007, p. 1). For instance, decreased social capital can result from collective trauma: loss of communal trust, familial relationship breakdown, a sense of meaninglessness in individuals and communities, and a reduction in social and economic transactions (Somasundaram, 2014, pp. 49–50). Another example of a complex social problem is the economic downturn of Canadian rural towns due to climate change. Estimates tell us an increase of the mean annual temperature of Canada is by 1.7˚C (between 1948 and 2016; CCCR, 2019, p. 116), twice the global rate (0.8˚C) (2019, p. 125), A recent report by Natural Resources Canada (2021, pp. 107–110) indicates that increases in the cost of living, social disruption, loss of cultural identity, decrease in wellbeing, and the elimination of traditional food sources, along with extreme weather events, flash floods, sea-level rise, pervasive wildfires, and invasive species present not only a remote Canadian issue but one of the entire health of the Canadian economy (see also Thurton, 2021). Effects such as these along with their associated social impacts have triggered a climate emergency in multiple cities globally, with results of limited economic diversity, increased isolation, and higher low-income rates amongst aging populations (NCA, 2014, p. 334). Projected outcomes suggest 12%–19% of rural town population declines by 2025 (Hutchins, 2018, para. 9).9 Towns like Bonavista, Newfoundland, for instance, have been forced to address economic challenges due to the industry impact of declining cod fishing stocks (Schrank, 2005, p. 407). The third example is the volatility of oil supplies and the social disruptions that occur due to over-dependency when the resource supply is limited (such as the 1973 oil crisis, which occurred in part because of the eventual peak and decline of oil; Hubbert, 1956, pp. 1–40). As 7 In India, 7,115 dowry deaths were reported in 2019 (~1.22 per hour). 8 According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development in India (Bhartiya Stree Shakti, 2017, p. 37), up to half of women are subject to domestic violence and few of them report it. 9 Estimated decrease in rural population projections by 2025: B.C., 12.2%; Ontario, 17.2%; Newfoundland and Labrador 19.3% (Hutchins, 2018, para. 9). 9 availability of a resource decreases, social challenges increase due to the supply-to-demand gap (Bentley, 2016, p. 171). Currently, the answer to the increasing energy demand is to advance technology through innovative extraction methods or return to traditional and controversial resources like coal but using new technological techniques.10 When they are dependent on a single resource, single-industry communities may suffer from the vulnerabilities of “overadaptation,” or the specialization and attunement of economic reliance of that single resource (Freudenburg, 1992, p. 321; Krannich, 2011, p. 23). Volatile commodity prices, fluctuations in resources, and other external factors can challenge these communities with sudden changes or lead to longer-term declines (Dampier et al., 2014, p. 4). This can create an “opportunity threat,” at which point the community will either recognize the complexity of the collapsing conditions and attempt to rejuvenate through innovative or entrepreneurial means, or succumb to the addictive qualities of the (unseen short-term nature of an) exhilarating economic boom and its high wages (Dampier et al., 2014, pp. 3, 11–12; Freudenburg, 1992, pp. 305–309). Resulting destruction may occur to multiple sectors of communal life, with human, social, and physical capital loss that could have been devoted to innovative diversification. A fourth and important example of a complex social problem is the social innovation projects with beneficial intention that have damaging consequences. For example, in the early 1900s in an effort to fix an overburdened education system with underperforming children, psychologist Alfred Binet and his student Theodore Simon introduced a scale that “objectively” measured problematic or “defective children,” so that the “feeble-minded” could be reliably institutionalized in the interest of society (McGowan, 2017, p. 41–46). While the Binet-Simon scale may be considered harmful by today’s standards, in many ways Binet was a “designer” of social innovations (McGowan & Westley, 2015), even if limited in scope. The recent upsurge of social innovation processes at the turn of the millennium that focus on iterative “design thinking” (Brown & Wyatt, 2010, pp. 30–35), is a reason to pause and investigate. Design thinking highlights an engineering-focused worldview that leans toward a mechanistic way of “fixing” social problems. The academic literature is of little help: social innovation methodologies are generally new to academia (Caulier-Grice et al., 2012, p. 4), and few focus on social innovation 10 As an example, recently the Alberta provincial government in Canada increased its coal extraction (Fletcher et al., 2020), but then changed their position (Nickel, 2021). 10 interventions. While the recent add-on of an equity, empathy, and democracy lens to “human-centred” design thinking is beneficial (Carroll et al., 2018; Clifford et al., 2021; Kelly, 2021; Petty & Leach, 2020), it indicates a lack of social intervention methods that consider and account for human power dynamics built into the method from the ground-up. Without integrated methodologies that incorporate a critical theory-based approach to social power dynamics along with the iterative processes of prototyping in a complex systems context of innovation, social interventions may be left to fall short of their goals or even perpetuate the challenges they are trying to solve in the first place. The common link between these examples of social challenges is that they are dynamic and systemic in nature; in other words, they are complex. While dynamically altering over time, adapting to change, depending on feedback, and nonlinear in behaviour, complex challenges may be addressed with social innovation strategies that account for such dynamic and systemic complexities. I will refer to each of these examples in each of the following manuscripts as links to real-world challenges. However, the above real-world contexts are not simply academic examples: as a scholar–practitioner, I have lived experience that directly relates to these examples through my work as an academic researcher in international contexts as described in my introductory narrative. I also have professional experience working in social innovation and relocalization projects of community economic development to address systemic challenges. By introducing some of these personal and professional experiences as a narrative thread throughout this research journey, the dissertation takes on a qualitative and practice-based approach as a living process of personal investigation laid on the foundation of previous but relevant scholar–practitioner experience. I will briefly describe this personal and professional context below. a. Personal and Professional Context My own personal and professional journey contributing to societal transformation through social innovation and changemaking will act as a type of mirror to the journey or arc of this dissertation. I will follow an internal journey of individual reflexivity that explores the creative drivers of personal change, but also an external journey of social systems inquiry to develop a professional practice of social intervention geared to socially engaged changemakers. First, 11 however, a note on my personal background that led to the internal and external arc of this dissertation. My higher education started in the arts and sciences studying theatre and mathematics, but in my spare time I studied Eastern philosophy and became fascinated by Herman Hesse and his travelling narratives of self and social discovery. Inspired to learn more, I took a break from my academic career to gain lived experience and expose myself to the multiplicity of cultural expressions of religious and philosophical traditions found in different countries. I wanted to unbind my predisposed biases of reality through the eyes of a global and cosmopolitan experience so that I may be more effective in my own understanding and practice toward social transformation. I decided upon a monastic Buddhist route in a Thai forest monastery to experience a reflexive path of personal cum social liberation. En route, the social injustices I witnessed in many contexts both at home and abroad stirred in me a passion for emancipatory action, so I studied Augusto Boal (1979/2008) and his artistic social praxis for change based on philosopher and educator Paulo Freire’s pedagogical social theory (1970/2000). Freire argued that true change includes reflection and action (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 87), and thus, my professional development included both personal reflection and social action in almost equal measure. While in my artistic and social engagement work I fight for a pluralistic diversity of individual agency, I also seek the intersubjectivity of existential inseparability that interconnects communities across divisions toward social action and innovative change. This dissertation therefore takes a similar complementary approach. I research creativity and social innovation via two distinct positions that are then reconnected at the end: an inquiry into the internal experience of interconnective knowing to root the social innovator in a critical ontology of mindful reflection, as well as an inquiry into the external relations of general and complex systems via the creativity in social innovation toward social action of change. I will introduce the context of my personal and professional experience throughout the dissertation in a Background and Narrative subsection before each publishable manuscript in each chapter, to draw upon my lifeworld experiences as applicable to the theoretical context of each specific manuscript. The purpose of adding a narrative and background to each manuscript is to address two important contexts. First, the background sections link an empirical-based narrative to four diverse theoretical explorations. While each manuscript contains several relevant 12 examples, such as the ones above, the narratives drive home the practical application of each theoretical research journey. Second, the narratives tie each publishable paper to the larger arc of the dissertation. It does so because each paper comes from a different and often disparate disciplinary and paradigmatic background, and thus is intended to help you, the reader, to follow a personal and professional scholar–practitioner narrative as a throughline throughout. Each manuscript participates in the larger goal of building upon a theoretical foundation toward a methodological application of social innovation intervention. The general arc of reflexivity toward social action drives this dissertation’s research through four general stages—(1) personal inquiry, (2) common or shared experience, (3) societal transformation, and (4) social action and intervention—which are reflected in the Narrative subsections of the four chapters. I follow these four stages of personal and professional inquiry as a dissertation narrative to situate my scholar–practitioner experiences in an empirical context via key theoretical perspectives and frameworks. I weave the narratives across the multiple manuscripts in a transdisciplinary approach to link what is between and across each manuscript and its associated disciplines, but also to go beyond them all to offer new perspectives of the scholar–practitioner’s journey. The narratives will also situate me as part of the research process rather than only an observer thereof. The arc will also embody a process of mindful inquiry as conscious reflexivity to challenge my own scholar–practitioner assumptions toward becoming the embodiment of a process of personal inquiry toward individual and social transformation. b. Research Outline This dissertation has the following general outline: an introductory chapter to set the problematical stage for consideration, a literature review and theoretical framework chapter about the creative driver for social innovation, four publishable manuscripts each in their own Manuscript chapters with personal narrative backgrounds, and a conclusion and appendix. The four publishable manuscripts are identical replicas of the publishable texts, each with an official abstract and introduction and conclusion, and thus, the reader should note some replication of material will occur (although crafted to be minimal). The reason this is done is to give the reader a replicated sense of how each manuscript will appear in an academic journal or chapter; denote each separate discipline the manuscript is written for and sits in as important in its own right; and 13 builds a transdisciplinary case for how separate topics such as these can be linked between and across over the arc of the dissertation. See Figure 1.1.3.b for a graphical representation of the journey or arc of this dissertation and how each Manuscript chapter contributes to that arc. In this subsection, I will outline the research that led me to discover the social innovation needs for new research as they pertain to each manuscript topic. I do this to lead the reader to the gap or lack in the literature that I found was necessary to address through the manuscripts, and thus what I propose as each manuscript’s research “problem statement.” I will link each research topic to the above examples of complex social challenges and the personal and professional contexts by revealing why each manuscript was necessary for the overall arc and how it fits within the dissertation as a whole. Figure 1.1.3.b. A graphical representation of the journey or “arc” of this dissertation. The arc starts at the bottom with a foundational theoretical framework, then moves up to the various manuscripts as they feed into one another and ultimately lead to a practical method for social intervention. Graphic by author. First, the proposed chapter, Theoretical Framework, acts as an investigation into the conceptual terrain of the dissertation and the previous literature that supports it, and a proposed Framework upon which the other chapters are based. It starts with a review of relevant theoretical contexts and conceptual approaches of previous authors’ works. It offers adaptations and 14 alterations of the reviewed literature to focus the material toward new or hybrid conceptual or theoretical approaches that, while based on the groundwork of other important texts, become relevant to the other chapters by predeveloping concepts so that short and direct references replace longer conceptual explanations. The latter half of the chapter proposes the Framework, which examines multiple theories on creativity as a systemic driver of individual, social, and physical change. This is done to explore creativity as a possible fundamental “force” or driver of systemic change as it pertains to systems innovations, and considers how such a drive may be applied across multiple systems (and thus applied across the four manuscripts). The result is a transdisciplinary and “trans-systemic” framework that goes between, across, and beyond disciplines and systems. Currently, the theoretical landscape of literature on creativity is specific to individual disciplines, domains, fields, and systems. While there are some significant theories that span more than one system or domain (Bergson, 1911/1944; Crutchfield, 1994a; Gabora, 2018; Rothenberg, 1971; Whitehead, 1929/1960; Allen & Holling, 2010), they still sit within their specific discipline and generally do not take a broad-scaled perspective of creativity as it drives multiple systems from a complex systems perspective, and specifically including a nonlinear dynamical approach. The purpose of the Framework, then, is to generate a “generalizable” foundation of research for the rest of the dissertation that supports different processes of innovation across multiple systems, both “internally” within individuals such as psychological systems, and “externally” in natural living or non-living systems as well as social systems. It looks at common or shared traits across multiple disciplines that point toward the large drivers of systems change. It answers the need for a literature-based framework on the systems thinking needed to address the complex number of challenges that awaits contemporary social innovators and changemakers (Ruben, 2006, p. 3). The resulting Framework will offer the groundwork necessary to understand how creativity or innovation arises in individuals, nature, and society, so that innovators can understand and then leverage multiply connected systems when designing interventions. In Manuscript #1, I seek to address structural discrimination and systemic violence through an internal or subjective perspective of how creativity is the driver of conscious change, primarily through a Freirean lens of “critical consciousness.” Critical consciousness is a pathway to becoming conscious of our views of the world that limit us from taking action against the 15 “oppressive elements of reality” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 36). Social innovation theory proposes that novel programs can profoundly change the beliefs of the social system in which the complex social problem occurs (Westley & Antadze, 2010, p. 2), and they have been shown, for example, to address social inequities by increasing gender equality and women’s rights (Westley, 2013, p. 6; Westley et al., 2016, para. 36). Creativity, which is at the heart of social innovation programs insofar as they are novel approaches to social problems (Marcy & Mumford, 2007, p. 124; Mumford, 2002, p. 254), can also be related to a higher sense of meaning-making such as consciousness-raising (Ware & Ware, 2018, p. 46) as well as mindfulness (Carson, 2014, pp. 328–344; Colzato et al., 2012, p. 1; London, 2013, pp. 249–252; Olsen, 2008, pp. 295–311; Siegel & Siegel, 2014, pp. 21–47). One study showed that women who experienced domestic violence reported that, when exposed to consciousness-raising practices, they developed a greater “critical consciousness” of their worldviews and of the power dynamics of oppression they experienced (Chronister & McWhirter, 2006, pp. 151–164); they also reported to develop their own self-efficacy toward meaningful action (McGirr & Sullivan, 2017, p. 156). Another study indicated that domestic violence lessened in 32 Indian villages due to creative approaches and critical consciousness programs, such as theatrical programs (Hoff et al., 2020, p. 1). In this way, creativity has been shown to assist in developing adaptive responses to uncertain or complex situations (Siegel & Siegel, 2014, p. 25). However, to this day, there is little research on how a critical consciousness or mindful approach to creativity can be applied using a complex systems lens. Doing so would offer social innovators greater insight in how the complex processes of society—such as structural discrimination and systemic violence—can be addressed with innovative solutions. A complex systems approach to critical consciousness and creativity will provide a mindful and worldview-conscious lens toward novel social change. This investigation will give social innovators a complex and critically conscious background to their social interventions. For further information, see the Problem Statements section in chapter 1.2.2. In the second manuscript, I turn my attention to a primarily external view of multiple natural and social systems to see how creativity arises using nonlinear dynamical processes of change (Manuscript #2). This undertaking will address multiple shared challenges as they arise across multiple systems, such as how climate change has impacted towns and cities with economic downturns which in turn impacts multiple systems across municipalities in both urban 16 and rural regions. These challenges may be addressed by novelty-generating processes that are “generalizable” to those shared systems (Sundstrom & Allen, 2019, p. 3; Cropley & Cropley, 2005, p. 176). Problematic and systemic challenges of considerable scale caused by human activity need to be addressed through a complex understanding of how novel ecosystems arise so that old systemic dynamics can be intentionally transformed into emerging systems of beneficial change. Generalizable processes of novelty that are generated in complex systems would offer applicable ways to address the nonlinearity and dynamical nature of complex social problems. A transdisciplinary approach to creativity across multiple systems is required so that social systems innovations may be contextualized in their interconnection with natural or ecological systems. What is needed is to apply a generalizable and nonlinear dynamical approach to creative processes so that social innovators will be able to find, assess, and transform complex or “wicked” problems through a transdisciplinary perspective toward novel solutions across interrelated systems. In short, there is a gap in the interdisciplinary and complex systems literature of nonlinear dynamic examinations of the novelty (particular to thermodynamic concepts of entropy) that drives creativity across multiple systems (that is, psychological systems, natural living and non-living systems as well as social systems). The ability to assess how novelty is generated is needed so that it can be found in various interconnected systems. In order to find what makes creative processes “new” across multiple systems, I will examine novelty generation and its assessment. This investigation will offer social innovators a deeper contextual and theoretical understanding of where to find creativity and innovation processes so that they may intervene more effectively before the points of the system transition into further potentially harmful or damaging processes. This is the focus of the second manuscript. Next, in Manuscript #3, I present a complex understanding of how social innovations can be applied to oil-dependent “boom towns” to assist their transition from single-resource settlements to diversified, cultural economies. However, there are insufficient complex systems frameworks that are broad enough to include system innovation processes of individual but also systemic trends. As Barnes and Hayter (1994) write, “we need an open-ended framework to understand the local development of single industry towns; one that recognizes the necessity of taking into account both individual entrepreneurs and wider structural forces” (p. 291). In order for them to intervene in unstable economic systems, social innovators need a complex systems 17 understanding of individual innovation efforts and systemic innovation processes. They need also to understand the creative or destructive cycles in addressing boom or bust economic change, as in the forces of “creative destruction” (Schumpeter, 1943/2003, p. 83). To this end, in this Manuscript I consider how nonlinear complex processes arise in social systems, and I focus on transformations occurring in the destruction and creation of collective worldviews.11 When changemakers see social relations as not “out there” but part of the collective web of worldviews that drive cultural (and thus systemic) creative change, they will further their understanding of where to leverage beneficial change in their social innovation practice. In the last manuscript, Manuscript #4, I synthesize the preceding theoretical backgrounds of both an internal and external approach to offer a praxis of social change in a methodological examination of social intervention. Social innovation methodologies are largely new to the academic literature (Caulier-Grice et al., 2012, p. 4). As such, there are few robust models in how social innovations can be applied to social interventions. They also often focus on practical creative processes through the functionalist and engineering-based “design thinking” method (Brown & Wyatt, 2010, pp. 30–35), which was not designed with a critical analysis of social power structures in mind. However, the more seasoned social planning methods such as soft systems methodology (SSM; Checkland & Poulter, 2006, p. 18) have a stronger critical theory focus built in, yet they lack a depth of complex systems innovations or novelty-generating processes. A gap remains in the social change literature of intervention methods that include a critical “systems thinking” lens as well as a complex-systems framework of the creative drivers of social systems innovations. By furthering a Freirean critical consciousness perspective of worldview bias and offering a systemic-dynamic creativity approach to complex social systems, I will contribute to the discussion on social change methodologies as well as offering a practical social innovation intervention method. The four Manuscript chapters, based on the Theoretical Framework describing multisystemic dynamical processes, will offer social innovators a road map of personal and social transformation that complements both a nonlinear dynamical and critical consciousness perspective of systemic change. 11 This term defines a collective of individual worldviews. See Glossary. 18 Research Focus The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent. (Capra, 1996, p. 3). 1.2.1 The Nature of a “Problem” In order to understand the nature of complex problems, I will first examine what a problem actually is (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 191; Flood, 1990, pp. 96–97; Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1993, p. 744; Rittel & Webber, 1973, pp. 158–159). The term “problem” itself automatically pathologizes a system dynamic and assumes a causal equifinality in what could evolve into a multifinality of pluralistic possibilities given time. It implies an objective description of reality that needs to be reduced to its problem parts and then solved, as if the problem leads to a “real,” solidified, and singularly identifiable object and solution (Flood, 2010, p. 277). Even the term “solution” implies a formulaic final result that sets up unrealistic expectations of some static end point rather than a processual dynamic (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, pp. 192, 201; Flood, 1990, pp. 96–97; Rittel & Webber, 1973, pp. 160–162). However, complex systems can rarely be “solved” with a mechanistic approach because, as the famous maxim goes, wholes are not the sum of their parts. Fix-it approaches that causally link x to y do not always work. Complex challenges require perspectives and approaches that complement functionalist views with a pluralistic, interpretivist way of thinking (Flood, 1990, p. 96). Most importantly, if the social innovator claims that the observed social situation is a “problem,” it becomes easy to confuse an individual, group, community, culture, or race, with the problematic context they are experiencing. When applied to a person, the word “problem” as a noun may be attributed as a label or even identity. Defining social relations as problematic presents considerable axiological and ethical considerations that must be deeply acknowledged before defining any one person, group, organization, or even belief, as a problem. Reframing the term will assist in contextualizing the internal and external journal of the social innovator as they move toward social intervention, where prescriptive “problem” oriented linear-thinking may be questioned along with any associated behaviour before social intervention implementation occurs. 19 Instead, I will lean toward using the terms “challenge” or “problematical” or “problem situation” and reserve the standalone term “problem” for contemporary usage contexts (e.g., the phrase “wicked problem”; Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 191; Flood, 1990, pp. 96–97). I will also lean toward using “solution space,” “possible answer,” or “toward a solution” to consider the process of solution-making rather than identifying finalized endpoints. What has been termed wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 161) are complex social challenges that are particularly “messy” or unmanageable over time and offer little to no governing behaviour that allow for straightforward resolutions (Kauffman, 1993). Defining wicked problems is the problem (Checkland, 2011, p. 497; Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 161). They are notorious for being ill-defined with unknowable attributes, nonlinear, adaptive and thus non-static, sensitive to implementation (i.e., interventions have consequences), aggressive in their interconnectedness to other problems, and systemic across multiple scales. Changemakers addressing social crises may start off with a wrong diagnosis because wicked problems cannot be solved but rather “re-solved” through multiple iterative resolutions, which will usually reveal more complex problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 160; Scharmer, 2009, p. 328).12 What the word “problem” points to, however, may be recast into a new context and thus be more useful than the word problem itself. Social engineers Rittel and Webber (1973) use the term “discrepancy” to describe what constitutes a problem as the difference between the current and desired state (p. 165). Complex social challenges can be looked at as temporal reflections of processes moving toward an attractor rather than as things that are “wrong” or “bad.” Doing so helps remove normative connotations attributed to a “problem” rather than its systemic or structural issues. Such distinctions enable social innovators to see how their words (e.g., when describing the situation) may reflect their own worldview. A “discrepancy” view of social problems could also indicate a path forward that does not offer a conclusive solution but rather a proposed improvement model for how it might affect people’s lives. Because social innovators are often under complex time challenges, I will take a heuristic approach to wicked problems (Ritchey, 2011, p. 3).13 A heuristic approach, as applied to complex systems, can be described as a 12 A popular quote says, “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.” The quote is often attributed to Einstein; however, it is likely based on a statement by Finely and Ziobro (1966, p. 18). 13 See Glossary. 20 built model of practical approximations about complex dynamics with an awareness of normative and overly paradigmatic assumptions. It allows for specific points in systems models to be highlighted in a search for innovation transitions, without needing to know all system points before beginning the process of intervention design. A heuristic model will assist in decreasing an objectivist-only notion of an external reality of a “problem,” so that attempts to fix or solve the problem too early is reduced (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 164), while increasing the space for efficient learning. Through the manuscripts that follow, this dissertation will offer tools to social innovators to check normative assumptions and worldview bias so that complex challenges may be addressed while lessening the axiological difficulties of what the term “problem” represents. 1.2.2 Problem Statements, Research Questions, and Purpose [T]he more problems become multidimensional, the less chance there is to grasp their multidimensionality.” (Morin & Kern, 1999, p. 128) My research problem statements reflect the “contexts of research” above and thus match each of the four Manuscript chapters in the dissertation. For Manuscript #1, the research problem is that a review of the literature reveals insufficient complex systems approaches that merge creativity and critical consciousness that also systemically integrate creativity as a fundamental driver for systems change.14 I will address this problem by investigating “creative consciousness,” a term that I repurpose to describe the creative transformational process of consciousness as the dynamic “force” that generates new processual structures in the mind as experienced in thoughts, ideas, and actions. In Manuscript #2, the research problem is that there is a gap in the interdisciplinary literature of nonlinear dynamical investigations of novelty generation (and thus the driver of creativity) as it occurs across multiple systems (psychological systems, as well as natural and social systems). Addressing this gap will offer social innovators a nonlinear understanding of the fundamental processual drivers of multiple systems through a self-organization lens (inclusive of causal and exogenous factors) to narrow in on the critical points of bifurcating change to create a heuristic approach to novelty generation and its assessment. The 14 There is a growing interest in the intersection of consciousness research and social innovation. For example, Moore and Riddell (2015) write about learning of culture, norms, and values, in their paper, “Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep: Strategies of Non-profits in Advancing Systemic Social Innovation” (p. 70). 21 research problem for Manuscript #3 is that a complex systems view of social innovation is inadequate in the social innovation literature. A nonlinear dynamical view of social innovation would assist changemakers in understanding the entropic reasons for broad-scale complex processes in social innovation transformation. I will address this problem by investigating the causal processes of nonlinear and low-recurrence self-organization in social systems innovations that result from disorder transitioning into order (i.e., “creative destruction”), which can effectively be applied to social systems. Lastly, in Manuscript #4, I will address the unsatisfactory methods in the social innovation literature by contributing a method that incorporates both a critical consciousness perspective of systems and a complex systems approach to creativity in social systems innovation processes. By incorporating both, social innovators may address and leverage large-scale systems innovations to reduce worldview bias and adequately address complex social challenges when intervening in a social system. These four problems describe considerable challenges to social innovators attempting to make social innovation interventions. I will offer four corresponding research questions to these research problems that will transform the above statements into possible paths toward new solutions. For Manuscript #1, I ask, how can a complex systems approach to creativity (as it arises across multiple systems) inform a Freirean critical consciousness approach to social change? For Manuscript #2, I consider, how does novelty (and thus creativity) arise across multiple systems in a generalizable approach that considers both internal (subjective) and external (objective) approaches to causal and nonlinear dynamics in its generation and assessment? The answer to these questions would be useful for social innovators in finding points of system transition that indicate locations to be leveraged for social change. In Manuscript #3, I ask, can a nonlinear dynamical approach to collective worldviews inform a deeper understanding of the drivers of social systems innovation? Lastly, in Manuscript #4, I wonder, can a nonlinear dynamical and critical consciousness approach to creativity be merged into a method for social innovators that will reduce worldview bias as well as generate creative solution spaces as they arise across multiple systems? The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate and offer a theoretical understanding and practical method for how a complex systems approach to creativity can assist social innovators in reducing their worldview bias while increasing their understanding of the nonlinear dynamical creative forces in systems interventions. As I will argue, biased thinking affected by unexamined 22 worldviews separate people and limit new possibilities that individuals, organizations, and governments can use to tackle the prevailing social challenges that bring division to people and planet. A way of seeing the world that mindfully opens changemakers to the complex unity of their internal and external experience of others and our environment is required. This dissertation offers changemakers a theoretical framework and method to assist in finding the creative drivers of personal, social, and natural systems so creative and social innovations may be found and leveraged toward individual and collective wellbeing. Through a complex unity approach to creativity and social innovation, I will examine creativity as a systemic and nonlinear dynamic transformation that drives systems innovations and will provide a critical approach to worldviews and their biases to re-connect our interrelated internal and external experience of the world when addressing complex social challenges. I do so by developing a complex unitive theoretical framework with a practical methodology that critically and reflexively addresses the worldview bias in complex systems thinking in the context of attempting to intervene in social systems to generate innovative processes of beneficial social change. Research Approach Problems are spatially and temporally interdependent, whereas disciplinary research isolates problems from one another. (Morin & Kern, 1999, p. 125) 1.3.1 Research Background and Worldview Bias In this section, I describe my personal journey that has driven my research and reveal my worldview biases that inform this research and how it may impact others. Savin-Baden and Major (2013, p. 71) suggest three ways in which a researcher might describe their positionality: locating themselves in relation to the subject, their participants, and their research context and process. As a subject who studies the processes by which subjects intervene in participants’ lives, I position myself within this research as a participatory collaborator with the privileged position of being a male of North American settler descent. I am on a learning journey or arc of growth toward greater reflexive understanding about how I may benefit from colonialization, institutionalization, social power dynamics, and economic globalization, and then how to transform those benefits 23 into equitable treatment and advocacy. My Mennonite heritage of a “nation without a state,” which has traditionally sought peaceful living from Eastern Bloc regimes, has established roots of community and compassion in me for those suffering from oppressive behaviour or structures. As a young student at University of Toronto, I inhabited a diverse multicultural community that formed inclusive values and brought a capacity to work in environments with diverse populations. While we share difference and commonality alike, we do not share equitable treatment: I see and hear inequity, the limited assessments of peoples and cultures from individualistic, systemic and static worldviews, the linear, causal, and deterministic judgements in the “othering” of those who seem different, and the disparate and objectivist categorization of peoples of all backgrounds, but particularly those who are disproportionately impacted by the systemic structures of discrimination. My personal mandate is to counter inequality with inclusivity in diversity.15 My own disability instills values of strength in an empathetic framework to treat people of all backgrounds equitably when cast into a socially constructed “difference.” I now use my cultural and personal background to support communities that have often been underrepresented in social or political contexts as best as I can. My statements are not to claim diversity as knowable—certainly I have much to learn from all who have been impacted by colonization, systemic racism, and underrepresentation in Canadian society—my goal is rather to create an inclusive learning space where each unique individual has the right to equal expression and equitable treatment. To aid in outlining my worldview and its biases, I will now outline my four philosophical assumptions (as described by Creswell, 2007, p. 238). Ontologically, I lean toward a phenomenological experientialism that suggests objective “reality” does not exist without an inherent conceptual and cultural link to any “knowledge” of truth and therefore reality (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 181). Concepts, knowledge, and indeed all thinking, “be it loose or scientific, common or transcendental, starts from experience and has experience ultimately in view” (a quote by Fichte as reported by Hegel, 1812/1892, p. 12).16 An experientialist perspective is in line 15 The United Nations statement about diversity stimulates an emergent response in my own deep study of creativity: “[a]s a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations” (UNESCO, 2002). 16 This quote is found in William Wallace’s The Logic of Hegel, which is a translation of Hegel’s work from German to English. The quote is found in a footnote as being sourced from Fichte’s Werke, ii. 333, which is a German title. I could not find a direct translation of this title. 24 with a phenomenological epistemology that positions experiential reality prior to conceptual knowledge and, while leaving transcendental idealism behind, does not adhere to classic realism nor the modern physicalism that positions reality as material. Axiologically, my professional work led me to critical theory (Thompson, 2017, pp. 1–14) and the emancipatory praxis of Freire’s critical consciousness (1970/2000, p. 37), and thus I am deeply influenced by Freire’s liberatory pedagogy of “oppression.” As such, I see the domain of thought as a socialized and enculturated mindscape that uses metanarratives and universal “truths” influenced by ideological perspectives of a constructed worldview (Naugle, 2002, p. 59; Schelling, 1927). This has become important to me when understanding or activating social criticism or activism. However, recognizing that the oppressed/oppressor dualistic narrative has its limitations, a narrative which Freire himself uses extensively, I seek an axiological position outside of polar dualistic norms and instead seek a complex unity infused with a phenomenological view of reality. Thus, I align with a critical view of transformational phenomenology (Rehorick et al., p. 26). Methodologically, I approach all research first through a participatory lens (in the sense of participatory action research; Aiken, 2017, pp. 17–33; McIntyre, 2008, p. 1), using critical systems thinking (Gregory, 1996, p. 39; Flood & Jackson, 1991b, p. 1, Jackson, 2019, p. 511; Ulrich, 1987, p. 277) to understand subjective worldview dynamics. I use theoretical and conceptual analysis to approach research when looking to analyze and construct theoretical material (see the Methodology section; Jasso, 1988, p. 1; Kosterec, 2016, p. 222). All four philosophical assumptions show that my biases are influenced by experientialism as well as critical mindfulness and that I lean toward a social constructivist or interpretivist perspective. While my philosophical disposition has its focus, I also wholeheartedly acknowledge the importance of complementarist inclusion. 1.3.2 Transdisciplinarity, Multiparadigms and Complementarism For my research, I take a transdisciplinary, multiparadigmatic, and complementarist approach. Transdisciplinarity is concerned with what is between, across, and beyond all disciplines. Its goal is “the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge” (Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39). Of particular interest to this dissertation are the zones “in-between” traditional loci of knowledge that are dynamic or transitioning over time 25 between disciplines. In ecology, these regions are oftentimes called ecotones, and as such, this research examines the “transitional area between two or more distinct [systems]” (OED, 2008, June).17 Time plays a significant role in transitions, as the observer from different time points and locales will experience transitions differently. In this research, I am specifically attempting to find the in-between and often unseen transition zones to find novel change across multiple systems (Bohm, 1987, p. 266). I use transdisciplinarity as an approach to investigate complex systems by examining the spaces in-between nonlinearity and reflexivity, seeking the genuine uncertainty that is across all systems and the intersubjectivity beyond them as well. Such transdisciplinary investigations aim to examine innovation and its solution-spaces from a systems perspective (Hauk, p. 108; Ritchey, 2011, p. 24). For social innovators to understand social challenges, it becomes beneficial to understand the complex dynamics of problems through a transdisciplinary lens to turn over academic stones missed, unexamined, or unnoticed. Multi-paradigm research acknowledges similarities, differences, and interrelationships by operating “in a grey area between paradigms in which actions and structures are mutually influencing processes” (Lewis & Grimes, 1999, p. 675). While Kuhn’s (1962) original meaning of “paradigm” was offered in the context of science, my dissertation examines paradigms that are conceptual or mental models of a discipline and “(hence) a generally accepted worldview” (OED, 2003, November). I approach research through multi-paradigm inquiry to review how I may have made underlying assumptions, based on oppositional or unidimensional paradigmatic perspectives that may favour disparate worldviews or highlight limitations rather than complementarities (Lewis & Grimes, 1999, p. 675). I specifically use a bridging approach to theoretical relations in the transition zones between and across paradigmatic boundaries (, 1999, pp. 673–674) so that my worldview interrelates with other paradigmatic positions. A multi-paradigmatic review can lead to metaparadigm theory building (i.e., metatheorizing; see the Framework for further details), which helps connect opposing theoretical understandings through pattern finding. I describe it here to help contextualize the multi-paradigmatic contexts that my 17 Ecotones are regions of in-between ecology where two ecosystems meet. Also called “transitional zones,” “boundary zones,” or “bumping zones,” ecotones often exhibit new life forms (Kark & Van Rensburg, 2006, pp. 29–53) as potential hotbeds for novelty. 26 research will take as I search relations between disciplines and paradigms to find patterned connections toward theory construction. To highlight the need for multi-paradigmatic inquiry, in this dissertation I emphasize a more interpretivist approach to the internal/subjective elements of the four manuscripts, and a more functionalist approach to the external/objective elements of the four manuscripts. An overly subjectivist view that the universe is un-organizable and argues a multiplicity-only diversity diminishes naturally shared traits or patterns that highlight the interconnection between elements. However, an overly objectivistic view that concretizes universal laws and over-simplifies and homogenizes unique elements as an emergentist whole risks a unilateral conflated diversity in devaluing individual and cultural identity. I posit, however, through a multi-paradigmatic approach (and specifically a complementarist view as described below), that what is of concern is not necessarily an interpretivist view versus a functionalist view, but rather the assumption of one predetermined view that is imposed on an observation without checking paradigmatic and ideological perspectives. Such an assumption can lead research into a paradigmatic split and thus a worldview bias that dilutes balanced observation into paradigmatic favouritism. As such, a lens that acknowledges multi-paradigmatic research while being complementary of other approaches will be valuable to include in the analysis of the four manuscripts. Complementarism is a transdisciplinary approach that finds the complementary strengths of different disciplines, paradigms, and worldviews to align each of them with the context of the situation to provide “the most suitable reasoning” (Flood, 1990, p. 203). A complementarist path allows for correlativity between disciplines, paradigms, theories, and methods of research, drawing on a careful exploration of theoretical relations, allowing for critical analysis along with pragmatic application, and enhancing the success of similarities in situations without inducing theoretical contradictions (p. 143). This fits well within a “systemic” approach to systems theory. Thus, a complementarist path acknowledges the pragmatic application of systems science as usefully functional while noting the systems relations as socially constructed and in need of a normative analysis to reduce hidden presuppositions (Ulrich, 1983, p. 64). Ultimately, a transdisciplinary, multi-paradigmatic, and complementarist research approach will be useful in this dissertation in order to understand how parts relate to a whole—that is, how certain bodies of thought or patterns observed in natural and social systems relate 27 between, across, and beyond multiple disciplines and paradigms, so that the complementary strengths and benefits of all may influence new ways of seeing the world as a whole. 1.3.3 Methodology The word “theory” derives from the Greek “theoria,” which has the same root as “theatre,” in a word meaning “to view” or “to make a spectacle.” Thus, it might be said that a theory is primarily a form of insight, i.e., a way of looking at the world, and not a form of knowledge of how the world is. (Bohm, 1980, p. 4) Since this dissertation will produce a theoretical framework and methodology that covers new conceptual terrain, I will use a multi-methodology approach which offers a generative and structured methodological analysis. I will use both constructive conceptual analysis (Kosterec, 2016, pp. 221–222) and theoretical analysis (Jasso, 1988, p. 1) to analyze the conceptual background of significant theories within the purview of this dissertation, analyze the logical relationships to ascertain the conceptual and theoretical challenge, and derive predictions of new propositions to work toward new conceptual output and the theoretical structure to support it. Drawing on both approaches will offer not only a creative territory for speculative predictions of both conceptual and theoretical material in this broad-transdisciplinary work, but also the rigor required when generating derivations of the relationships under study. Constructive conceptual analysis (Kosterec, 2016, p. 221) is based upon conceptual analysis but aggregates and ameliorates the previous conceptual material under conceptual analysis that characterizes the experience of phenomena to broaden and construct conceptual theory. Constructive conceptual analysis at heart is about the proposal of new relationships of previously unrelated parts; it allows for new terms and concepts to expand the initial, explicit conceptual theory (p. 222). It does so by evaluating previous epistemic concepts that fit within the context of research, and improving the concepts in an additive manner (Ahlström, 2006, p. 16). If a new conceptual theory is derived, it can be considered “correct” if it results in new material while leaving the initial conceptual theory intact. The conclusive conceptual analysis simply needs to produce conclusions that support and keep intact the initial conditions of the foundational conceptual theories grounding the analysis. Kosterec (2016) offers a set of instructions (p. 223): 28 1. Specify the initial conceptual background 2. Formulate the conceptual problem 3. State the new conceptual relation 4. Formulate tests of the conceptual relation within the conceptual background 5. Elaborate the new relation by tests respecting the conceptual background 6. If the relation succeeds in tests, declare it to be a part of the conceptual background The method sets out a structure for analysis to produce testable conceptual relations given the described input. It can then be tested on cases to verify their logical relationships (p. 224). Jasso’s (1988) theoretical analysis promotes the construction of theoretical postulates to derive predictions from them. The goal is to “develop a theory that is at once simple and fruitful” (p. 1). She proposes a bipartite structure, with two main activities: (1) speculative thinking, where one identifies the starting ideas for the postulates; and (2) formal reasoning, where one constructs the postulates and derives from them predictions (p. 1). Speculative thinking makes propositions about new relations and derives predictions about those relations and how they will behave in the future. Formal reasoning is the rational verification of those predictions. The result is to produce testable propositions, which, in Jasso’s case, are the networked understandings in a conceptual system (Jasso, 1988, p. 10). She goes on to propose a methodological set of tasks based on sociologist Robert Merton’s work (see Jasso, 1988, pp. 2, 9–10):18 1. Search the inherited inventory of insights 2. Perform thought-experiments 3. Construct a proposition-set 4. Make explicit the restrictions of any concept within the propositions 5. Make a list of formal propositions 6. Examine the propositions for logical consistency 7. Explicitly state the logically necessary relationships of the propositions 8. Derive predictions (and other logically necessary relations) 18 This list derives directly from Jasso’s (1988) text, which offers these clear stages; however, her text does not provide a numerical list as displayed here. 29 The structure begins with a type of theoretical divergence and then returns with a convergence of theoretical rigor toward logically derived relationships. Such an inductive model of thinking in qualitative studies allows for theories to arise out of any phase of research and often as a result of comparing other theories (Anfara & Mertz, 2006). Jasso (1988) continually emphasizes the importance of not restricting the theorist from deriving predictions from different phenomena—including relationships not yet observed (p. 1). Verifying predictions is up to the empiricist, she says, but the theorist is not to allow the presumptive “facts” about any phenomena to obscure their vision of possibility or process of derivation. As she states, “the scientific literature is filled with stories of missed opportunities to make great progress, opportunities missed because a particular avenue superficially contradicted what was at the time considered beyond dispute” (p. 10). Jasso (1988, p. 1) argues social sciences need to be careful in limiting a theoretical proposition to the certainty of a concrete and therefore predetermined goal. Doing so may dampen the innovative spirit of ideation at the cost of predicting testable outcomes. Therefore, speculative thinking offers an approach to research and analysis that is aimed at “envisioning or crafting futures or conditions which may not yet currently exist, to provoke new ways of thinking and to bring particular ideas or issues into focus” (Ross, 2017, p. 215). Speculative research as experimental theorizing mobilizes an ever-evolving concurrent or intuitive response-in-action approach in that it allows for change during the variant modes of intervention (Ross, 2017, p. 1). Thus, it is adaptive to current conditions, highly generative, and nonlinear in its approach, which implies uncertainty, unpredictability, and boundary crossing (Cilliers, 2000, p. 25; Ross, 2017, p. 2). For instance, Einstein imagining what it was like to “ride the edge of a light beam” would have been silenced by critique before he had the opportunity to put his pen to paper if he had been limited to only testable ideas of observable reality. His method suggests the rich product of a thought-experiment (Jasso, 1988, p. 9). However, in order to keep a theory from becoming a wildly imbalanced set of propositions vs. predictions, which could make it be untestable, a good theory should try to minimize the number of propositions and maximize the number of predictions (Jasso, 1988, p. 4). While this dissertation is theoretical and includes speculative propositions and a heuristic approach to generating new material, it offers a testable final result in Manuscript #4 to determine if the preceding conceptual and theoretical territory are of pragmatic value. 30 Both theoretical analysis and constructive conceptual analysis are indeed considered “complex methods” (Kosterec, 2016, p. 224) and can intimidate newer theorists (such as students) against their use. Therefore, to make practical use of both constructive conceptual analysis and theoretical analysis, and to include their speculative or generative thinking along with the necessary theoretical rigor, I propose a method heuristic which is based on both approaches but offers an entry-level approach toward generating new conceptual or theoretical material. Any usage of this heuristic should be followed by a deeper dive into Kosterec and Jasso’s methodologies for the appropriate rigor required in assuring the resulting concept or theory will be sound. Here is a basic outline: 1. Complete detailed research that backgrounds the concept(s) or theory(ies) 2. Allow speculative thinking or thought experiments to ideate new relationships from the previous material 3. Examine the propositions for logical consistency 4. Formulate test(s) to verify logic and to derive predictions In this method heuristic, pre-existing relations between other concepts in the theoretical landscape are analyzed with the proposition of new relation(s) in mind. When speculative thinking is allowed, new possibilities may be explored unencumbered. Since new relations can lead to conceptual or theoretical constructions, the proposition must be examined for logical consistency. Theoretical tests should also be formulated to verify the logic and create predictions for future empirical study. Once empirical research has formally verified the speculative output, the new propositions may be considered officially within the conceptual and theoretical background of the relevant literature. For the purposes of this dissertation, I will call the above abbreviated method a conceptual-theoretical analysis heuristic. I apply both constructive conceptual and theoretical analysis to all four Manuscript chapters. I then apply both analyses to Checkland and Poulter’s (2010) “soft” systems methodology in Manuscript #4, by which I generate a new methodological process through the constructive conceptual and theoretical analysis to understand how worldviews influence social innovation interventions. Such a multi-methodological approach to this dissertation will allow for a generative but rigorous approach to understanding a critical perspective of complex social 31 “problems,” so that a social innovation framework and the following social intervention methodology is built on a theoretically appropriate foundation. Organization of Dissertation This dissertation follows a research approach that is based on a theoretical framework which informs four manuscripts that are linked together to create a dissertation arc. The dissertation essentially proposes a journey of transformation for social innovators to follow, and offers them changemaking competencies of theory and practice that are specific to an internal and external perspective of individual and social inquiry. The arc is related to four research contexts and their associated problem statements and objectives. Below, I offer the titles of each manuscript within its corresponding chapter for a frame of reference along with a brief summary of each topic. The Theoretical Framework is entitled, “A Systemic-Dynamic Creativity Framework,” and is in the latter half of the second chapter. As a whole, the Framework demonstrates that creativity is a dynamic transformation between two oppositional system features, principles, states, scales, or phases, and provides a foundation for a complex systems approach to creativity. Manuscript #1 is entitled “Creative Critical Consciousness: A Complex Systems View of Creativity, Social Action, and Mindfulness,” and merges a creativity perspective of consciousness with Freire’s “critical consciousness” to analyze how static worldviews both individually and collectively impact the dynamical drive to create through a mindfully creative praxis of change. Manuscript #2 is called “Novelty Generation and Assessment: A Multidisciplinary and Complex Systems Approach.” It offers a deep investigation of how creativity (therein described through the concept of “novelty” as a key part of creativity and innovation) arises across multiple complex systems through a nonlinear dynamic view of low-recurrence self-organization. In the paper, I also clarify four “preconditions of novelty,” which are described in detail in chapter two. I also offer an applied example to a real-life example in Appendix B. Manuscript #3 is a previously published chapter titled “The Cultural Evolution of Creative Ideas and Social Innovations: A Complex Systems Approach,” and applies an entropy/negentropy perspective of dynamic nonlinear systems to social innovations, particularly through a 32 Schumpeterian “creative destruction” lens. The example that I explore in the manuscript is a resource-based economy, and how a creation and destruction cycle of change impacts a small “boomtown.” Note: whereas Manuscript #2 looks at a nonlinear dynamical complex-systems science view of novelty generation specifically from an entropic perspective of self-organization and novel dissipative structures, Manuscript #3 examines social systems innovation processes of creative destruction as it applies to single resource towns in their transition to resilient diverse economies. Both Manuscripts lead the social innovator along the dissertations arc to prepare them for social intervention. In Manuscript #4, which is entitled “Social Innovation Intervention: A Complex Systems and Soft Systems Informed Method,” I propose a hybrid methodology for social innovators to intervene in a social system by bringing the creative processes of complex systems research into the realm of the critical-theory-aware soft systems methodology (Checkland & Poulter, 2006, p. 18). The Conclusion offers an overview of the theoretical framework and the four manuscripts and describes the dissertation’s contributions and limitations to research. The Conclusion further examines the theoretical implications of my research (with particular focus on how the Framework offers new insights into a theory of novelty and creativity). The chapter and dissertation then close by describing a future research direction. The below Figure 1.4.1.a is an update to the Figure 1.1.3.b above, and offers a more complete picture of the journey or arc of transformation. The updated figure further includes a complementarist approach to systemic change that draws on the benefits of multiple paradigmatic backgrounds of each Manuscript as well as the “internal” (subjective) and “external” (objective) approach to each paper. As noted in the graphic, the dissertation starts with a theoretical investigation and moves toward a practical application of those theoretical insights. However, the steps along the way toward a methodological end are not necessarily chronologically ordered. Manuscript #1 primarily offers a praxical method of mindful awareness through an internal lens, Manuscript #2 is grounded entirely in theory and is more functionalistic while offering an application to a real-world context (in the Appendix), and Manuscript #3 is written through an external lens context with a practical example of a “boom town” used throughout. Manuscript #4 33 syntheses and applies the previous manuscripts’ theoretical components into a summative practical methodology and method for social innovation intervention. Figure 1.4.1.a. An updated graphical representation of the arc of this dissertation (based on Fig. 1.1.3.b). This version incorporates where each manuscript sits in its relation to the paradigm and also “internal” or “external” orientations of experience. Note that the foundation is theoretical and leads the reader toward the practical. Graphic by author. This dissertation’s goal is to offer social innovators a nonlinear dynamic approach to creativity through a new theoretical framework and usable methodology so they may critically address worldview bias when attempting to intervene in a social system. It positions creativity as a systemic transformational driver of social systems innovation so that innovators may use the results to leverage problems into possibilities toward beneficial social change. Through a theoretical framework and practical methodology, changemakers may increase their social innovation competency and use the methods in parts of this dissertation to define the relevant problem space through an internal reflexivity that challenges static worldviews and an external 34 perspective that analyzes complex creativity across multiple systems. I will use the term social systems innovation to consider a systemic and dynamic approach to systems transformation that describes the generalizable traits of transformational change across multiple social systems from one social system state, phase, or scale, to another. I choose to split experience into the internal/external duality to highlight the subject/object divide that may go unnoticed or ignored by biases and paradigmatic assumptions of a dichotomist view of reality. I will re-unite the internal/external duality in Manuscript #4 to find creative possibilities toward a solution within the problems themselves, which can be found through a reflexive praxis of creative mindfulness to highlight the novel distinctions found in complex creativity. 35 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKAnd Review of the Conceptual Background and Literature Indeed creative intelligence may quite generally be regarded as the ability to perceive new categories and new orders “between” the older ones, which are, in this case, the disjointed extremes. In doing this, it is not just “mixing” the extremes, or “selecting useful bits” from them. Nor is it a matter of engaging in some “middling” or “mediocre” type of action. Rather, as in the case of regular orders of low degree and chaotic orders of infinite degree, what lies between is a new domain for creativity, which is qualitatively different from either of the extremes. (Bohm, 1987, p. 266) 2.1.1 Background One of this dissertation’s key objectives is to offer social innovators a theoretical framework to consider how complex multiple systems are transformed from one feature, state, scale, or phase to another—in other words, a framework that answers the question of what is creativity from a multi-systemic complex and nonlinear dynamical view. I will address this objective by first offering a literature review of the sources that support such a framework and the methodologies that drive it, so that the theoretical material generated in the manuscripts that follow may have a supported background. This section will also include the identification of some novel relations between conceptual claims found in the literature, with propositions for what those relations could mean as a theory-making construct in support of the manuscripts and their logical arguments. The resulting conceptual approach will create a general theoretical setting of the underlying dynamic and systemic processes of transformational change as a foundation for the theoretical framework I propose in the second section of this this chapter. A theoretical framework’s goal is to offer a conceptual structure of ideas about socio-psychological processes that work across levels (i.e., descriptive or analytic) in an attempt to understand our collective experience of ourselves and society (Anfara & Mertz, 2015 pp. 13, 23–24; Mills & Bettis, 2015, p. 95). In the practitioner-oriented field of social innovation, the value of having a solid theoretical background and understanding how worldviews bias knowledge cannot be understated. As claimed by Kurt Lewin (1951), considered the founder of social 36 psychology, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory” (p. 169). The ancient Indian text, the Dhammapada (Byrom, 1976/1993, p. 1), states that our thoughts make up the world. Without a framework to guide our thoughts about the world, we become susceptible to unconsciously take on other people’s worldviews. Winter and Checkland (2003, p. 187) comment on the famed economist Keynes’ perspective on theory: people who described themselves as practical men, proud to be uncontaminated by any kind of theory, always turned out to be the intellectual prisoners of the theoreticians of yesteryear. Whether we agree or not with this plausible assertion, it does remind us that all practical action is theory-laden, in the sense that all action in the world takes as given some ideas, irrespective of whether the practitioner is conscious of it or not. Human experience is interwoven with conscious and unconscious views that are often assumed to be our own but are deeply influenced by the theories of others. Due to the primacy of experience, such theories often lie outside of conscious and critical investigation. To limit the extent to which a social innovator’s action is biased by unconscious worldviews laden with theoretical perspectives of others, and specifically static views of yesteryear that might not be beneficial to the innovator’s present situation, I will analyze previous and current theories and critique them based on the strength of their assumptions and effectiveness of their predictions, so that I may offer new theoretical propositions based on the gaps in the current knowledge-base. The critique will aid in offering social innovators a supported theoretical background for systems change and will further reveal how socio-psychological processes work across systems so as to offer a deeper understanding of our collective experience of social, psychological, and natural processes. In the proposed theoretical framework, I claim that there is a unitive systemic driver of change across multiple systems, and I argue this from a transdisciplinary perspective. I refer to that systemic driver as creativity, building on other works that have investigated similar research topics (such as Bergson, 1911/1944; Csikszentmihalyi, 1999; Joas, 1996; Whitehead, 1929/1960). While other terms such as “innovation” and “emergence” are also often used to describe systems change, I propose that creativity drives innovation and emergence and all systemic change, and I describe novelty as what makes creativity “new.” As such, I propose that creativity is applicable across multiple disciplines and systems so that a transdisciplinary and trans-systemic investigation may generate a framework for practical use by social innovators (and other disciplinarians) seeking to understand deeper systemic transformation. I will call this framework 37 “systemic-dynamic creativity” (see A Systemic-Dynamic Creativity, chapter 2.2, below for further explication). Through theoretical and constructive conceptual analysis, I will review the literature and approach the conceptual field of systemic transformation through three main topics. First, I will review and examine the methodologies and conceptual landscape of how a quantitative and qualitative understanding of transformation might take place through a generalizable means that can be applied to building a multi-disciplinary and multi-systemic understanding. Secondly, I will review and examine the relationship between social systems and worldviews, examining how both are transformative process of creativity as systemic change. Next, I will review and examine creativity and social innovation as two key topics for the entire dissertation, offer a brief history of the topics as they related to systemic change, in preparation for the deeper dive into these concepts as the dynamic and processual drivers of systemic change across multiple systems, as proposed in the theoretical framework. The framework will be a “backbone” for the next three chapters (Manuscript #1, #2, and #3) which assumes the framework is a ground for its propositions, and for Manuscript #4 which will use the framework in its methodology for practical use. 2.1.2 Conceptual Review In generating a theoretical framework using concepts on the topic of creativity and social innovation from a complex systems perspective, a review of the conceptual landscape itself will be of value. I will briefly examine a qualitative understanding of quantitative research, to merge disciplinary approaches to complex systems through the humanities and the sciences. Next, I will prepare the ground of transdisciplinary research when it comes to creativity as a multi-disciplinary and multi-systemic process by reviewing the concept of the “generalizability” of systems without reductionistic or emergentist tendencies and focus rather on those shared traits as they apply between, across, and beyond those systems. Finally, I will review “transsystemic thinking” as a pathway for transdisciplinary systemic research as it applies to this study. Incorporating a qualitative approach to quantitative systems research that includes a generalizable 38 and transsystemic examination will assist in examining the logical consistency of the propositions to determine whether they may be verified as applied across the humanities and sciences. a. A Qualitative Approach to Complex Systems Science There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion. (Meadows, 2008, p. 190) In order to investigate novelty generation and particularly a transdisciplinary approach across multiple systems, it is important to consider the term “system” outside of the potential trappings of a mono-paradigmatic interpretation of reality that may be laced with overly simplistic hierarchical notions of “levels” boundaried with implied social power dynamics. For example, László’s (1972) The Systems View of the World describes a world of systems as if those systems exist; however, as Flood (1990) tells us in Liberating Systems Theory, a “boundary is the ultimate expression of systemic abstraction and abstraction is ‘…to do with, or existing in, thought or theory rather than matter’” (quoting Oxford Dictionary of Current English, p. 91). Similarly, I suggest that hierarchic levels of reality are also expressions of symbolic relationships existing in thought or theory as described by observers, and thus impose an objectified reductionism or emergentism to a systems investigation. Levels are important concepts describing observable reality as they pertain to specific contexts that are usually mechanistic in structure or functionalistic in nature; however, difficulty arises when the emphasis of observation suggests that such concepts—however beneficial they may appear—are actually descriptions of reality. Further complication arises when normative values are attributed to such levels through the categorization of evaluative worldviews that result in power differentials that favour one level versus another, especially when systems science is applied to the social world of human interaction. A system in complexity science can have the above challenges reconciled when a quantitative approach to the term is balanced with a qualitative perspective, which includes functionalist and interpretivist use and is sensitive to socially constructed power structures laden with the potential normative inequities of an observer. As such, I adopt a complementarist approach to qualitative and quantitative research. Doing so will enable me to identify contextualized and shared traits as investigated through the complementary strengths of both a 39 quantitative and qualitative lens. A balanced approach as applied across multiple systems will help to avoid deterministically conflating the diversity of many “parts” into homogenous “wholes.” From a perspective that leans toward interpretivism, a system is an agreed upon common co-arising subjective experience of observed patterns of interrelations between multiple parts that are grouped (and thus boundaried) and based on shared experience and reflective conceptual systems or worldviews. A critical investigation challenges privileged notions of quantitative research in science. For example, “quantitative work is clearly privileged in discussions of the application of chaos/complexity to any substantive area of science” (Byrne, 1998, p. 55), which favours quantitative deductions due to its symbolic logic and “proofs” of causal determinism. While deterministic thinking has improved our lives, for instance in weather prediction (Lorenz, 1963, p. 130), it can limit and conflate a pluralistic diversity of societies into homogenous wholes or reductionist “parts.” As Cohen and Stewart (1994, p. 442) note, Reductionism is great for quantitative aspects of internal details. In contrast, our current understanding of external large-scale effects is mostly descriptive and qualitative, geometric rather than numerical. We can recognise a hurricane from a satellite photo, but we can’t tell what it is going to do. In other words, quantitative models are extremely useful and, depending on their intended use and which phenomena is studied, enable researchers to investigate complex relationships with a precision toward a deeper understanding. However, reductionist rhetoric can sometimes claim “a degree of correspondence between deep underlying rules and reality that is never justified by any actual calculation or experiment” (Cohen & Stewart, 1994, p. 410). A complementarist approach that joins the determinism of symbolic logic and an interpretivist indeterministic view of symbolic relations will be beneficial to a complex sciences’ understanding of multiple systems. A heuristic19 approach to symbolic relationships offers a complementarist view of a quantitative and qualitative approach to complex-system scientific analysis. A heuristic approach allows for the complexity of any conceptual or theoretical multivariants while keeping in focus the practical achievement of an essential task. For example, while the symbolic logic of a mathematical language enables researchers to verify their reasoning through logical precision, “mathematical descriptions of nature are not fundamental truths about the world, but models” 19 See Glossary. 40 (Cohen & Stewart, 1994, p. 410). For this reason, a mathematical description from a heuristic view is seen as an “analogy,” and its failure occurs only when it is “implicitly assumed to be the analogy which never breaks down” (Barrow, 1992, p. 21). A heuristic approach offers a conceptual space where both the qualitative nature of descriptions as used from the context of the user is combined with the precision of the verification of logistical relationships. For the purposes of this dissertation, I will take a complementarist approach that is inclusive of quantitative and qualitative research, and will privileging one when it is lacking in the literature of that particular investigation, to assure both will be balanced and treated as valuable in that context. Any symbolic relationships such as mathematic descriptions herein should be considered models or “heuristics” of knowledge systems that will be consciously developed free of hidden presuppositions, especially ones that are hierarchical and exclude heterarchical considerations. When creativity is seen through a heuristic lens of complex systems science, its complementarist value becomes inclusive of the tensional dynamics between “creation” (or the ordering processes of negentropy) and “destruction” (or the disordering processes of entropy). For this reason, a complex systems view of creativity is not at odds with views within the humanities such as in religious studies (for example, in Hinduism, Brahmā the symbol of creation, and Shiva is the symbol of destruction; Zimmer, 1946/1989, p. 124) or in the arts (White, 2017, pp. 214–224). A complementarist balance between the humanities and sciences will help create a subjective and experiential understanding as well as an objective and measurable analysis of creativity. A transdisciplinary approach will also be valuable to identifying the interstitial, intersectional, and boundary-crossing elements of multiple systems, and thus further our understanding of creativity and social innovation as processes and forces that go beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries to shared traits that can be generalized across all. b. Generalizability Models of reality have necessarily reduced complex situations into multiple parts or units of understanding (Cilliers, 2001, p. 137). Thus, in searching for system dynamics that cross multiple systems and shared traits, such as the case with creativity and innovation, research will need to investigate the interactions between systems using a system that structures those systems (Flood, 1990, p. 5; Hall & Fagen, 2003, p. 71; Jackson, 1991, p. 133; Levine & Fitzgerald, 1992, 41 p. 4; Pear, 2010, p. 1332; von Bertalanffy, 1968, pp. 36–49). A multi-systemic structure to systems research demands a generalized investigation of shared traits across such systems. Generalized theories—such as the “general systems theory,” upon which most systems theories are based (von Bertalanffy, 1968)—fall prey to conflating the diversity of multiple systems for a singular unity as well as being overly objectivistic and thus strictly positivistic. Yet, there is clearly a distinct interrelatedness between people, objects, and thoughts, and thus there is an interconnectivity between constituents of a system that might hold keys to understanding creativity as it works across multiple systems. Because creativity arises across many systems, there is a need to develop a research lens to decipher the multiplicity of individual systems while being considerate of generalizable traits that are shared across multiple systems. To avoid fabricating an overarching theoretical perspective that conflates autonomous theories along with specific empirical or theoretical contexts or that homogenizes a pluralistic landscape of theory, I will avoid “grand” theorizing and instead lean toward theoretically grounded heuristics that focus on complementary traits or processes. Ideally, these traits or processes will be generalizable across multiple systems. Sociologist George Ritzer (1990, p. 13) leads us to metatheory: he calls for an improvement in the quality of sociological inquiry through “the attainment of a deeper understanding of theory, the creation of new theory, and the creation of an overarching theoretical perspective (a metatheory)” (p. 3). However, some theorists challenge the notion of metatheories. For instance, in relation to creativity, Baer (2012, p. 157) is sceptical of metatheorizing because he argues a dogmatic concern that a theoretician who does not have expertise in a singular discipline will homogeneously synthesize phenomena and generate theoretical impositions. Yet Baer does not acknowledge the theorizing that considers shared or generalized traits between, across, or beyond different disciplines. For example, social innovation does not sit neatly in any single discipline, and thus requires an inter-, multi-, or transdisciplinary approach between, across, and beyond siloed theories of each discipline that complements the usefulness of a generalizability. Therefore, I will approach any shared or generalizable traits or processes under three main lenses. First, I will use a complementarist lens that acknowledges qualitative and quantitative degrees of disciplinary research. This approach draws upon the strengths of any approach to apply to the context of the surrounding constituents of the systems that may be considered 42 generalizable. Second, I will use critical systems thinking (Flood & Jackson, 1991b) as a lens to examine the potentially generalizable trait from three main commitments: critical awareness of taken-for-granted assumptions, emancipation in view of power issues, and methodological pluralism, aiming to do so in a coherent manner to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed generalizable traits (Midgley, 2011, p. 11). Using a critical systems thinking lens will allow for heuristic usage with less concern for illogical or inconsistent relationships or homogenously synthesizing phenomena. Third, I will use a trans-systemic research approach, as outlined below. c. Transsystemic Research and a Five-Point Metric In order to reconcile a subjective and critical approach to systemic research while not losing the objectivity of a generalizability across multiple systems, I will employ a “trans-systemic” approach to research and analysis. While transdisciplinary research builds bridges between, across, and beyond disciplines (Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39), I propose transsystemic research bridges between, across, and beyond systems. Transsystemic research is a proposed hybrid and extension of “transsystemic learning,” which was devised by McGill University in the 1990s20 as a pedagogical structure to reconcile two law systems in Canada that were used and taught simultaneously in legal education. Transsystemic learning as McGill University teaches, is an epistemological and pedagogical practice that is “pluralist, polycentric, non-positivist, and interactive” (MacDonald & MacLean, 2005, p. 721). It is a comparative, multi-systemic, cosmopolitan, pluralistic, and dialogic approach to education around two diverse but important systems (Bedard, 2001 pp. 237–297; Jukier, 2017, p. 4, Paul-André Crépeau Centre, n.d.). Jukier (2017) suggests that “transsystemic thinking” introduces hybridity, acknowledges the multiplicity of sources, and seeks not only to discover “functional equivalents” and “essential tenets” of thought that underscore different systems (p. 9), but also to unbind thinkers from any particular normativity to allow practitioners to see the possibility of more than one answer or structure of reality (p. 10). Thus, transsystemic thinking supports a critical, flexible, and creative approach to 20 The earliest usage of the term “trans-systemic,” as I will be using it, was in Systemic Causation by James Austin (1978, p. 86). 43 analysing and evaluating knowledge by questioning underlying assumptions when creating new knowledge (p. 13). At present, transsystemic learning and thinking in academic study are generally limited to the context of law and legal education, as the term is defined by the authors surrounding McGill University’s practice. I will advance Jukier’s (2017) notion of transsystemic thinking to be also applied to systems science, and will include both a critical systems thinking lens (Flood & Jackson, 1991b) and a liberating systems theory (Flood, 1990, p. 1) approach to reconcile the generalizations of general systems theory. I propose that transsystemic research has two main branches. First, it is a study of system-relations through a multi-systemic, pluralistic and interconnected lens to complex systems that also acknowledges hybridity and unmeasurable system dynamics. Secondly, transsystemic research is a critical study of those systems, which includes a cosmopolitan and a dialogic interactive approach that acknowledges the multiplicity of sources and yet unbinds thinkers from any particular normativity, so that researchers will not be tempted to see only one structure of reality (see Jukier, 2017, p. 10). In its first branch, the system-relations approach, transsystemic research is primarily concerned with the “zones in-between,”21 across, and beyond traditional notions of a system. It is an effort toward a diverse and pluralistic but interconnected and unitive understanding of how shared or generalizable traits across multiple systems work to build knowledge-systems among multiple disciplines (Wilson, 2013, p. 18, Niscolescu, 2012, pp. 36, 39). It thus transdisciplinary and multi-paradigmatic in its purpose, and may use multi-methodological approaches to studying “hidden” or unitive relations. Transsystemic research notes that a majority of systems may have shared traits and contexts, but does not propose that all systems employ such traits or contexts. For example, several researchers have acknowledged psychological systems can have similarities to natural living systems (von Bertalanffy, 1968; Gabora, 2017; Hirsh et al., 2012; Varey, 2010), but they do not argue that such systems must behave similarly. Transsystemic research maintains agility and flexibility to address novel problems as they arise by uses creative thinking to invite the cross-fertilization of ideas (Jukier, 2017, pp. 6, 17). As creativity arises across multiple 21 In the spirit of an ecological context, I call these zones that are “in-between,” systones, from the Greek prefix “sys” (group, model) and “tone” (tonos, or tension) (OED, 2008, June), after the aforementioned “ecotones.” 44 systems, as I discuss in this dissertation, transsystemic research allows for the shared and generalizable traits of specific systems in a transsystemic understanding of those systems. In the second branch, transsystemic research has the following characteristics. First, it takes a systemic approach, in which systems are seen as socially constructed observable patterns of relations rather than concrete realities that are absent of subjective observation and constructed via mental models and worldviews (for an overview of a critical approach to general systems theory, see Flood, 1990, pp. 124–130). As such, systems can be seen as metaphorical or heuristic understandings of reality (Flood, 1990, p. 124; Langley, 2004; Martí et al., 2018). Such an approach will allow key system contexts to be found generally across multiple systems (such as entropy being applicable to multiple systems, for example), and while not deterministically equal in all systems or disciplines, systems can still be a beneficial avenue of investigation to find contexts of similarity. Next, transsystemic research openly engages in critical analysis, which considers an emancipatory approach to research that reduces conflating and homogenizing worldviews when merging disciplines together without examination. Ulrich (1983, p. 64) offers a clear reminder: there is only one way in which we can claim “objectivity”—in the general sense of freedom from hidden presuppositions—for our empirical basis of rational discourse: namely, by acknowledging, in each case, the knowledge-constitutive interests on which the validity and meaning of “facts” depend. In this quote, Ulrich acknowledges the philosophic perspective of Jürgen Habermas (1971) that challenges a positivistic-only approach to science. If his “one way” to free hidden presuppositions is to be respected, any reconciliation of generalized attributes across systems must acknowledge the “knowledge-constitutive interests” when coming across observable or theoretical “facts,” in order to avoid treating them as objects attained only for knowledge. As such, critical awareness is required in research to focus on power inequities, which for the purposes of this discussion are normatively generated social structures of categorization and hierarchy. Transsystemic research also allows for complementarist approaches, which acknowledge that (for example) pragmatic and objective investigations, experiments and physical applications can be complementary to theoretical and subjective investigations, studies and social application. However, both would be critically analyzed for normative assumptions and hidden presuppositions, to find similarities in situations without inducing theoretical contradictions (Flood, 1990, p. 143). Finally, 45 transsystemic research is heterarchical, referring to a heterarchy of structural rules and dynamics that are inclusive or organizationally structured as multiple parts related to wholes, which can be vertical as in traditional “levels” of system relations, but also horizontal and transversal (or intersectional) (Crumley, 1995, p. 2; Haynes, 2018, p. 16; Kontopoulos, 1993, p. 209; Walby, 2007, p. 460). Heterarchy contests power structure flows and increases equitable social dynamics.22 Kontopoulos (1993) argues that complex social systems, by their very nature as structures of multivariate levels, must be understood as heterarchical rather than hierarchical (p. 226; Haynes, 2018, p. 16). Figure 2.1.2.c. A graphical view of a “system,” depicted according to a traditionally hierarchical view (left), and re-interpreted according to a heterarchical view (right). Graphic by the author, based on Geels (2005, p. 82). See Figure 2.1.2.c for a depiction of a heterarchical approach to emergent systems. While transsystemic research does not assume or favour hierarchic structures, it can be inclusive of them and still support the “irreducible differences and similarities” (MacDonald & McLean, 2005, p. 1) between various systems. These characteristics round out transsystemic research as being a diverse approach to the study of multiple systems. 22 The term “holarchy” is also relevant here as both a whole and a part, but as a systems structure holarchy is often referred to hierarchically, and thus, I will use heterarchy as the preferred term (Botti & Giret, 2008; Koestler, 1967). 46 In order to implement the above two branches of transsystemic research into this dissertation, I propose a five-point “transsystemic metric,” which I will use as a checklist of assumptions that might be made during research. 1. Is the research concerned with what is across, in-between, and beyond currently assumed systems? Does the research search for an interconnected understanding of how multiple systems work (Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39)? As such, does it allow for key system contexts to be found generally across multiple systems (such as the entropy example), while not deterministically equating them in all systems or disciplines? 2. Does the research have the agility and flexibility to address novel problems as they arise, by using creativity to invite the cross-fertilization of ideas (Jukier, 2017, p. 6, 17)? Is the research creatively curious and socially mindful of those being impacted? 3. Is it heterarchic in terms of its organizational structure, inclusive to wholes that are vertical, horizontal, or transversal/intersectional (Haynes, 2018, p. 16; Kortopoulos, 1993, p. 209; Walby, 2007, p. 460)? Does it allow for complementarism, which acknowledges a pragmatic investigation and application while undergoing a critical analysis of normative assumptions to find similarities in situations without inducing theoretical contradictions (Flood, 1990, p. 143)? 4. Does the research acknowledge that systems are observable patterns rather than concrete realities; as such, that systems are socially constructed (see Flood, 1990, pp. 124–130)? Are they seen as metaphors or heuristics (Flood, 1990, p. 124; Langley, 2004; Martí et al., 2018) or as actualities? 5. Does the research check for hidden presuppositions and biased worldviews, and in each case, acknowledge the “knowledge-constitutive interests on which the validity and meaning of ‘facts’ depend” (Ulrich, 1983, p. 64)? Is it dialogically interactive in an effort toward a diverse and pluralistic but interconnected understanding? This critical view of “systems” research will offer this dissertation a metric that will be useful for the manuscripts, serving to limit an overly simplistic and thus homogenous view of systems dynamics. Transsystemic research benefits this dissertation’s research for two key reasons. First, it facilitates an “external” understanding of natural and social systems, specifically in how multiple systems interact, intersect, and auto-generate new systemic structures beyond the traditional understanding of a systems context. It necessarily describes the in-between places to investigate multiple complex systems for generalizable traits across multiple systems, particularly psychological systems (Gabora, 2017, p. 10; Hirsch et al., 2012, p. 304), natural systems (Gunderson & Holling, 2002, p. 327), and social systems (Geels & Schot, 2010, pp. 11–12). 47 Thus, is directly applicable to the concept of creativity as a systemic process that drives multiple systems across disciplines. Second, it supports transdisciplinarity as it produces an “internal” critical investigation of systems research that requires a normative analysis to reduce hidden presuppositions (Ulrich, 1983, p. 64) and thus worldview bias. Such an internal/external approach to systemic research enables the research in this dissertation (and social innovators more generally) to analyze multiple systems in order to find natural indicators of systemic change trending toward innovation so that novel opportunities may be leveraged into social innovation. Thus, transsystemic research facilitates transdisciplinarity, multi-paradigms, multi-methodologies, and complementarism, and in doing so, it leaves room for pragmatic and objective investigations as well as physical applications to science that are complementary to a critical analysis of research investigation (Flood, 1990, p. 143). In short, transsystemic research reconciles both a critical approach to systemic research and an objective generalizability across multiple systems. Now, let us turn to a review of social systems and the worldviews which conceptually create them. 2.1.3 A Social Systems Review I am in a world which is in me. (Paul Valéry, as quoted by Shaffer, 2009, p. 215) Since a systemic-dynamic creativity framework is meant for the study of multiple systems, particularly those leading to social innovation, a brief investigation of social systems will be beneficial. In this section, I will review key concepts of social systems as they pertain to the lifeworld of the individual and collective through their worldviews, and in the context of creativity and social innovation and their intimate relationship with the social world. Social systems and collective worldviews are relevant to the study of creativity and social innovation because cultural evolution is driven by creativity, where an individual worldview is the basic unit (see Gabora 2017 and 2018a for an individual account). I propose in Manuscript #3 that similarly, social systems are driven by social (system) innovation processes, of which a collective of worldviews is the unit(s) of change. However, worldviews have biases based on normative subjectivities constructed from social interactions that can impede cultural exchanges and development. By understanding worldviews and their biases, and how social systems are driven 48 by collective worldviews as the innovation process of creativity, social innovators will be able to intervene in the system with greater confidence, less normative bias, and a deeper understanding of systemic processes of change. a. Worldview Bias and Metric This question is discussed at length and we arrive at the notion that our general world view is itself an overall movement of thought, which has to be viable in the sense that the totality of activities that flow out of it are generally in harmony, both in themselves and with regard to the whole of existence. Such harmony is seen to be possible only if the world view itself takes part in an unending process of development, evolution, and unfoldment, which fits as part of the universal process that is the ground of all existence. (Bohm, 1980, xiv). When social innovators address a complex social problem, they do so through a particular view of the world. Gabora and Aerts (2009) describe a worldview as the associative pathways and networks of weaving narratives and concepts in an integrating and self-organizing web of understandings about the world (Gabora & Aerts, 2009, p. 434; Gabora, 2018a, p. 5). Worldviews typically have multiple components, including ontological, epistemological, axiological, and praxeological perspectives, an amalgamation of self-refining paradigmatic and ideological mental models to create a holistic “view” of what makes up the world. They are constructed social structures of understanding—albeit individually tailored to specific needs—from others’ views as well as our own experience of the world. Because they are a ubiquitous lens through which we see, worldviews lead to presuppositions about the foundational features of subjective reality (see Baxter, 2007, p. 1), altering one’s conceptual system over time to align with that reality. As such, worldviews are biased to each individual and their unique history and perspective. In this section, I will describe worldview bias,23 which describes the overall unchecked favoured or privileged views of the world that individuals or collectives believe in and act upon as representations of reality. A bias is defined as “an inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair” (OED, 2021, June). It is the lack of internal validity or the incorrect assessment of the association between the expectation and the result that one 23 Also, see the Glossary. 49 believes it is (Delgado-Rodríguez & Llorca, 2004, p. 635). The word comes from the 14th century French word biais, meaning “oblique line” (as in a geometrical diagonal or hypotenuse, not across but slanting). Bias is by its nature normatively limiting, because any norms believed to be inclusively representative of the whole are distorted or prejudiced toward certain social norms, positioning the resulting conceptual systems or knowledge in conflict with another conceptual system, knowledge, or aspect of it. Biases can further normative limitations. When an initial bias is held or believed, reflexivity can be severely hampered in favour of a limited or objective “truth” that has bypassed critical complex thinking. This leads to a privileging of certain ways of knowing over others, usually unjustified, and can support a dominant culture or gender (Hitchcock, 2018, para. 89). Biases say: “this works and that doesn’t and why? I don’t know, but let’s use it.” When unjustified, as Hitchcock points out, these certain ways of knowing disproportionately favour (2018, para. 89): • reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric [perspectives] over dialectical; engagement with opposing world-views; • distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it; • indifference to the situation of others over care for them; • orientation to thought over orientation to action; • being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas; • being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated; • doubting over believing; • reason over emotion, imagination, and intuition; • solitary thinking over collaborative thinking; • written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression; • attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems; • winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding. The above list mirrors a common splitting defence mechanism of those in need of reducing cognitive dissonance that is triggered by uncertainty or disorder. Bias alleviates such internal tension by creating cognitive short-cuts and assumptions which distort unjustified 50 perceptions of an unconscious limited reality. There are hundreds of types of bias (see Appendix A). When worldviews are relied upon without checking for the influence of bias, decisions get made based on inferential assumptions and presuppositions, which can limit solution-making (Dörner, 1997; Senge, 1990) because the system “feeds back” the consequences of actions into the solution-attempting system at an exponentially increasing rate that might even escalate the original problem that was attempting to be resolved in the first place (Hovmand, 2013, p. 2). I propose that worldviews can be biased in individuals and collectives in four general categories: equity, paradigms, ontology, and causality. The first worldview bias occurs in the topic of equity, when a worldview incorporates the categorization of one social group over the other using social determinates that are constructed through levels of power (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1296–1298). This bias is socially prominent and is the basis for discrimination and colonization (Carty & Barron, 2019, p. 383). Next is the (often unconscious) favouring of one paradigmatic conceptualization of reality over another. While the concept of a paradigm was originally attributed to science by Kuhn (1962), the term also means a series or set of conceptual structures and mental models of a particular discipline, as in a collectively agreed upon worldview. When a paradigm is challenged, cognitive overload can occur limiting creative solution-making. As Bohm (1987, p. 52) indicates: In order to pursue this whole issue of creativity, it is necessary to return to the question of the nature of paradigms. Paradigms clearly involve, in a key way, the process of taking ideas and concepts for granted, without realizing that this is in fact going on. Since this process takes place as the mind attempts to defend itself against what it believes to be a severe disturbance, a paradigm tends to interfere with that free play of the mind that is essential for creativity. Instead it encourages the process of playing false, especially in deep and subtle areas. Paradigms frame not only our intellectual understanding but also our experience and can split the relationship between the two into mind and matter. Through this bias, materialism or positivism takes centre stage and becomes at odds with idealism, contextualizing an objective externality in opposition to subjective internal experience. Perhaps Dewey (1929) said it best: “[t]he natural and original bias of man is all toward the objective” (p. 12). The split between mind and matter may lead people to the next bias, which is an ontological ideology of a separate reality between “me” and “you,” which presupposes an objectivized “other” as those who are not “me.” Peter Senge, well known in the corporate systems thinking world, tells a story of meeting Master Nan Huai- 51 Chin, a revered Zen master from China, who answered a direct question about which is the most significant environmental crisis in the world. After a long pause, he answered that there is “only one issue in the world. It’s the reintegration of matter and mind” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 54). When object and subject are split, reality becomes available for objectification. The last general bias is causality, the polarizing separation between linear or deterministic causality (the view that “this equals that,” which was challenged by complexity theory and nonlinear causality in the 1980s), or, chaotic stochasticity. Linear thinking combined with causal determinism leads social innovators to say, “climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels.” Is it? Or is it caused by corporate interest in fossil fuels? Or by greed? A chaotic stochasticity leads to the comment: “it’s impossible to get anything done!” A linear cause-and-effect and a chaotic stochasticity comes from a reductionist oversimplification of a myriad of complex causal factors and engender illusive thinking (Matute et al., 2015, p. 1).24 Both are critical to consider when attempting to address climate change, or any other complex social challenge. To reduce the challenge of integrating unchecked worldview biases into research and interventions, I turn my attention to building a worldview bias metric that includes a brief explanation of the bias and a series of questions based that highlight its applicability. The purpose is to challenge inferred assumptions and presuppositions that construct worldviews but are not yet examined for elements for logical consistency. See Figure. 2.1.3.d for a graphical representation. 1. Equity. A bias that occurs in a worldview and degrades equity into inequity. This bias is the falsely founded upon discriminatory privileging one categorization of constituents over others due to gender, colour, sexual identity, ability, culture, language, looks, etc. Questions that may aid in challenging this bias: Do all people, or system parts, deserve fair and equitable treatment? Do all parts, people, groups, or communities deserve to be included? Can I welcome diverse opinions or mono opinions, even if they contradict my/our own? 2. Paradigm. A single paradigmatic lens of a system or how the world is seen falsely presupposes the complexity of multi-paradigmatic reality into a single disciplinary category. For example, if a social “problem” is seen as a bunch of parts that simply need to be “fixed,” then an overly mechanistic paradigm that supports objectivistic overtones may be operating to functionalise the situation. Complexity is far more nuanced with plurality than a mono-paradigmatic view. Some questions to challenge such a bias: Can the problem 24 Matute et al. (2015, p. 1) argue that a “scientific thinking” is necessary to overcome the illusion of causality; however, I argue that such an argument is simply another bias, that of a positivistic-leaning (or even of scientism) paradigmatic bias. Instead, I suggest complex critical thinking to reduce the bias of a linear or deterministic causality. 52 in the system be fixed? Does it need to be? How many dimensions of the system are at play? What is my worldview constructed of? 3. Ontology. Although the meaning of ontology varies, for this metric I will refer to the understanding of reality as it pertains to subject and object. This bias limits systems to either parts or wholes, subjects or objects. It says “you are separate from me, and our differences define us,” or, “we are all the same.” It is an “I” versus “other” mentality or a “we” only mentality. It says “they are all communists,” or “greedy capitalists.” This lens attempts to remind innovators that the individual and collective are not so easily polarized, as the interconnectedness of life is far more complex. Some questions: Do people deserve to protect their family at the expense of others? What is the space of reality shared between us? As van Breda states (2007, p. 107): the ability to understand the inseparability of the subject and object as a complex/recursive relationship makes it possible to not make a separation between our thinking and doing. 4. Causality. Positioning reality as either linearly deterministic or wildly stochastic polarizes it into a linear cause-and-effect that is predetermined or makes reality entirely chaotic or random. This bias does not acknowledge the deep complexity of intricate social connections and psychologies mixed with causal links or spontaneous opportunity. It says, “they are like that because…” or “There’s no way we’ll ever know!” Some questions to challenge this bias: Do people cause their own life circumstance? What are the complexities behind this situation? Did this only happen by chance? Figure 2.1.3.a. A graphical representation of the four “worldview biases.” The same graphic is in Manuscript #4. 53 The above metric may help reveal the systemic mental models, inferential assumptions and presuppositions that might be impacting a social innovating individual or team, to help reduce the rigid impositions that worldviews can have on dynamic and creative processes. The metric may be used by social innovators prior, during, or after system design to prepare, process, and review strategies for social intervention. b. Social Systems & Collective Worldviews While social innovation is generally discussed and contextualized as occurring within the notion of a “social system,” as the above subsection suggests, the individuals and collectives who make up that social system are also “made up” of worldviews. I suggest this because a social innovator sees the world (and the other individuals and collectives in it) only through their worldviews, that is, through socially constructed thoughts, beliefs, cultures, ideologies, and identities. As such, a social system is “made up” of a collective of individual worldviews, or a collective system of individual worldviews that are interconnected and interact through the agents who see the world through them. I shall clarify in this section the relationship between a “social system” and a “collective worldview.” First, however, I will describe a “social system” as it relates to this investigation. Social systems are difficult to investigate for two main reasons. One is that they can be seen as objectified conceptual structures about observed patterns of social relations, as seen in external dynamics of a network of interdependent “actors” or “agents” within a collective (Cilliers, 1998, p. 28). The patterns of relations are complex (that is, non-mechanistic), temporally asymmetric (although they may exhibit recurrence), and reactive to the sensitivity of initial conditions. Second, social systems are subjective, in that they are individual and collective responses to an internal reflective experience of such personal and collective network dynamics based on a conceptual system constructed by culture and limited by the worldview of any individual and the collective. Habermas (1984/2001) positions the two this way: an objectivist conceives of society as a natural process that is observable from empirical constancies of 54 behaviour explainable through principles and hypotheses as if deterministically valid.25 On the other hand, a subjectivist conceives of society as a “meaningful structured system of life” (p. 10) that is continuously constructed by socialization through symbolic communication and abstract rules. However, a balanced perspective between these oppositional perspectives will be of value to consider. Anthony Giddens (1984) offers a possible solution: an “escape” from the dualism of subjectivism and objectivism, by proposing a “duality of structure” (and thus structure and agent) in which structures are actualized when the subject instantiates rules and resources of societal structure through the language of the subject as it is conceptualized in a concrete situation (Mouzelis, p. 748). Giddens warns us that the concept of a social system signifies a series of relationships that are boundaried, but that the degree of “systemness” is variable and that collectives such as societies rarely have clear boundaries.26 The notion of boundaries is central in complex systems science—and indeed in creativity and social innovation as well. To develop the notion of societies as systems even further, sociologist and philosopher Niklas Luhmann (1984/1995) calls for a type of “unity of the totality” (p. 408) of what is social, in a complex system of communications as a horizontal network of differentiated but interconnected social subsystems (p. xii). Each system of communication reproduces itself recursively due to self-organization and the limitations of disorder, non-linearity, unpredictability, and “the collapse of the boundaries between observer and observed” (p. xiii). According to Luhmann, communication is the only “guarantee of reality” (p. 446), and no mind-independent reality can be known. Thus, a theory to address social relations must come from a complementary view, which requires reconstructing a process that is both amenable to objective action and subjective reflexivity so that a “meaningfully structured social reality is produced” (p. 10). Much has been said about this topic, as is seen in social studies and particularly the philosophy of sociology (Horkheimer & 25 For example, sociologist Talcott Parsons in his The Social System (1951/1991) states that a social system is a “system of processes of interaction between actors” (p. 1–2), suggesting social actors are driven by their motivational expectations, purposes, or “need-dispositions” in conjunction with personality and cultural systems. 26 Giddens (1984) also warns us: “We have to be very careful indeed with the concept of ‘social system’ and the associated notion of ‘society.’ They sound innocent terms, and they are probably indispensable if used with appropriate measures of caution. ‘Society’ has a useful double meaning, which 1 have relied upon—signifying a bounded system, and social association in general. An emphasis upon regionalization helps to remind us that the degree of ‘systemness’ in social systems is very variable and that ‘societies’ rarely have easily specifiable boundaries” (p. xxvi). 55 Adorno, 1947/2002; James, 1920; Kuhn, 1962; Mead, 1934), which adds to the difficulty of investigating social systems and their relation to complexity, creativity, and social innovation. To aid in the reconstructing of social reality to be both objectivist and subjectivist, I add the concept of the collective worldview, which offers a subjective understanding of a social system as a multiplicity of interrelated individuals and their identities in a recursive interaction, adaptation, and compositional web of understandings, beliefs, and attitudes (per the Glossary; see also Gabora & Unrau, 2019a, p. 220). Both a social system and collective worldview are valuable for an investigation of social innovation because as we will see further below and in this dissertation’s manuscripts, social systems are driven by social (systems) innovation, which is a collective transition of individual worldviews through processes of creativity that are also found in cultural evolution (see Gabora 2017 and 2019b, for an individual account). I will use the two terms “social system” and “collective worldview” to describe similar things but with distinct differences.27 I will use the term “social system” to describe a collective of individuals and their interactive communal exchange of social actions as driven by their individual and collective worldviews and their interconnected web of understandings. I will use the term “collective worldview” to describe a collective of individual worldviews and their interactive web of understandings that drive communal exchange and social action of interconnected individuals (see Glossary; Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). A social system puts emphasis on the interconnected network of interacting agents (and therefore an objective external experience), and a collective worldview puts emphasis on the interconnected thoughtscape or web of interacting understandings (as a subjective internal experience). Both overlap in meaning. These definitions will enable a deeper understanding of how collective worldviews make up the lived experience of individuals in a social system and how a critical and complex systems understanding of social system dynamics may interrelate and complement each other in an investigation of innovative approaches and methods of system intervention. Throughout this chapter, I will predominantly use the phrase “social system,” keeping deeply in mind its subjective composition of collective worldviews. 27 A reminder to the reader: a “collective worldview” is a collection of individual worldviews, where a single worldview for a collective, such as “Marxism” or “colonialism,” can be described as a “grand worldview” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. xxiv). See Glossary. 56 A complementarist approach to social systems positions dynamic transformational change of “the system” within the worldviews of the individual and collective. Social systems innovation, as is described below, becomes the transformational change of the system(s) of collective worldviews. As such, it demands a critical perspective via critical consciousness or, in the case of the social systems innovation that drives collective worldviews, creative critical consciousness (as described in Manuscript #1). Doing so has value for this dissertation because it contrasts the historically standard objectivist view of social systems as the interrelations of actors in space. A subjective perception of social systems contributes to ongoing dialogue on social innovation by framing collective worldviews in social systems through a complex systems view via dynamic transformation while remaining within the subjectivist reflexivity of critical consciousness. Because social systems may have a similar context as collective worldviews, they are subject to the biases, inequities, ideologies and therefore systemic power structures that worldviews are also subject to. Social innovators must therefore be just as careful when intervening in social systems as they would in a collective of worldviews, because they are also coming through a worldview bias into a collective of worldview biases. Social systems intervention, then, is also in many ways a worldview intervention, which requires a critically conscious but creative process of inquiry toward change. c. Social Systems Intervention As social innovators prepare to engage in a social system or collective worldview, they prepare to intervene in it, whether through local or niche-oriented change processes such as social enterprises, to large landscape-oriented change processes of broad-scaled social systems interventions. Social systems intervention refers to the planned interface by individuals or teams in an on-going social system dynamic to stimulate improved social change (Koehler, Anatol & Applbaum, 1981, p. 339). Formally originating as “human systems intervention theory” in 1961 through the seminal book The Planning of Change (Bennis, Benne & Chin, 1961), the theory describes how knowledge-based social technologies can be applied to the processes, conditions, and consequences of social change (Tiffany & Lutjen, 1998, p. 2), and stresses win-win negotiation, participation, trust, and emergent processes of social system dynamics (Quinn & Sonenshein, 2008, p. 70). When social innovators intervene in a social system, they do not 57 intervene directly in “the concrete phenomena of power, leadership, decision making, and structure, but in a system of language constructs, that is, in a system of symbols used by organization members to order and make sense of their experiences” (Daniels & DeWine, 1991, p. 304). The reality of power, leadership, decision-making and social structures are layered through the sustained physical and verbal communication across human social and psychological systems, which is directly reflective of the individual’s personal worldview constructed from normative cultural metanarratives and experiences. Chin & Benne (1969) proposed three general strategies for changing human systems (telling, forcing, and participating).28 However, more recently others (Daniels & Dewine, 1991) have introduced a possible fourth strategy called transforming that emphasizes the change agent (i.e., the social innovator or team) as the target of change rather than the client or community member. Transforming suggests the interveners focus on personal integrity, individual ethical behaviour, and an “other”-inclusive or mutually-beneficial purpose, which influences the clients into change (Quinn & Sonenshein, 2008, p. 74–75). I suggest that reducing worldview bias in the social innovator is another way of engendering such a transforming strategy. There have been multiple efforts to devise social technologies and processes for change that could loosely be categorized into two paradigmatic camps. The first is through systems dynamics (Forrester, 1961, p. 47) theories, which led to the action-research methods such as the “change lab,” “living lab,” or “social lab” and are generally more functionalist and creative process-driven from a design-thinking framework. Second is the generation of soft systems design methods (Checkland, 2000, p. S11; Flood & Jackson, 1991a, p. 197) that are more strongly rooted in critical theory and deeply consider the subjective mental models or worldviews of the changemaker as deeply influencing the system in which they desire to change. In this subsection, I will review two key methodologies that are pertinent to my final manuscript, the social lab method and the soft systems method. Social labs are a social engagement platform for addressing complex social challenges, which bring together diverse multi-stakeholders (community members, government, civic society, 28 The three were called “empirical-rational,” “power-coercive,” and “normative-reeducative” (Chin & Benne, 1969; as described by Quinn & Sonenshein, 2008, p. 69), which included telling information to the change target to incite change, forcing them to change via coercion, and participating in change through psycho-social processes of relational emergence that shift behaviour. 58 non-profit organizations, businesses, etc.) that are not external consultants but rather a combination of consultants, people or organizations who are impacted by the problem (Hassan, 2014, p. 3). They are emerging processes of innovation to co-create value through prototyping and validating in real-life contexts to lead to new wide-scaled social innovations (Baran, 2019, p. 14). The concept draws upon several academic or scientific traditions (Westley, Goebey, & Robinson, 2012, p. 2). The first has roots in psychoanalytic and organizational development from the Tavistock Institute in London, UK (Bion, 1961), which merged whole systems challenges or “megamesses” (Trist et al., 1963) with Kurt Lewin’s National Training Labs for Group Development in the US (NTL, 1946) and its work on group psychology thinking (Westley et al., 2012, p. 4). This merger met with systems dynamics (Forrester, 1961), closely related to Weiner’s cybernetics (1948) and von Bertalanffy’s general systems theory (1968), and developed by Jay Forrester in the 1960’s at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT). Systems dynamics assumes that systems form a feedback and control loop that can be described in terms of “elements” and “flows” and view social change through an engineering approach to the complexities of human systems (as applied by Donella Meadows; 2008, pp. 13, 18). This fed into the design thinking of Arnold’s creative engineering (1959/2016) and Archer’s systematic method for designers (1965), and led to David Kelley’s (2021) design consultancy agency IDEO. IDEO is famous for coming up with human centered design, which was to deal with “massive” changes in complex problem domains (Berger, 2010; Brown, 2009; Kelley & Littman, 2005). Together, these created the elements of “design labs,” “change labs” or “social labs” as used by MIT, Stanford University, as well as by global consulting firms such as Reos Partners and Participle (Westley et al., 2012, p. 6) to address complex social challenges through multi-stakeholder involvement directly impacted by the lab. The social labs of Reos, particularly Zaid Hassan’s work (2014), were built by trial and error, empirical research, and industry practice. Social labs of these kinds are often huge projects, involving a large organizing team that facilitates multiple organizations with large budgets over a prolonged period of time, working on complex social problems like child nutrition in India or environmental sustainability in the oil sands of Alberta. Such laboratories are experimental, and each prototypes a portfolio of promising interventions that are on-going and meant to be sustainable solutions. Social labs are also systemic in dealing with multiple dimensions of society 59 and approach to address the root cause of the problem by dealing with not part of the system but a systemic whole. Hassan applies three rules for evaluating effective practice: (1) make what works stronger; (2) let go of what doesn’t work; (3) discover what you don’t have (2014, p. 95). These rules assist in opening the project team to throw out what is old but keep what is wise in challenging business-as-usual habitual pathways or patterns to instead see what is novel and useful. However, system dynamics-based intervention processes can be seen as coming from a “hard systems thinking” perspective with the “hard” sciences at root, and can be contrasted with soft systems thinking. Soft systems thinking is grounded in a social constructivist and interpretivist perspective that sees social reality as the creative “construction of people’s interpretation of their experiences” (Flood, 2010, p. 276). Soft systems thinking considers and allows for not only individual conceptual systems to influence the social construction of meaning-making, but also the collective system through action concepts (Checkland, 1981; Checkland & Scholes 1990). Interpretations of individual and collective experience become important in collective stakeholder participation in order to contextualize culture within any action to be taken. In soft systems thinking, the “system” is not “out there,” but rather a process of our dealing with the world. It is this shift of systemicity (or ‘systemness’) from the world to the process of inquiry into the world which is the crucial intellectual distinction between the two fundamental forms of systems thinking, ‘hard’ and ‘soft.’ (Checkland, 2000, p. S17). The “real-world” is not a set of interacting relations which can be fixed, but a complex and problematical series of interrelated representations in a “systems thinking world” (Checkland, 2000, p. S17; Rodriguez-Ulloa, p. 308). This gives thinking a constitutive meaning, of social practices, rules, and actions that inform models of how agents interpret reality (Flood, 2010, p. 276). Critical systems thinking, (Flood & Romm, 1996, p. 82; Midgley, 1996, p.11) adds a critical theory addition with five major commitments when thinking in systems: critical awareness, social awareness, human emancipation, and theoretical and methodological complementarity, which suggest that theory and method need to complement each other with all varieties of systems approaches. Soft systems methodology (SSM) stems from soft systems thinking, rooted in Herbert Simon’s (1960) and Stanford Optner’s (1965) concept of an organization as human and purposive-driven. SSM was developed in the 1970s by Checkland (2000) to develop an 60 interpretivist, phenomenological, and hermeneutical perspective of systems intervention (Rodriquez-Ulloa & Paucar-Caceres, 2005, p. 313). It proposes a “learning system” process of inquiry, which, through the original seven-stage process (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 199), can be used in complex social situations to come up with the clarification of the “problem” before engaging in action. In Checkland’s updated version (2010) there are four different kinds of activity that constitute “learning circles”: (1) find out about the situation considered problematical; (2) create conceptual models based on worldviews, where worldviews are not “real” but relevant; (3) compare the models to the real situation; and (4) define and take action to improve the situation. A series of other methods claim to have been based on SSM, including the total systems intervention methodology (Flood & Jackson, 1991a), holonic dynamism (Lane & Oliva, 1998), and soft systems dynamic methodology (Rodriguez & Paucar-Caceres, 2005). A complex systems dynamics approach to intervention requires both a hard and soft systems thinking lens. The action-research of iterative and prototyping design such as through human centered design, needs to be complemented with the interpretivist, phenomenological and hermeneutical assumptions of soft systems methods. Together, they will describe the “real world” in epistemological and ontological terms that considers a critical theory approach to normative culture considerations while being open to complex systems science of innovative systems change. Such a merger will also keep true to a systems-thinking model without solely objectifying or projecting these models as real assumptions (Rodriguez & Paucar-Caceres, 2005, p. 313), and offers transformational processes as the drivers for social change to alleviate the problematical situation. I will now turn to review the nature of complexity, creativity, and social innovation processes as they apply to their original and multi-systemic approaches to social change. 2.1.4 Complexity, Creativity, and Social Innovation Creativity and social innovation are complex because they are systems processes that are open, uncertain, nonlinear and exhibit self-organizing properties of emergence (Cilliers, 2000, p. 23). At the heart of creativity, social innovation and emergence is complexity, because for creativity to come into a manifested form for individuals to realize or systems to display, complex processes are underway due to critical fluctuations or far-from-equilibrium system states (Nicolis 61 & Prigogine, 1977, p. 462). As complexity increases, creation of order in a system increases and thus reduces disorder (Ne’eman, 2003, p. 389). Understanding complexity and creativity is critical to social innovation, because social systems are complex and drive creative processes of change. Before I explore the important relationship between creativity and complex processes in detail as part of a larger framework of systemic-dynamic transformation, I will turn to each of these three components: complexity, creativity, and social innovation, to review the concepts and prepare them for framework integration. a. Complexity Complex systems, such as all social systems and collective worldviews, have key shared traits. One is that they are nonlinear, in that they are not causal but dynamic, stochastic and not easily reversible, and also cross scales and domains over time (Fischer, Greiff & Funke, 2012; Gabora & Carbert, 2015; Miller & Page, 2007; Stewart, 2001; Byrne, 1998; Westley & Antadze, 2010). These traits, specifically dynamic and stochastic traits, lead to properties of emergence, which are inherently difficult or non-analysable because interactions between the parts lead to whole properties that are different than the properties of its parts, and, properties at higher levels cannot be predicted from the properties at lower levels. This means the properties cannot be predetermined, thus leading to their complexity (Bunge, 2003, p. 3; Emmeche, Køppe & Stjernfelt, 1997, p. 91; Haynes, 2018, p.9; Kondepudi & Prigogine, 1998/2015, p. xiii). This is in part due to the systems heterogeneity, that the parts properties are different and distinctly non-uniform which interact over time, leaving deviant behaviour from the average (Miller & Page, 2007, p. 14). Complex systems exhibit feedback, with negative feedback having balancing loops, and positive having amplifying loops. For example, when a social group “heats up” with tension that feeds off one another (and therefore feeds back into the system), the group will often find ways to release tension through humour or some other means, “cooling” the system through negative feedback “convection,” and thus re-establishing balanced equilibrium conditions. As another example, if a person “wants” more heroin to obtain the same effect that the heroin is currently giving them, the person’s “need” may amplify to undesirable levels and lead to a crisis (Flood, 2010). Feedback can create reinforcing dynamics, such as the Pygmalion effect, which suggests one individuals’ expectations (e.g., someone on a leadership team) can lead another 62 individual (e.g., a subordinate mid-level manager) to display behaviour that reinforces the outset expectations (Stroh, 2015, pp. 65–66). Complex social systems are inherently adaptive, in that they can change according to their internal conditions or external environment, doing so with non-tight boundaries, with the ability to re-balance to a steady state even after internal or external stimulus (although with a potentially different end state than the initial one; Cilliers, pp. 24–25; M’Pherson, 2003, pp. 119–140). Such are a systems multiple equilibria, with dynamics that may lead a system to adapt in circularity (e.g., “towns adapt to citizens, while citizens also adapt to towns;” Miller & Page, 2007, p. 20). Complexity exhibits autopoiesis, which indicates the autonomy of living systems where a system can self-organize, self-maintain, and self-regenerate (Haynes, 2018, p. 10; Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 74). Complex system are also open systems, which means they will exchange energy, information, resources or materials with their environment or other systems, such that the relationship between elements in a system may be more important than the elements themselves (Cilliers, pp. 24–25; Haynes, 2018; Hall & Fagen, 2003). Complexity arises in a system when the dependency between objects becomes important (Miller & Page, 2007) and the number of objects and relationships between them increases (Fischer et al., 2012). If a system branches into subsets, dependency increases and so does complexity. A sensitivity to initial conditions occurs, with complexity scaling up to relatively high levels in the macro parts of the system. This can be seen in what has become known as the butterfly effect, where a small input can lead to a very large output (Lorenz, 1972, p. 1). This exemplifies path dependency, where decisions build upon decisions, and a small decision can be scaled-up to a social situation with distressing large-scale effects (Haynes, 2018, p. 29). Complexity lies between chaos and equilibrium, or disorder and order (each with their own theoretical underpinnings), and are different than chaordic29 states of a system, which indicates both order and chaos simultaneously (van Eijnatten, 2004). The hallmark of complex systems is that “the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and the parts acquire certain characteristics due to their existence in the whole” (M’Pherson, 2003, p. 121). This is also the definition of the 29 As Dee Hock, the founder of the Visa Card, who introduced the term suggests: “Briefly stated, a chaord is any chaotically-ordered complex. Loosely translated to social organizations, it would mean the harmonious blending of intellectual and experiential learning” (van Eijnatten, 2004, p. 431). 63 German word Gestalt. Gestalt theory, or gestaltism, can be subdivided into four properties: (1) structural cohesion leads to wholeness; (2) system adaptivity leads any system back to balance (or a steady state) upon internal or external stimulus; (3) if this happens, the newer balanced state will tend toward resisting change, but the greater is the complexity, the greater is the tendency toward ordering the complexity through creativity; (4) while ordering implies hierarchy, as I have suggested above, heterarchies may also be involved, which suggests systems and subsystems have holonic properties (M’Pherson, 2003; p. 121). Holons are “whole parts,” which are whole in themselves but part of a larger whole (Koestler, 1967; Martin, 2010, p. 259). However, complexity is most impacted by entropy, or the disordering of a system and its self-organized response of the ordering of a systems via “negative entropy” by exchanging the entropy to the surrounding environment or even other systems to keep their own entropy low (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, pp. 25, 41; Gabora, 2017, p. 9). It is negative entropy that is a key player in how creativity arises, as I will describe below and in the following Manuscript chapters, and which ties complexity to creativity and social innovation. b. Creativity: A Contextual Review Everywhere one looks, it is possible to find disorder and chaos, from out-of-control flooding to systemic discrimination and violence. However, the opposite can also be found. Whether in technological advances, artistic expression, or in social innovations, the creative impulse to transform environmental or social challenges into possible solutions is everywhere. In recent decades, creativity has been a subject of human fascination with thousands of articles, books, experiments and studies to understand how it works and find its source. But what, actually, is creativity? Although there is general contemporary consensus of creativity being novelty and effectiveness (or usefulness) as a “standard definition,” the debate still lingers (Runco, 2007, pp. 19–22; Lubart & Guignard, 2004, p. 43; Runco & Jaeger, 2012, pp. 92–93). As such, it will be useful in this section to give a historical and theoretical context to the concept of creativity, through a review of North American and European and literature. I choose this literature in part due to its academic prevalence and as a building block to explore multiple other academic domains in the following chapters. 64 The concept of creativity as we know it today, did not enter the European and North American cultural lexicon for centuries. This is because “‘creating’ was something that could only properly be done by people with divine support and otherwise had better not be done at all” (Pope, 2005, p. 38). In other words, only the Christian God could create something out of nothing (creato ex nihilio). Perhaps one of the earliest definitions of creativity in Western literature is John Watson’s (1928) description of the creative process: “how do we ever get new verbal creations such as a poem or a brilliant essay? The answer is that we get them by manipulating words, shifting them about until a new pattern is hit upon.”30 In his 1950 address, Guilford (1950/1987) remarks on the person, suggesting that creativity refers to “the abilities that are most characteristic of creative people” (p. 33). Bruner (1962) commented on the creative product as anything that produces “effective surprise” or a “shock of recognition” in an observer, indicating a spontaneous sense that the product was original (see also, Amabile, 1983, p. 19). In contemporary contexts, creativity has been mostly described in the discipline of psychology. Education psychologist Mel Rhodes (1961, p. 305) described creativity in what is now called the 4Ps model, which includes contexts of person, process, product, and also press/place. The four terms which describe where creativity is found: in people, in processes such as “brainstorming,” in the products of creative output such as paintings or buildings, and in the relation between people and their environment.31 An important distinction within the notion of creativity has been types of creativity. Big-C creativity describes unmistakeable expressions of creativity that are socially eminent, such as the work and process of celebrated artists such as Picasso, while little-c creativity is everyday creativity accomplished within personal social contexts that have, for the most part, little greater societal role (Kozbelt, Beghetto, Runco, 2010, p. 23). The little-c type of creativity tends to suggest a universal quality of creativity across human experience (Richards, 2010, p. 193).32 Csikszentmihalyi (2014, p. 68), in his work on a systems model of creativity, emphasises the relationship to the social, saying that creativity has 30 As recounted by Koestler in The Act of Creation (1964, p. 558). The italics are Watson’s words. 31 Other ‘p’s have been since added, such as the persuasion of others (Runco, 2010, p. 414) and potential; however, it can be argued that they can be accounted for within the original four (i.e., persuasion is about relationships between person(s), while person(s), processes, products, and places all can be seen to have creative potential). 32 A more recent addition includes the category of mini-c creativity to distinguish internal or emotional forms of creativity, while Pro-c creativity adds the creativity of professional creatives who may not become renowned, both expanding upon and bridging the gaps between Big-C and little-c creativity. 65 three main components: the person, the field (i.e., the societal group with selective influence on what’s creative), and the domain (i.e., the body of practices with a sense of boundaries of distinction). He stresses that what can be considered creative is distinguished by a social qualification of the field within the creative context. How to distinguish what is creative and what is not (i.e., quality) is a key feature of Cohen’s continuum of creative behaviour (Cohen, 2011). The continuum starts with universal novelty, where all humans have a creative dimension in action and thought in order to adapt to their world (Cohen, 2011; Joas, 1996; Beyda, 2005), and ends with the type of creativity that transforms a field, where creativity is rare with qualities of “an unquestioned order of excellence” (Guilford, 1950/1987, p. 34). Importantly, creativity is often described as a result of cognitive processes, as in divergent thinking (Runco, 2010), which can be a considered an outcome of defocussed attention and nonlinear, emergent thinking, as well as Koestler’s (1964) bisociative theory, a theory which influenced the associative thought model of the creative process, where two context driven divergent thoughts meet (see also, Gabora, 2016, p. 69). Creativity has also been studied in other disciplines and contexts. For example, creativity has been related to action, as in creative action (Joas, 1996; Carruthers, 2011; Ford, 1996; Amabile, 1988; Simon, 1986) where an outcome of a creative process generates a physical action, like an original arrangement of movements in free-dance (Carruthers, 2011). Carruthers (2011) distinguishes between an act-first oriented approach to creative action, which accounts for inspired physical action before conscious cognitive processes or goal-sets kick in, and a thought-first oriented approach which is the basis of many cognitive accounts of creativity, where thought is emphasized before action (Carruthers, 2011). The act-first approach and thought-first approach of creativity are examples of a temporal understanding of creativity, in that when creativity happens is just as important as what happens. In sociology, creativity has been described as social creativity (Amabile, 1988; Carruthers, 2011; Domingues, 2000; Ford, 2011; Joas, 1996; Parsons, 1937; Simonton, 2000; Montuori & Purser, 1997; Watson, 2007, p. 419). Creativity has also been studied in the sciences (Galton, 1869; Quételet, 1842/1968), evolution studies (Kauffman, 1993, 2016), living systems (Maturana & Varela, 1972/1980; Miller, 1978; Sabelli & Sabelli, 2006), ecology (Allen & Holling, 2010; Gunderson & Holling, 2002), and in the general dissipative structures of chemistry and physics (Crutchfield, 1994b; Prigogine, 1980, p. 128; Prigogine & 66 Stengers, 1984, p. xxvi). In English-language philosophy, Bergson (1911/1944), Morgan (1933), and Whitehead (1929/1960) led the way in describing creativity as fundamental processes in the world. Importantly, creativity has been linked to complexity (Gabora, 2017, p. 1; Guastello, 1998, p. 38; Hauk, 2014, p. 97; Kauffman, 2016; Montuori & Purser, 1997; Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 13; Sugerman & Sabelli, 2003), and been critiqued against it (Ambrose, 2014, p. 3). Creativity has also been seen through the lens of causality (Crosby, 2009, p. 46; Goldstein, 2000a, p. 161) and worldviews (Gabora, 2019a, p. 220). From a complexity perspective, creativity arises as a result of a system being far-from-equilibrium; such a system intrinsically has more complexity than the environment around it as the system toggles between the opposites of chaos and self-organization (Guastello, 2002, p. 170). In the complexity of a psychological system, creativity occurs though a disturbance in the individual’s worldview, when it becomes influenced by another worldview and thus becomes more multifaceted (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). A “gap” in the individual’s knowledge results, a missing element is felt (Torrance, 1965, p. 663), or a sense arises that there is a challenge to be solved or a compelling feeling to explore or express beyond the “problem domain” (Gabora, 2017, p. 4). As a result, oscillations between convergent and divergent thinking tend to increase (Guastello, 1998, p. 46) until the mind experiences a state called psychological entropy (Hirsh, Peterson & Mar, 2012, p. 304). Gabora’s (2017, p. 1) honing theory tells us that an entropic psychological system triggers an arousal-provoking uncertainty, which can lead to anxiety or a “well-spring” of novel response (p. 10). Perhaps an individual encounters a situation that seems unjust (disorder) and the person fluctuates between oppositional beliefs from childhood and new beliefs through education, so that the thoughts self-organize through learning more about the situation, and spontaneously attempts to create a new story, or fortify knowledge, through diverse means to revise such beliefs and approach the challenge in a new way (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). Eventually, after the mind reaches a “critical state poised on the cusp of a transition between order and chaos” (p. 26), it “culminates in the execution of a creative idea” (p. 4). It does so by viewing the creative problem from different perspectives and hones the idea in a reiterated manner, resulting in a collapse of the idea’s change of state. As such, the worldview’s conceptual framework shifts to a new context, which “in turn brings about a new collapse, and so forth, until the idea is sufficiently robust in the face of new contexts that it no 67 longer undergoes change-of-state” (Gabora, 2019, para. 13). This process can alter one’s self-concept and worldview through a “cascade” of conceptual change (p. 4). Ideas adapt over time, restructure and self-organize, and therefore the overall worldview can evolve. As a worldview self-organizes toward a diverse range of creative cultural outputs (Gabora, 2017, p. 12; p. 37), it becomes a basic unit of cultural evolution (Gabora, 2017, p. 8). Creative ideas “beget other creative ideas and, as a result, modifications accumulate, and we see an overall increase in the complexity of cultural novelty over time” (Gabora, 2018a, p. 3). Through perturbation, fluctuation, a critical state and the principle of spontaneous self-organizing, a worldview undergoes creative processes of complexity over time. An individual worldview adds to cultural evolution via creativity; however, with collective worldviews, social systems undergo change due to social systems innovation (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). I will expand upon honing theory to suggest creativity is a complex process or force that is generalizable across multiple systems in the Framework below. Please note, I will be using the term “creativity” inclusively connected by novelty with other terms such as “innovation” and “emergence.” I do this because novelty is almost always included as part of the common definitions of creativity, innovation, and emergence. Creativity’s “standard definition” states it is both novel and effective (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 1), where “innovation is the process whereby humans develop novelty” (Allen et al., 2014, p. 585). Bunge (2003) defines emergence as the “coming into being of qualitative novelty” (p. 3; emphasis added). As Emmeche (2003) points out: “emergence is first of all defined as ‘the creation of new [i.e., novel] properties’” (p. 145). While the terms “creativity,” “innovation,” and “emergence” have their own separate definition and apply to different disciplines distinctly, I will propose below that creativity drives innovation and emergence and all systemic change, and novelty is what makes creativity “new.” From this view, novelty, innovation and emergence are part of creativity. c. The Four Preconditions of Novelty For novelty to be generated, several preconditions of a system’s state must exist. The preconditions are: tension (of opposites), competition, instability, and, diversity (see Manuscript #2 for other details). The preconditions below are described as “generalizable” traits across 68 multiple systems and are applicable to varying domains and disciplines (but not specific to them). An examination of these four preconditions will a beneficial addition to a complex systems understanding of creativity, to point out to social innovators what to look for in a social system to indicate when a social innovation might arise. The first precondition is tension. Tension is the constrained condition of oppositional directions between two forces in a system. The term, at it is used here, describes the dynamic push or pull between the “negative” entropic force of self-organization as it attempts to balance entropy, as described by the second law of thermodynamics. Tension also describes the transitional space of opening and closing in system dynamics. For any one system to “come-to-be” (de Haas & Mansfeld, 2004, p. 512), it must be open in the sense that there must be an exchange of energy, constituents, or information that allows it to undergo change and thus transition. In physics, tension might be best described as the dynamical balancing between push and pull, forces not seen directly but witnessed through their effect on an object. A system or process is “simultaneously determined by oppositely directed forces, movements, tendencies” (McGill & Parry, 1948, p. 422). Boundaries, limitations, and constraints are all preconditions to an increase in tension (Cilliers, 1998, p. 95). Tension increases in a system that is moving toward disorder through disturbances, disruption, or perturbations. In a philosophical sense, tension arises between being and becoming and as the emergent “creative advance” from disjunction/disorder to conjunction/order (Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. ix). As Bergson (1922) says, there seems to be a “reality which is making itself in a reality which is unmaking itself” (p. 261). For example, a rural town that is in a general stasis of “business-as-usual” may not be in dynamic tension with its surrounding environment and thus unlikely to incur novel change. If the town experiences a significant instability, however, such as loss of livelihood and increase competition for work, such dynamic tensions present a greater probability that the town will choose a novel response. Tension is important to acknowledge in novelty generation to know where to begin looking across multiple systems. A system in stasis will have less likelihood of novelty than a system in dynamic tension. 69 Competition in a system is the description of the tension between energies, constituents, or information and a common end state.33 A system may be trending anywhere on a spectrum of possible states of disorder to order (or vice versa), including from near equilibrium to far-from-equilibrium or chaos. For systems that are near equilibrium (i.e., when a fish is almost dead), there are fewer options for diverse outcomes, minimal energy for work, reduced spontaneity within the system, and near-zero fluctuations. However, for non-equilibrium systems and especially systems far-from-equilibrium (for example, an entire community experiencing sudden job loss), entropy is low, and uncertainty and unpredeterminability are high (i.e., spontaneity is high). If the system is far-from-equilibrium, it will have encountered perturbations (disturbances or disruption). In the case of constituents, for example, when new constituents are introduced to a system, even in small quantities, a series of competing interactions might occur between the system’s older constituents. Similarly, old patterns of functioning react to novel modes of function (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984, pp. 189–190; von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 63) in exogenously triggered intrasystem competition. In ecology, this may be in the form of interspecific competition, where a different species of fish, for example, enters a new marine ecosystem (due to an unusual circumstance) to compete for the same resources (Murray, 2002, p. 94). Fluctuations increase and may lead to the principle of competitive exclusion (see Gause, 1934; Lotka, 1956; Volterra, 1926), where only one species dominates in a feedback loop of reinforcing ability or fitness toward the elimination of other constituents (Meadows, 2008, p. 3; Murray, 2002, p. 94). In another example, constituents in a dynamic equilibrium might experience an exogenous shock, and as a result engage in increasing competition for resources in novel ways to maintain function. In other cases, coexistence amongst constituents may occur with a type of dynamic equilibrium between constituents that reduces competitive ability differences or stabilizes niche differences (Chesson, 2000, p. 343; Soliveres & Allan, 2018, p. 807). Alternatively, anti-competition may occur where some constituents of the system conjugate (Kondepudi & Prigogine, 2015, p. 432) leading to a greater divergence in function between uniform constituents. Cooperation occurs, which leads to rich and meaningful system structure 33 Different disciplines use different terms for the finality of a system’s trajectory. I will use end state, end-goal, or attractor similarly to describe the region or situation in which a system’s state has converged toward a stable value (Vallacher, 2009, p. 8424). 70 (Cilliers, 1998, p. 95). Behaviour in competition networks is generally considered hierarchical or transitive, where one constituent excludes those less dominant and secondary constituents exclude those even less dominant, etc. (Soliveres & Allan, 2018, p. 807). Competition that is transitive generally results in an increase in competitiveness or a global equilibrium or evolutionary end state in a conventional thermodynamic system (Kliminko, 2013, p. 13; Kliminko, 2012, p. 2). However, it can also be non-hierarchical or intransitive, where there is no single dominant constituent, and all can dominate some, or lose to some others, in “competitive reversals” (Soliveres & Allan, 2018, p. 807), such that novel types of complex behaviour arise (Kliminko, 2012, p. 19). While constituent behaviours can be competitive, the entire system’s behaviour may also generate diverse tension between the number of possible paths or “branches” (in a type of competition) of possibilities that it may follow after it reaches a critical point. In general, competitions are the driving force of the development of a system’s structure (Cilliers, 1998, p. 95), and will increase fluctuations as a transition of the system moves toward an oscillatory state. A system is structurally stable when a perturbation insufficiently modifies the system so that, after a defined period of time, it remains in the neighbourhood of its initial state. A system exhibits instability if it aligns with no such neighbourhood (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 69). Increasing fluctuations augment the instability of a system, moving it toward a threshold that increases its likelihood of novelty. Fluctuations are deviations between oppositional elements of the system in space or time with varying amplitudes that can be periodic, may increase, or be less recurrent than other fluctuations (Sugerman & Sabelli, 2003, p. 833).34 Feedback can increase instability in the system due to numerous positive loops, which occur directly or indirectly (Cilliers, 2000, p. 24). If the instability trends toward a critical point or a bifurcation point (see Guastello, 2002, p. 21; Kubicek & Marek, 1983, p. 49; Poincaré, 1892/1993, pp. 153–154), the system may maximize its dissipation of entropy through self-organization (Martyushev & Seleznev, 2006, p. 2). The result may be a transition to a new system state or recurring steady state that either stabilizes the system or directs it to new instabilities. For example, human behaviour leading to polluting feedback loops may cause an ecological system to become 34 Fluctuations can enhance an attractor’s impact on a system by repeating the attractor’s impact on the system (Pereira et al., 2019, p. 33). In the literature, fluctuation analysis has been done to understand causality of a system’s bifurcation, particularly in biology to determine context-dependent pathways such as “smoking causes cancer” (Welf & Danuser, 2014, pp. 2492–2498). 71 unstable (Chakraborti et al., 2020, p. 3), which triggers unpredictable reactions from ecological resources such as fish. The local townspeople may respond with novel behaviour, or they may return to repeatable old patterns that simply delay further instability. If the system exhibits reaction—diffusion behaviour where constituents activate (react) or inhibit (diffuse) systemic processes after a perturbation—it may be driven toward further instability (Murray, 2003, p. 82). However, some systems may be in a stabilized or steady state and then become unstable due to small perturbations that lead to transient, oscillating behaviour in which the instability eventually diffuses (Caravelli & Staniczenko, 2016, p. 2). In these cases, the new responses to a perturbation may also be temporary and thus not broad-scaled. Steady-state, time-periodic, or chaotic reactions (Kubicek & Marek, 1983, p. 1) may arise, but, for the purposes of this discussion, it is salient to consider system behaviour that trends toward a system’s instability and novel response. Instability is important because the probability of perturbations that instigate feedback and thus breach the system’s normality may tell us where to look for novelty. The diversity of a system and its behaviour is an important precondition of novelty. In this subsection I will discuss two types: diversity of constituents and diversity of outcomes. For the first type, when a system is homogenous in its constituents, energies, or information, it can be vulnerable to increasing forces of change with less variant ability to diffuse perturbation or other environmental factors. In contrast, overall steady-state heterogeneity can allow for increased stability.35 For example, a diverse ecosystem “with multiple pathways and redundancies is more stable and less vulnerable to external shock than a uniform system with little diversity” (Meadows, 2008, pp. 3–4). In this case, redundancies and repetition of system behaviour allows for the stabilization of system dynamics. However, an increase in diversity can drive a steady state out of stability toward a critical point; as the number of constituents increases, so does the number of interactions, which can trigger competition and other forces to counterbalance the system’s instability (Solé et al., 2002, p. 678). Such self-organization allows the system to adapt to the changing dynamics in the environment (Kondepudi & Prigogine, 2015, p. xviii), and such adaptations can be of novel behaviour. However, the system may not recover normality from the increasing drive of diversity (in this case) and may react toward the instability boundary or 35 For more information on the great diversity–stability debate, please see McCann (2000). 72 threshold and move toward bifurcation. A diverse range of possibilities may result (per the second type of diversity, which describes a multivariable initial condition of a system signifying the diverse number of possible outcomes after bifurcation; i.e., microstates). Self-organization will take the system into a specific outcome due to a multitude of factors: exogenous perturbations and their frequency and strength, constituent interactions and their frequency and strength, or a gradualistic or punctuated break in the system’s normalcy, to name a few. The probability of novel behaviour is higher than it was pre-bifurcation. Novelty is directly related to the increase of the diversity of resources and to the diversity of outcomes post-bifurcation, which may be less repetitive and thus novel in behaviour. The four preconditions to novelty will assist social innovators in contextualizing creativity and its relationship to social innovation, because novelty is the “newness” of creativity. How novelty arises in a system, moreover, is linked to how innovations arise in social systems. By understanding the preconditions to novelty, social innovators will have a sense of the preconditions to social innovation along with a deeper understanding of how to read system dynamics to better prepare and forecast how novelty arises in social systems innovation. I will now turn to a historical and theoretical review of social systems innovation. d. Social (Systems) Innovation In the 1970s, in the midst of a famine, a novel idea transformed a village of women who were subjugated to loan-shark lending practices: to create a collateral-free loan bank for people facing poverty, which has since helped millions of people across the world. That idea is now known as microfinancing (Yunus & Weber, 2010, pp. iv–ix). Over the last several decades, a series of technological inventions, rules, and institutions meant to decentralize networks of communication instead established a robust shift in sociological and technological systems: i.e., the internet was born (Tjörnbo, 2017, p. 116). The above are examples of “social innovation,” a term which describes “processes of social change and the transformation of society as a whole” (Caulier-Grice et al., 2012, p. 6). Social innovation impacts “systems and processes of change in social relations” (2012, p. 6). Novel changes to challenges in social relations can create considerable improvements to the constituents impacted by those challenges. The changes can happen intentionally due to an intervention by a group or individual social innovator, or 73 unintentionally due to complex shifts in social dynamics, culture, and society. While the number of new ideas that effectively address social challenges are increasing in the approaches taken, the scale of change, and the types of innovations across different domains or fields (Buckland & Marillo, 2017, p. 5)36—in other words, how to effectively address them—is complex and unclear. Social innovations from a systems view require the consideration of complexity with multiple interrelated, interacting, interdependent and thus interconnected elements (Caulier-Grice et al., 2012, p. 13; Westley et al., 2015, p. 1). I will investigate the social innovations that occur between, across, and beyond multiple social systems such as economic, technological, and organizational systems. I will do this to discover the novel driver of social innovation as it occurs transsystemically, and will use the term social systems innovation to do so. To clarify what this term might mean, however, I will investigate briefly but independently the terms “innovation,” “system innovation,” and “social innovation” in preparation for the Framework and Manuscript chapters to follow. Innovation is defined as the “alteration of what is established by the introduction of new element of forms” (OED, 1900), and in contemporary usage, often refers to creative processes or outcomes (Pavitt, 2006; Badiru, 2020; Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). As Sabelli (2008) states, “An innovation is the materialization of a novel idea” (p. 1).37 Innovations can happen individually, as in a single person innovates a new business strategy, or collectively, as in a group of people innovate a new business sector. Innovations put creative ideas into practice. Innovations in human systems include initiation, development, implementation, testing and adoption, while creativity arises as illumination, incubation and insight (Andrew & Klein, 2010, p. 17). A system innovation, however, is the expression or manifestation of a system driver that greatly changes the prevailing system, and includes the interrelated sub-systems that are usually associated with it. It is the transition from one system into another (Geels, 2005, p. 2). System 36 Not all social innovations focus on how new the innovation is, and many instead emphasise the impact of its implementation to the sector, domain, or field of action (Caulier-Grice et al., 2012, p. 9) 37 It is important here to remind the reader that some authors describe innovation as the generation of a novel idea only (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984, pp. 189–190), whereas I define innovation as the alteration of what was previously established, and the implementation of what is new in any system (OED, 1900; Phils et al., 2008, p. 34; Sabelli, 2008, p. 1). Taken from Wetering et al.1997). 74 innovations usually involve the accrual of other innovations from separate domains, together prompting the emergence of systems change. For example, socio-technical innovations are systems innovations that link societal innovations along with technological innovations as they transition from one system state to another (Geels, 2005, p. 2). For example, the internet is not only a technological innovation but a social innovation because society responded and innovated its structures and resource flows in relation to the technology. Hall et al. (2016) suggests that systems innovations can have “step jumps,” or punctuated impact. While systems innovations can be incremental over time, they are not optimizations, where the latter typically retrofits or upgrades existing systems in incremental changes to the dominant norm. System optimization as a result often has immediate but not long-lasting effects. System innovation is novel, and as a result of the necessity to implement change within associated sub-systems, it tends to take time (See Figure 2.1.4.d). Figure 2.1.4.d. I liken Geels’ (2005) system innovation to what I refer to as a social systems innovation, as it is systemic and occurs across multiple systems. I also liken a social innovation to a “partial system redesign” (as per Weterings et al., 1997), because social innovations—as they are described in this dissertation—are systems changers but not necessarily total in their size, scale and phase length. Graphic by author, based on the text in Geels (2005) and graphics by Hall et al. (2016) and Weterings et al. (1997). An innovation that alters the social dynamics of human interrelations is called a social innovation. Westley defines it as “a complex process of introducing new products, processes or programs that profoundly change the basic routines, resource and authority flows, or beliefs of the social system in which the innovation occurs. Such successful social innovations have durability 75 and broad impact” (Westley & Antadze, 2010, p. 2). Social innovation makes changes at the systemic level and may even solve complex social and/or environmental challenges (Westley & Antadze, 2010, p. 4). A social innovation is not just an innovation within society, but it is also an innovation of society that increases a benefit toward society. Social innovations address a social challenge, and move beyond sectors, levels and standard methods to generate broad-scaled and enduring impact (Phills, Deiglmeier & Miller, 2008, p. 37; Andrew & Klein, 2010). For this dissertation, I will generally investigate social innovations from a broad-scaled systemic view, thus leaving behind social innovations as they pertain to individual niche occurrences, such as in local-scaled social enterprises. I do this to focus on the fundamental drivers of social change as they relate to creativity occurring across multiple systems. As such, the remainder of this subsection will offer a review of key elements of social systems innovations, namely the literature that reflects how and why transitions occur across multiple social systems in their transformation from one state, phase, or scale, to another. In social systems, transitions are the transformative change from one to another dynamic system equilibrium, where the deep structure of the system is transformed…. In the process, the system’s internal structure (the regime) is transformed or even replaced as ongoing variations constructively interfere with changes in its environment. Eventually, a new internal structure may emerge from these processes. (Grin, Rotmans, Schot, 2010, p. 326) Transitions unfold temporally in nonlinear ways, and may have a teleological goal or system attractor driving the change. Social system transitions produce societal change where deep social structures transform (Rotmans et al., 2000, p. 19), and due to the interplay between recursive self-defining attributes of the system, sustain or reinforce the change through negative or positive feedback (Kemp & Loorbach, 2006, p. 105). Still, social system transitions do not have a single cause; indeed, they have equifinality attributes due to pluralistic means. As such, looking for systems transitions “is best understood by searching for similar patterns rather than singular causes” (Haynes, 2018, p. 9). Ultimately, social system transitions lead to social system innovations, which can occur as breakthroughs in a social system as a transformation (see Fig. 2.1.4.d2). Social system transitions have been described as occurring through four distinct phases (Kemp & Loorbach, 2006, pp. 106–107; Rotmans, Kemp & Asselt, 2001, pp. 17–18). As Figure 76 2.1.4.d2 displays, they first typically occur after much experimentation in the niche level and early phases of the system change, such as an individual coming up with a social or technological innovation (“predevelopment” phase 1). As the larger-scale system undergoes increasing fluctuations, competition, and instability, a diversity of innovation options becomes available, and as other elements of the system are destroyed, a system innovation shifts the nature of the system itself (“take off” phase 2). After a “breakthrough,” structural change occurs and multiple system-parts interrelatedly interact, adapt, and reinforce each other in a collective of diverging processes across socio-cultural, economic, ecological, and institutional processes (“breakthrough” phase 3; 2006, p. 106). Finally, the disorder of the change slows down and stabilization occurs, with a dynamic equilibrium coming into effect (“stabilization” phase 4). Figure 2.1.4.d2. The four phases of social system transitions. Transitions occur as a result of systems innovations, as well as other innovations and changes, from experimentations, competitions, instability, and a diversity of other constituent changes. Eventually self-organization leads to a “breakthrough,” with eventual adaptation and stabilization. See Manuscript #2 for more information. Graphic by author, based on Rotmans et al. (2001) and Butter (2002). Social systems innovations transcend the individual in the micro-level of niche behaviour, to include the regime-level of multi-actor networks, and eventually to the larger societal landscape, or, even a collective of societies, as the transition furthers its impact. From the emergence of individual to societal, social systems innovations also recursively reciprocate from larger societal innovations back to individuals as singular constituents adapt and adjust to the 77 societal landscape shift (p. 107). An example is the internet, which was not only the “innovation” of technological development, but also of social system behaviour, where both developments were driven by the interplay of socio-technological processes. While social systems innovations occur because of transitions in the social system, the underlying process of change is not clearly understood in the broadest sense as it applies across multiple systems. This is because, in part, social system innovations have unique features that involves changes in practise and structures in multiple layers, entrenchments, and emergences, in complex ways across multiple systems (Grin, Rotmans, & Schot, 2010, p. 3).38 While such new system dynamics can be described as emergent, in that they emerge from lower or heterarchic states to newer ones, it will be beneficial to deeply understand the broad systemic and dynamic processes of systems transformation. Understanding this is important because it will allow social innovators to see how systemic innovation transitions occur across multiple social systems so that they may search for novel solution-spaces to address complex challenges that impact more than one system. I will now turn my attention to generating a systemic-dynamic creativity framework to establish the groundwork for this dissertation’s goal of understanding the dynamic and systemic transformational process or the fundamental “force” (Grosz, 2008, p. 3) of creativity as it arises across multiple systems. A systemic-dynamic creativity framework is important and useful for a social innovator, who may intervene and leverage parts of the system toward beneficial and innovative change by seeing clearly the broad-scaled creative forces naturally at play in social systems. 38 The notion of “transformative social innovation” has been furthered by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme, which uses a middle-range theory approach toward theory building. A middle-range approach is an explanation that is empirically grounded in terms of its direct use but also applies to the broader social system it is in (Haxeltine et al., 2017, p. 5). While this theoretical proposal is deeply in line with the social system innovations concept I am furthering here, it differs in terms of context: social system innovations is specifically about how social innovation relates to a complex systems thinking lens, and therefore it moves toward a nonlinear dynamical understanding of society. 78 A Systemic-Dynamic Creativity Framework Creativity in all its forms is…a system of dynamized and impacting forces that influence both maker and observer. (Grosz, 2008, p. 3) Emergence will characterize the one and only ‘creative force’ in the whole universe. (Emmeche et al., 1997, p. 90) 2.2.1 Creativity as a Driver Creativity is more than what occurs within the artist or scientist, as I investigate here it is the fundamental driver of systems change. Despite being a concept that has been studied in philosophy, systems science, psychology, and sociology, amongst other disciplines, most frameworks lack a multi-disciplinary understanding of creativity as it arises across multiple systems. The “standard definition” of creativity (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 92) has been defined by the discipline of psychology (and closely related disciplinary research), and says it is novel and effective. However, this definition is not standard within other divergent disciplines. The “standard definition” is challenging because creativity is neither novel nor effective; that is, it is not an adjective that describes something else, as the word “novel” is typically used. Nor is it effective to people’s needs because such an evaluative position leaves out creative forces that also destroy. Creativity instead is the “force” which drives things to become novel, and thus it manifests or expresses itself in objects that can be useful or effective (or destructive). The “standard definition” of creativity describes what is creative, not creativity. For example, a person is “creative,” however, a person is not “creativity” itself. Creativity is the force or transformational process that drives a person to become creative. While there are many descriptions, concepts, and theories of creativity, including the prominent 4Ps description (i.e., creativity is a person, product, process, and press or environments; Rhodes, 1961, p. 305), many contemporary researchers of creativity are missing a truly multi-disciplinary standard of what creativity actually is. Empirical research on how people, products, process and environments are creative could be called “creativeness research” rather than “creativity research,” because such empirical research usually examines the expression of creativeness rather than the driver of creativity behind it. What is needed is a robust model for creativity (Howaldt et al., 2014, p. 2) to 79 offer multiple disciplines a complex and unitive approach to this concept so that the foundational processes of personal and systemic change including social innovation can be better understood. I describe creativity as the driving force that makes things creative in our minds, societies and in nature, and is revealed across multiple systems and disciplines, which when discovered exposes novel solution spaces for complex problems. This theoretical framework presents creativity as a systemic and dynamic transformation of energy, information, principles, or system states and phases, as it transitions in its creative form (Grosz, 2008, p. 3), from disorder to order and, in its destructive form, from order to disorder. In this subsection, I will focus on the foundational tension between oppositional features of the above energies, information, principles, or system states, as it leads to systems transformation, rather than the actualization of systems bifurcations and transition points (I will discuss causal implications and negentropic self-organization in detail in Manuscript #2, and apply those characteristics to social contexts in Manuscript #4). Put simply, creativity is a systemic-dynamic transformation. Describing creativity as such will assist in moving the study of creativity out of its disciplinary silo of psychology and toward interdisciplinary studies or transdisciplinarity, and thus accessible for social innovators in their work at the intersection between social and natural systems. 2.2.2 Creativity as Tension and Transformation This is the doctrine that the creative advance of the world is the becoming, the perishing, and the objective immortalities… (Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. xi) Creativity arises out of the dynamic tension between two, a dualistic tension of opposites. To see how this works, I will examine seminal perspectives of opposites and the tension (and harmony) between them and how it relates to creativity. The dualistic notion of opposites has been studied and examined throughout history, possibly beginning with Greek philosopher Heraclitus (fifth century BC), or Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (sixth or fourth century BC). In his “unity of opposites” (Burnet, 1892, pp. 136–137), Heraclitus suggests that a “hidden” or underlying field of tension exists in harmony for any object or entity, however short- or long-lasting, due to its oppositional features or conditions (Barnes, 1979/1982, p. 45). Lao Tzu, whose 80 writing is attributed to the Tao Te Ching (Mitchell, 1988, pp. 20, 22, 28, 30), also expressed a unity of opposites in the oneness of the interdependent yin (inner) and yang (outer) systems, force and counterforce, which have an interacting dynamic to balance the two (Sun, 2009, pp. 271–272). Both authors indicate opposites as being fundamental principles of human experience. As Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann states, the “experience of the world is only possible through opposites” (Neumann, 1954/1989, p. 104). It is the dynamic or tension between oppositional features of the world, such as hot or cold, birth or death, internal or external, night or day, that I propose lay the foundation for creativity to arise. Oppositional tension can be found in many disciplines. In physics, for example, the opposites of push and pull describe a force in dynamic tension where “A” is an applied a push in opposition to “-A” which is an applied a pull (McGill & Parry, 1948, p. 422). A system or process is “simultaneously determined by oppositely directed forces, movements, tendencies, i.e., directed towards A and -A” (McGill & Parry, 1948, p. 422). A planet’s orbit, for example, is determined by the forces of push and pull on all points and when in balance the gravitational pull is balanced by the centrifugal force or push (Talley et al., 1964/2011, pp. 189–190). In complexity science, a dualistic or oppositional tension can be seen arising between “hot” plates of Bénard cells and their oppositional cold plates, which triggers the negentropic response of ordering because of the oppositional energy differential “sandwiched between regions of order (slow change) and chaos (dysfunctional change)” (McKelvey, 2001, p. 137). In psychology, as another example, a theory of opposites is described by Jung (1953/1980 p. 186; 1954/2014, pp. 144, 145, 163; 1963/1977, p. 536). He purports the oppositional tendencies of conflict within any “self,” such as between the unconscious and conscious, anima and animus, known and unknown, is the mutual confrontation where the “bounded consciousness and the limitless unconscious collide” (Rosen, 2016, p. 118), which is the ultimate source of creativity. Creativity is essentially born out of contradiction—or tension—between opposites, in an effort to restore balance. Philosopher Henri Bergson alludes to two “forces” when it comes to life (1911/1944, p. 259), one force working against the disordering of the world, and the other a consciousness of life in human experience that is “pure creative activity” (p. 259). Both are creativity in different forms. Psychologist Albert Rothenberg (1971) proposed that the creative process unfolds due to “‘oppositional thinking’—the capacity to conceive and utilize two or more opposite or contradictory ideas, concepts, or images 81 simultaneously” (1969, p. 585; 1971, p. 197).39 Similarly, dialectical thinking is associated with the dialectic of oppositional tension between order and chaos as a creative process (Holm-Hadulla, 2013, p. 293). Regardless of the field of study, the tension of opposites determines a system as a system (McGill & Parry, 1948, p. 443), and thus is foundational across multiple disciplines or systems. Opposites, however, are unified through the change between them (as claimed by Heraclitus, see Barnes, 1979/1982, p. 57). The change is primarily a causal change deployed through a “passing-away” (i.e., forces of corruption, dissolution, divergence, destruction), and transitioning to its oppositional “coming-to-be” (i.e., forces of generation, consilience, convergence, creation; Cilliers, 1998, p. 107; de Haas & Mansfeld, 2004, p. 512). Such oppositional or dualistic features of system dynamics occur due to the transitional change or transformation between them. In other words, when change occurs between the tension of opposites, a transition between them becomes the basic foundation for how creativity arises: the dynamic tension between two allows for a transformation in a way that maintains it unity (Neels, 2018a, pp. 440, 448). For example, Jung (1959/1990) suggests that within disorder there is order, because everything is grounded on its opposite (i.e., heat is only hot because cold exists). The transition between opposites as change can be seen in the oppositional features of systems, for example between “disorder” and “order.” The term “disorder,” or in its active form of “disordering,” describes a systems dynamic trend toward chaos, in a “perpetual perishing” (Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. 43) until the order has been dissolved. Such disordering is balanced by its opposite, ordering, as a congruent unity. Ordering describes a system’s trending toward an “organic creation” of the “production of novel togetherness” (Bergson, 1911/1944, p. 238; Whitehead, 1929/1960, pp. 32, 43, 46, 128–130, 142).40 Philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1929/1960) describes creativity as the fundamental driver of divergent forms in systems transitioning into a complex unity through a “creative advance” (p. 32) where creativity is the “universal of universals” and the “ultimate principle” (p. 21). Within the discipline of 39 Pointing to a Rothenbergean approach to oppositional thinking, Ellamil et al. state: “While creativity is observed across a variety of fields and human endeavors, what creative individuals may share in common is a heightened ability to engage in contradictory modes of thought, including cognitive and affective” (Ellamil et al., 2012, p. 9). 40 Bergson (1911/1944), however, clarifies that there is in truth no “disorder” as a negative of the term “order,” because these are only “views of the mind” that operate in unity on indivisible ceaseless change. Whitehead did not write about their opposition as much as unification toward “novel togetherness” (1929/1960, p. 32). 82 philosophy, then, perpetual perishing can be transformed by its “opposite” of organic creation. In the sciences, disorder and order can be attributed to the concept of entropy, where a system over time moves toward chaos or disorder (Weiner, 1974, p. 28), and as “negative entropy,”41 or the oppositional “force” of a system to regain order and evade disorder (Schrödinger, 1944/1991, p. 70).42 Nobel-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine (1980, p. 109) describes the dissipation of entropy out of a system due to self-organization as the source of “innovation” and thus creativity. A systems enduring response of negentropy is the move toward a balance of opposites, from disorder toward order, which means the universe is continuously in a process of negentropic creation (coming-to-be) to balance out the naturally occurring entropic destruction (passing-away; Bergson, 1911/1944; Kauffman, 1995; Schrödinger, 1944/1991; Whitehead, 1929/1960). Evolution is a classic example, where genetic mutations or variations are in a disordering deformation which is balanced by the spontaneous and self-organizing ordering and honing of selection as a regenerative and emergent creation of a species (Kauffman, 1993, pp. 433–437, 531–533, 643–645). Creativity is the fundamental driver that transitions a system between the oppositional forces of entropy (disordering of a system) and negentropy (ordering of a system). A tension of opposites sets the stage for transformation from one systemic state to the other. In psychology, oppositional features of creativity arise when the mind experiences uncertainty (or what I will refer to as psychological “disorder”) and transforms it to resolve the situation toward becoming a more neutral state of psychological balance (or psychological “order”). This idea is based on Gabora’s (2017) honing theory, which posits that creative ideas arise due to the dissipation of arousal-inducing psychological entropy and is experienced as anxiety-provoking uncertainty or “disorder” (Hirsch et al., 2012, p. 304) through self-organizing processes in the mind (i.e., psychological “negentropy”; Gabora, 2017, pp. 2, 10). The process of arousal-inducing entropy occurs when a perturbation in an individual’s worldview is experienced as “dissonance, boredom, curiosity or a problem” (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). As a result, oscillations 41 Or, negentropy. See Glossary for a descriptive background. 42 Entropy has long been attributed to as a “force” in the scientific sense. Example authors are: Canessa (2004, p. 4), Roos (2014, p. 1161), and Verlinde (2011, pp. 1–26) who successfully discussed Newton’s second law and gravity with entropy. Verlinde’s article positions entropy as not only a force but also a fundamental force in terms of its relation with gravity. Although it is not the effort of this text to argue whether entropy is a “fundamental force” or not, I will consider Schrödinger’s “negative entropy” as a reaction force to the above described entropic force considering Newton’s third law, which states that each force has an equal and opposite reaction. 83 between the opposites of convergent and divergent thinking tend to increase (Guastello, 1998, p. 42) until the mind experiences a disordering psychological and thus entropic state as arousal. Eventually, after it reaches a “critical state poised on the cusp of a transition between order and chaos” (Gabora, 2017, p. 26), the mind culminates “in the execution of a creative idea” (p. 4). Gabora’s theory (2017, p. 10) shows that a generalizable oppositional tension also applies to psychological systems, through psychological entropy and creative negentropy, where unresolved material is recursively processed to “self-mend” the mind’s entropic state to be restructured for beneficial use. Tension occurs across scales of systems as a dynamic. The term “dynamic” describes how one state of a system transitions into another state “over the course of time” (Weisstein, 1999, p. 12).43 Leibniz (1956/1989, p. 435), who first wrote extensively on dynamics, prioritizes force in the motion of objects over time. Dynamism,44 when active, is power, he says, and when dynamism is passive, an object may resist motion but it is not entirely at rest (Leibniz, 1956/1989, p. 436; McDonough, 2019, para. 39). Dictionaries tend to describe creativity as “the ability or power to create” (OED, 2010), which contrasts with Runco and Jaeger’s (2012) “standard definition” of creativity as novel and effective. In physics, power is any force that is operative when an interaction occurs between two objects such as a push or pull (Halliday & Resnick, p. 94).45 As such, I suggest that the “power” to create is the dynamic force of creativity, which is the transformative drive of one system state (features, phase, etc.) to another over time, with both quantitative and qualitative potential.46 Systems may be active or passive, stable or in change, in stasis or in motion. However, creativity is a dynamic that is in oppositional contrast to static relations of constituents (van Geert, 2009, p. 244). In other words, it arises out of systemic and 43 The study of dynamical systems began in many ways with Newtonian mechanics, was rooted in Cartesian laws of motion, was advanced mathematically with Poincaré (1890, p. 10), but is best expressed in Leibniz’s dynamism (1956/1989, p. 436; McDonough, 2019, para. 39). 44 I use the term “dynamism” as it applies to theories of dynamical systems (Arnold & Ilyashenko, 1988, p. 154; Poincaré, 1890; Willems, 1972, p. 323), system dynamics (Forrester, 1961, p. 19), dynamism as a philosophy (Leibniz, 1956/1989, p. 436), and as used in psychology when describing an energetic desire or dynamic action (Diamond Jr, 2019, p. 1; Perry, 1911, p. 718; Phelps et al., 2020, p. 5). 45 There are four “fundamental forces” in the universe according to modern physics, describing basic interactions which cannot be further reduced: gravity, electromagnetism, and weak and strong nuclear forces (Halliday & Resnick, p. 1338). However, here, we will use the term “force” as standard physics does, which is any force in nature as a “push” or “pull.” 46 Morgan (1933, p. 25) connects novelty to causation, “force,” and “power” to distinguish a scientific usage of these terms from a relational or metaphoric usage. I use these terms contextually, inclusive of both possibilities. 84 dynamic change. It is systemic because it describes nonlinear processes of change that are system-wide, and across, between and beyond multiple systems in that dynamical emergent processes develop as generalized processes across the spectrum of systemic parts (Gare, 2000, p. 331). A systemic-dynamic framework of creativity reveals how creativity is fundamentally a dynamic “force” that is expressed through “form,”47 and is systemically present in multiple systems of varying states, phases, levels, etc. Transitions are dynamic and systemic and, in social systems studies, constitute change “from one to another dynamic system equilibrium, where the deep structure of the system is transformed…. Eventually, a new internal structure may emerge from these processes” (Grin, Rotmans, & Schot, 2010, p. 326). 48 Transitions are co-evolution processes with multiple changes across time, are radical shifts in scope, and can be slow or fast (Grin et al., 2010, p. 11), and they emerge out of the tension between opposites. While transitions leave behind elements of the original system (e.g., the transition from horse carriages to motorized horse-less carriages leaves horse carriage use intact, although to a lesser degree; Geels, 2005, p. 2), transformations are transitions that reconstitute the original system into a new one (Grin et al., 2010, p. 326; Rotmans & Loorbach, 2010, p. 121). For example, when a forest that is predominantly spruce regenerates and goes through the transitioning process of a forest fire, it may even transform into a faster-germinating and pioneering pine forest (NRC, 2020). Transformations are complex processes and can be of such large scale, scope, and multi-actor conditions across multiple systems that barriers to positive change are often encountered in the complexity itself. The result can be stagnant tension between maintaining the current resilient configuration and resetting initial conditions for transformation (Walker et al., 2009, p. 6). For example, according to UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (2002), environmental change drives social transformations and social transformations drive environmental change in an autocatalytic recursive manner that creates climate change (biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity and pollution, etc.) and reciprocally forces 47 Leibniz relates force to form, which he uses in the Aristotelian sense of the self-organizing shaping of force at is expressed in a body, for example. I use the term “form” to represent what the force of creativity has manifested in an expression of behaviour (action, movement, or pattern) or structure (idea, object, or environment). 48 Geels and Schot (2010, pp. 11 –12) define such transitions as occurring in what they call socio-technical systems, which focus on not only societal or organizational change, but also inclusive of the innovations and resulting modernization processes of technology, due to the prominent societal role actors use technology in their change strategies. This is the foundation of what is called socio-technical transition theory. 85 societies to change lifestyles and social practices. I describe the complex dynamic and emergent qualities of broad-scaled social systems as social systems innovations (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). Others describe these broad-scaled system dynamics as socio-technical innovations, or transformative social innovations (Geels, 2005, p. 1; Haxeltine et al., 2017, p. 2). Broad-scaled, social systems transitions are a result of the tension between stasis and dynamism and lead to systemic transformation. In social “living” systems (Hooker, 2011, p. 13), “nothing remains constant; everything is in a perpetual state of transformation” (Wolkenhauer & Muir, 2011, p. 358). Bergson describes a perpetual state of transformation as the “ceaseless upspringing of something new” (1911/1944, p. 47). One of the most well-known concepts of system innovation is “creative destruction,” a notion by economist Joseph A. Schumpeter (1943/2003) that describes the oppositional and dynamic transformation of social “structures from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one” (p. 83). Since perpetual transformations are an indication of complexity (Cilliers, 1998, p. 107), in that they adapt to the system environment rather than remain in stasis, rigid constituents or systems parts tend to build up increased tension that may escalate toward punctuated shifts of radical change (see Cilliers, 1998, p. 111; Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 108; Goldstein, Hazy, & Silberstang, 2010, p. 108; McKelvey, 2001, p. 138). Emergent new structures or behaviours result from the transformation from static to dynamic conditions as the system seeks equilibrium, and deep structural processes drive the creative process forward. Such systemic transformations are measurable in the dynamic process of time. Creativity therefore arises as the dynamic transformation between systemic oppositional features, states, processes, scales, phases, levels, and even of old worldview patterns or behaviours in space and time. Older entropic processes are incessantly “destroyed” through a passing-away to create new ones that are ordering toward a coming-to-be. Whether they shift due to a perturbation like a conflicting idea or due to a social injustice crisis, dynamic and adaptive systems result from oppositional tension and then undergo self-organized transformation between of one system state to another. I call this process of systemic-dynamic transformation, creativity. 86 Summary At this threshold of chaos, between the “macro” of controlled conscious awareness and the “micro” of deeply embedded unconscious layers, ideas take root. Across disciplinary fields and scales, from biological-cellular to neurocognitive, psychosocial and cultural, such complexity in interactive networks is known to yield optimal variation, flexibility and adaptive strength. Hence the core creative paradox: disintegration enabling synthesis, destabilization empowering stability, disorder engendering new order. (Rosen, 2016, p. 123) 2.3.1 Creativity as Dynamic Transformation A transdisciplinary and transsystemic approach to creativity reveals a generalizable approach inclusive of specificities that offers a multi-systemic view of the transformational force of dynamic tension between opposites. Building a systemic-dynamic framework of creativity reveals the mono-disciplinary “standard definition” of creativity (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 92) in psychology as lacking a complex and transsystemic approach to the driver of systemic change across disciplines. As I have shown, creativity is a dynamic transformational force or the processual “creative advance” that is generated between a system’s passing-away and its transformation into coming-to-be. An entropic disordering system features or state transitions to a negentropic spontaneous ordering of that system’s features or state. In other words, creativity is the fundamental driver of all systems and therefore drives system innovation.49 A systemic-dynamic framework has important implications for the literature and this dissertation. When creativity is seen as a dynamic transformational process and it is applied to philosophy, physics, psychology, and sociology, trends that are traditionally siloed to a single discipline may be observed through a transsystemic approach that reveals patterns of relations outside traditional disciplines or norms. These innovations will be “radical,” in the sense that they are unpredictable and not everyday novelties (Goldstein, 2001, pp. 507–524), when these in-between zones of recurrent patterns are mined for new discoveries. In this dissertation, I will use this framework to bring together the multiple disciplines and paradigms of the four Manuscripts by demonstrating how creativity functions as a central driver for personal and social change. In 49 I use the term “innovation” to mean an implementation or manifestation of creativity into the form of a system context (see Phills et al., 2008, p. 37). 87 Manuscript #1, I explain through the lens of the Framework how consciousness is related to creativity and the critical theory of social liberation through critical consciousness. Manuscript #2 supports this Framework by defining novelty generation across multiple systems (i.e., the “birthplace” of creativity as found in complex systems such as those in psychology, sociology, etc.). In Manuscript #3, the Framework assists in explaining social systems innovation processes. Finally, in Manuscript #4, the Framework is the groundwork for a proposed soft systems methodology because it describes the foundational processes of systems innovations to be used by social innovators when engaging in social interventions. Thus, this theoretical framework will ground the study of creativity and assist to move it out of its disciplinary silo of psychology and demonstrate how creativity functions as a fundamental driver across multiple systems in different disciplines, and applicable to an internal experience of a social intervener when engaged in external systemic social challenges. As such, the Framework will connect disparate system parts to offer researchers and creators to find transformational behaviours of social systems faster and easier so they may be leveraged toward constructively enabling change. Now, I will turn my attention to an internal understanding of creativity as a dynamic transformation particular to the study of personal and social consciousness. 88 3. MANUSCRIPT #1Systems in Internal Process: Creativity as Mindful Change [T]he nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole,which is never static or complete but which is an unending process of movement andunfoldment. (Bohm, 1980, p. x)A critical and dynamic view of the world, strives to unveil reality, unmask its mythicization, and achieve a full realization of the human task: the permanent transformation of reality in favor of the liberation of people. (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 102) 3.1.1 Background and Narrative This chapter is an inquiry into social innovation with an internal/subjective focus, which I examine in the first manuscript below. I start with an internal focus because it is important to be reminded that “[t]he success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 7, quoting Bill O’Brien). An intervention should also acknowledge that the coherent whole, inclusive of the internal and external reality, is not static, but instead a dynamic process of transformational change. To address complex social situations, I take a complex systems and mindful inquiry research approach in this chapter. This approach is based on Freire’s concept of “critical consciousness” (1970/2000, p. 41), which I merge with “creative consciousness,” a term that I use to explain the transformative processes of creativity in human conscious awareness.50 I suggest that the result of this theoretical merger may be explored practically through a mindfulness method. Such praxis can be useful to innovators: it requires noticing novel distinctions between different phenomena as it appears in one’s internal and external experience—and especially how one’s worldview influences creative processes when intervening in social systems. The resulting merger and practical application addresses the research problem. In the Introduction, I state that existing literature does not yet include a 50 The term “creative consciousness” has been used by other researchers and authors (Deutsch, 1992; Kenevan, 1982; Payne, 2011; Samples, 1976; Staude, 1977). I leave these authors’ usage of the term behind to position creative consciousness specifically in a conscious awareness and systemic-dynamic creativity context. 89 sufficient investment in complex systems approaches to creative and critical consciousness that systemically address creativity as a fundamental driver for system change. I first became interested in critical consciousness from a creativity perspective when I approached Freire’s theory of “conscientization” through the arts as a tool for social change in one of my master’s degree projects in late 2006.51 That year, I was invited by Dr. Rao to come to India to work with the University of Mysore and a non-profit organization called GUARD that did social work projects with disproportionately impacted communities on topics of HIV awareness, poverty, and discrimination.52 I introduced arts-based social work tools to both the university and GUARD to assist their programs in addressing complex issues that their clients faced. Early on, we worked together to set up a project in Udupi, a small town on the western coast of the state of Karnataka. There, I worked with two main groups of participants: a group of men who have sex with other men (MSMs) and a group of female sex workers. “MSM” was the common term used by the local social workers to describe behaviour rather than identity: some male participants had sex with other men preferentially, while many were attracted to women but still had only had sex with other men due to life circumstance. For example, many of the men I worked with grew up as orphans living on the streets, and because they had no food or place to sleep, older men found them and took them in, then later groomed them for sex. The men I worked with were strong, outgoing, and loved to laugh. So did the female sex workers, which initially surprised me. When I walked into the first meeting with the women’s group, I carried with me the worldview that they might be soft spoken, reserved, or even quiet. I was wrong. Their strength and joyful laughter permeated the hall we worked in, and their sense of resilience was inspirational. As I worked with both groups, I discovered quickly that both groups would show up sometimes one to three hours late (of a three hour session), something that is not easily accommodated in North America. I eventually learned that they did this because they had to meet secretly and thus would often take alternative routes to arrive at our workshop location. I was told 51 My work in India has included four main projects: the first with the non-profit Global Routes in the summer of 2005, the second in 2006 as described above through the University of Calgary, the third from December 2007 to June of 2008 through the University of Calgary (and my second master’s degree project, which was described in the Introductory Narrative), and the fourth from September to December 2016 through the University of British Columbia (as a pre-thesis research project). 52 Group for Urban And Rural Development (GUARD), No. 20, Block No. 7, III Main Mahashakthi Road, Karnataka Government Employees Layout, Shakthinagar, Mysore, 570 019, Karnataka, India (2006 address). 90 that if anyone were to learn the purpose of our meetings and discover participants’ identities, they would face fierce stigmatisation from community members, political and law enforcement officers, and friends and family members. They would be cast out from their homes and isolated. The social structures that supported this discrimination were pervasive amongst much of the local culture, and so I felt that a Freirean critical consciousness approach would be appropriate. We spent several months meeting multiple times a week and using different artistic activities as tools for social change. Over our time together, we began to investigate the deep experiences of stigmatisation that they all faced. While the main tool we used was Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 1979/2008), early in the process, I started to facilitate some yoga practices in order to encourage a mindful approach to body awareness. Although I started with the physical postures and some breathing exercises, I slowly transitioned the activities to include conscious awareness of the participants’ physical, mental, and spiritual experiences. I did this because although most of the participants were no longer living in traumatic situations, trauma ran deep and could be rooted in the body as static loops that play out in habitual behaviour (van der Kolk, 1994, pp. 253–265). While we used Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to bring critical consciousness to the repressive structures of society, we also investigated a personal and creative consciousness, which was about mindfulness, creativity, and somatic experience. Eventually our work culminated in performances. The sex workers performed privately for themselves out of a sense of trust and security. The MSM group decided to invite about 30 people and perform on December 1, which was World AIDS Day. This was particularly relevant for the MSM group, because several members were HIV+, and many of these men were married to women and also had families. However, some could not reveal that they were still having sex with men and had become HIV+. It was a considerable risk to reveal to their families that they were carrying the virus, as there was a norm in that region of India for the men to not say anything about their HIV status and continue to live in a sexually active relationship with a woman. I wondered at the time if this was one of the reasons why India had the highest number of those living with HIV than in any other part of the world (5.7 million, UNAIDS/WHO, 2006, pp. 19, 27). To reveal to their partners that they were HIV+ would mean an immediate expulsion from their relational, familial, and communal contexts. Being exiled could be devastating and even life-threatening for 91 these men. Hence, most of them kept their status confidential, which was not only challenging but also caused trauma in its own way. After weeks and months of mindfulness and critical conscious practice through artmaking, it was time for performance day. One man revealed to me prior to the performance that because of our process he had made a daring revelation to his wife that he was HIV+ and had taken care to not infect her. The risk he was taking was great, and backstage, as he shared this news with the other men, tears came to his eyes. He said he would not let his integrity be overtaken by the trauma of his life story. He would start to make mindful changes beginning right away. My time in India during this project was one of deep learning and change. I came into a complex and uncertain situation about what I could offer the university and GUARD, how Freire’s conscientization would be received, and my own biases about working with people who have experienced trauma and discrimination. By utilizing the Theatre of the Oppressed, I engaged with participants in fun and in-depth activities, which transformed over the course of the months I was there into revealing processes of inner change. I grew to become more familiar with the deep complexities of personal narratives and the traumatic layers of cultural norms and how bringing consciousness to experience can be an activator of transition from an old state to a new state of understanding. It was powerful to work alongside the participants who so graciously opened their lives to me, and reciprocally accepted my openness to them. The following manuscript uses a narrative example like the one above by examining discrimination as addressed through a critical consciousness lens via the work of Jana Sanskriti, a professional Theatre of the Oppressed company based in West Bengal, India. The company began in 1985, with over 30 subgroups across India, impacting over 200,000 community members using a critical-consciousness-based process of creative change (Jharna et al., 2019, p. 170). On a theoretical level, the manuscript will discuss the concept of creativity as consciousness as well as reviewing Freire’s critical consciousness. It will also incorporate mindfulness as an internal approach to practicing social systems change. While it is often linked with meditation and historically rooted in Buddhism,53 mindfulness has been described by Western psychologist Ellen 53 “Mindfulness” is often associated with the Pali words sati and sampajaña, which can be translated as “awareness, circumspection, discernment, and retention… to pay attention to what is occurring in one’s immediate experience with care and discernment” (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009, p. 4). 92 Langer as “simultaneously drawing novel distinctions in the present moment” (Haller et al., 2017, p. 894), which implies a direct link to creativity (Carson, 2014, p. 330). This is important for social innovators, because, by understanding the link between creativity and mindfulness and putting it into practice, social innovators will be able to practice critical consciousness as a change-oriented process to challenge their static worldviews via a mindfulness approach to creativity. To investigate this topic more thoroughly, I now turn to my first manuscript below. 93 The Manuscript: Creative Critical Consciousness A Complex Systems View of Creativity, Social Action, and Mindfulness by Mike Unrau Abstract54 When the worldviews of individuals or collectives are static in relation to the creative dynamics of social change and reject adaptive responses to the transitional nature of reality, they can become rigid and intolerant to ambiguity and oppose the natural processes of creative solution-making. Freire’s “critical consciousness” offers a dynamic rather than static revolutionary process which can stimulate the discovery of a creative and re-creative impulse for change and an “ontologic drive to create.” He claims that the revolutionary process of liberating people from oppressive realities occurs through dialogue, which “names” the world as a condition of humanization. However, focusing on dialogue alone may miss the systemic, creative undercurrent of transformational processes in human and natural systems that drive creative beings to transform their realities. Complex systems theory, and particularly a nonlinear dynamical approach to the social and natural sciences, could support Freire’s work to aid social innovators in understanding and accessing the creative and systemic transformational dynamics that drive psychological and social systems change. This paper offers a complex systems view of dynamic transformation in creativity, consciousness, and Freirean critical consciousness, and it proposes a praxis of social change through offering a mindfulness approach to worldviews. The paper also offers a perspective of “creative consciousness,” which describes creativity as the dynamic transformation of consciousness between disordering and ordering of novel forms and structures of the mind. When merged with the concept of critical consciousness, it becomes “creative critical consciousness,” which suggests that societies and cultures are impacted by stasis-oriented worldviews but may be transformed by the dynamic processes of creativity. A Langerian view of mindfulness as “novel distinctions” is applied to both creative and critical consciousness and becomes a praxis of mindful engagement in personal and social systems to create social interventions engaging in complex social change. The artistic method Theatre of the Oppressed and the Indian theatre company Jana Sanskriti are used to exemplify the concepts. Keywords Creativity, critical consciousness, complex systems, creative consciousness, Langerian mindfulness 54 The manuscript written here is structured to replicate exactly what will be submitted (or already has, as in the case of Manuscript #3) to an academic peer-reviewed journal. As such, the abstracts do not have claims or quotes cited, and there is repetition of some definitions and concepts. All manuscripts in this dissertation will have a similar structure and appearance. 94 The challenge that faces humanity is unique, for it has never occurred before. Clearly a new kind of creative surge is needed to meet it. This has to include not just a new way of doing science but a new approach to society, and even more; a new kind of consciousness. (Bohm, 1987, p. 207) 3.2.1 Introduction Complex social problems require interventions that are mindfully designed with creativity to create a transformation praxis for the world. Doing so is necessary to generate not only a new external reality but also an internal reality of a “new kind of consciousness” (Bohm, 1987, p. 207). Philosopher of education Paulo Freire argues for a “critical consciousness,” which is the engaged transformation of reality toward humanization (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 183), and contends that a dynamic rather than static revolutionary process of praxis-making is necessary through dialogue. For Freire, dialogue is the curious, liberating, and epistemic relationship of co-intentional engagement (Freire, 1970/2000, pp. 19, 65, 69) that can shift society toward true humanization (p. 137). As Freire suggests, before it is possible to address social problems, the intervener must also confront their own internalized images of oppression, including any socialized static views of the world (p. 47). Freire is right that dialogue is incredibly important in a theory of action to challenge socially repressive power structures. However, Freire did not have a complex systems understanding of social and natural sciences available to him as exists now. Such an approach can assist social changemakers in accessing the systemic and creative undercurrent of transformational processes that drive human and natural systems to change their realities. To contribute to Freirean thought, I argue that systemic creativity drives social transformation because individual and social system dynamics work together to enact innovative social change. I propose here that systemic social change occurs through an individual and social transformation of collective worldviews, which are a collective of individual self-organizing networks of understandings (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). Individual or collective worldviews may reject change, thereby becoming rigid and possibly intolerant to the uncertainty of dynamic transitions over time (Enosh et al., 2013, p. 434). Reality is transformed through dynamic transformation, as Freire suggests, and I argue that when worldviews also become dynamic in their transformation, they open the natural dynamic and creative continuity of systemic change. 95 In this paper, I propose a transdisciplinary approach to social interventions by investigating how creativity occurs in consciousness and social change. I do this by examining and integrating two general concepts. First, I will investigate the internal experience of “creative consciousness,” a term that I use to describe the transformative process of creativity in conscious awareness. Second, I will investigate the external or social aspect of critical consciousness through offering a complex systems and worldview understanding of Freirean social transformation. I will then synthesize these concepts to articulate a complex systems view of “creative critical consciousness” and offer a method through a Langerian mindfulness approach of noticing novel distinctions (Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000, pp. 1–9) that highlights the socialization of static worldviews and the natural dynamic processes of creativity. I begin with a theoretical analysis that proposes an alternative way of looking at creativity. I depart from the “standard definition” of creativity (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 1) that is rooted in psychology, instead reaching a multidisciplinary and nonlinear dynamical view of creativity as the transformation between oppositional systemic processes (i.e. “coming-to-be,” or systems that transition toward “order,” and “passing-away,” systems that transition toward “disorder;” see the Framework).55 I argue that creativity arises as a transformational tension between disorder and order not only in nature but also psychology and society that informs conscious awareness of the world but also the cultural evolution of worldviews. In short, creativity is the key driver of systemic social transformation. I then offer a praxis of mindfulness as a simple method for increasing conscious awareness that can be used to notice creative critical consciousness. Doing so will provide social researchers and activators a keen approach to mindfully noticing dynamic change within their worldviews and equip them with a critical as well as creative social mindfulness when intervening in complex social problems. A complex systems view of creative and critical consciousness will support this investigation because it includes nonlinear dynamical processes as studied in complex systems theory, which have implications for individual systems (local, or microsystems) or societal systems (global, or macrosystems). For example, human cognition (as part of a psychological system) influences social relations (as part of a societal system) which impacts the environment 55 Several authors have made contributions to the idea that oppositional tension is a source of creativity (see Bergson, 1911/1944; McKelvey, 2001; Rosen, 2016; Rothenberg, 1971). 96 (natural systems). A complex systems view will include a process-oriented and nonlinear perspective of creativity that can be applied to multiple disciplines to understand inherently trans-systemic innovative processes that go “between, across, and beyond” multiple systems (see also Introduction; Austin, 1978, p. 86; Nicolescu, 2007, p. 39). Systemic creative processes influence consciousness in psychological as well as social systems, and thus, I investigate creativity from a creative and critical consciousness perspective that departs from Freirean pedagogical studies and moves toward a complex systems understanding of creativity, and in doing so highlight both a Freirean and complex systems interdependence. As a relevant example, I will consider Augusto Boal’s artistic pedagogy and practice called Theatre of the Oppressed (based on Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Theatre of the Oppressed is a theatre methodology whose poetics can transform people’s passivity or stasis into a transformation of dramatic action (Boal, 1979/2008, p. 97; Freire, 1970/2000, p. 174). I will use the case of Jana Sanskriti, an Indian grassroots theatre-activist group that addresses systemic violence, collective trauma, and the emancipation of structural discrimination such as in women’s empowerment (Premaratna, 2018, p. 153). Started in 1985 by Sanjoy Ganguly, Jana Sanskriti has over 30 sub-groups spread across the subcontinent, nine of which are entirely female, and the group reaches over 200,000 spectators every year (Jharna et al., 2019, p. 170). Jana Sanskriti uses Theatre of the Oppressed to increase critical consciousness among people who are marginalized in the Indian state of West Bengal and to challenge the deep histories of power relations both onstage and in the offstage collective “lifeworld” (Husserl, 1954/1970, p. 1936; Mohan, 2004, p. 179). The artistic process is participatory and interactive, and it involves the audience as “spect-actors” who instigate social change onstage. This activity functions as a “rehearsal for reality” to facilitate communal and systemic change and is therefore a creative process of transformation. Thus, Jana Sanskriti also participates in a type of “creative consciousness.” A few notes on terms. I will use the term “consciousness” per its Latin roots of con (with) and scire (to know) as in “what is known all together” (Bohm, 1987, p. 212; Gennaro, 2017, p. 6). Therefore, I include but go beyond Locke’s definition of consciousness being “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind” (Locke, 1844, pp. 81, 71). For the purposes of this paper, it is distinct in two philosophical forms. First, I will use it à la Locke in terms of an internal phenomenal or experiential consciousness that is sometimes referred to as “conscious awareness” 97 (Gennaro, 2017, p. 7). This is “the qualitative character of an experience or mental state for a given subject at a given time” (Montemayor & Haladjian, 2015, p. 2). For example, when an object of experience, such as a thought or an idea, arises in the mind, someone having that experience can be said to have consciousness. Consciousness, in the Husserlean sense, is also dynamic, or the flowing stream of conscious life (Husserl, 1960, p. 31). It is in an aspect of the dynamic subject, moving “within itself to realize itself as a subject, as well as outside of itself, to encounter a reality which enriches and fulfills it, and which it too can enhance and [creatively] refashion in some way” (Bukala, 1991, p. 16). The second form of consciousness I will use is a relational consciousness, meaning a “consciousness of,” which “has to do with the directedness, aboutness, or reference of mental states—the fact that, for example, you think of or about something” (Siewert, 2017, p. 1). It is often expressed as an external form of consciousness and intentionality, which is a “being with the world…a ‘way towards’ something apart from itself, outside itself, which surrounds it and which it apprehends by means of its ideational capacity” (Pinto, n.d., as cited in Freire, 1970/2000, p. 69). In other words, it is “what is known all together” (Bohm, 1987, p. 212). This mode of consciousness is necessarily about the world and our role in it, how we impact it, and how we are impacted by it. When seen from its critical social form, it is dynamic as a movement or a consciousness “raising,” that is, the awakening of the mind and body to see and experience “social reality” (Yu, 2018, p. 1). I will describe a “worldview” as a dynamic self-organizing system of symbolic understandings and associative pathways of weaving narratives in a web of ideas, concepts, beliefs, and habits between the interaction of knowledge and experience (Aerts et al., 1994, p. 9; Gabora, 2017, pp. 5, 8). In brief, a worldview is a network of understandings. It is distinct from consciousness because it is based on reflective thought and thus is socially constructed and reorganized from previous understandings (i.e., parental, cultural, social, et al.), while consciousness as described here is a direct experience or expression of awareness (Gennaro, 2017, p. 7). Both are enculturated from systemic socialization; however, the phenomenological nature of consciousness roots it in direct experience. I will also use the term “collective” to describe a collective of individual worldviews in a group or society rather than as a single entity operating independently as a representative cultural understanding or identity (i.e., as in a “grand worldview;” see Glossary). Hence, a “collective” is not a group, nor is it a political or conscious 98 entity, but rather it is a plurality of all the distinct individual worldviews (Aerts et al., 1994, p. 21; Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). Now, I will investigate a creative form of consciousness. 3.2.2 Creative Consciousness Like the archetypes mediating between consciousness and the continuously active unconscious substratum, and bifurcations that become points of growth in chaotic systems, creativity serves to integrate the past and point forward to future possibilities. (Rosen, 2016, p. 124) Creative consciousness as described here is the dynamic transformational “force” that arises in consciousness between the disordering and ordering of novel forms and structures in the mind. This process manifests as creative thoughts, ideas, and actions. Although the concept of creativity has a “standard definition” as that which is novel and useful (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 39), I suggest that people, objects, processes, and places—referred to as the “4Ps” (Rhodes, 1961, p. 305)—can be creative, but they are not “creativity.” Creativity drives the creativeness of people, objects, process, and places. As described in Unrau (Manuscript #2 and The Four Preconditions to Novelty in chapter 2.1.4.c), creativity has four main preconditions: tension, competition, instability, and diversity. In this paper, I will focus primarily on tension, because a dualistic tension is foundational to human and natural systems. From a dualistic tension perspective, creativity is less about the experienced ideas, thoughts, or actions arising in conscious awareness, and it is more about the experience of dynamic tension and the transformative process that drives the emergence of creative forms in the first place. To explain this process, I will begin by investigating the concept of creativity as a tension across multiple systems; I will then explore how creativity arises in consciousness, finally shift to creativity’s role in individual and collective worldviews, all in order to create a context for a critical consciousness approach to how creativity impacts our relations with social systems. Creativity arises due to a dualistic tension of oppositional features within a system (Framework; Rothenberg, 1971; Rosen, 2016; McKelvey, 2001; Bergson, 1911/1944) as an elemental transformation between opposites of substances and qualities (e.g., a cup of water can 99 change into hot and cold both in temperature and in description; Neels, 2018, p. 428).56 This can be described by the overall conceptual and natural processes of a system’s perishing or “passing-away” and its creation or “coming-to-be” (Cilliers, 1998, p. 107; de Haas & Mansfeld, 2004, p. 512). The process of perishing and creation can be likened to the complex systems theory notions of disordering and ordering (see Framework; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984, pp. xxvi, 12, 96, 129; Whitehead, 1929/1960, pp. xi, 46). Entropy is the movement of a system toward disorder (i.e., an ice cube melting, or a deer’s body decaying; Schrödinger, 1944/1991, p. 71), and “negative entropy” or negentropy57 (Schrödinger, 1944/1991, p. 70) is a system’s natural tendency to reduce entropy by dissipating it outside of the system in exchange for new energy, resources, or information so as to move the system toward order (Mahulikar & Herwig, 2009, p. 1943; Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, pp. 4, 5, 25, 35). Creativity is the “force” that is the negentropic driver of dynamic transformation, of ordering an entropic state of disorder back to order. Oppositional transitions from disordering to ordering, or destruction to construction (Cooperstein, 1985, p. 216),58 put dynamic tension on systems of both macro and micro scales. Elsewhere I have called this complex systems approach a systemic-dynamic view of creativity (Framework, p. 35). Construing creativity as a tension of opposites will become useful for understanding how it arises in consciousness and social systems. A systemic-dynamic creativity occurs across multiple systems, including psychological systems. The tension of oppositional features of disorder and order in external or internal systems puts pressure on a human psyche and activates the possibility for creative processes to arise in the mind. The oppositional tensions begin to generate subtle oscillations between the conscious and unconscious (Maldonato & Dell’Orco, 2016, p. 213), such that “creative work arises from unconscious depths” (Bohm, 1987, p. 213; Jung, 1922/1978, p. 75).59 The oscillation occurs 56 Other world traditions such as the Taoist Yin and Yang are similar perspectives as the Unity of Opposites (Sun, 2009, p. 271). In Buddhism, the Lankavatara Sutra offers a notions of non-duality, in stating: “False-imagination teaches that such things as light and shade, long and short, black and white are different and are to be discriminated; but they are not independent of each other; they are only different aspects of the same thing, they are terms of relation, not of reality. Conditions of existence are not of a mutually exclusive character; in essence things are not two but one.” (Goddard, 1938/1994, p. 292). 57 For the most part, “negentropy” is a lay term in the sciences; however, the term has seen a redefinition in scientific usage in more recent years (Mahulikar & Herwig, 2009). 58 I have found useful Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, pp. 16–44) ecological systems theory of human development and his microsystem-to-macrosystem scaling structures. 59 Jung (1954/2014) has also stated: “The unconscious is the ever-creative mother of the conscious” (p. 115). 100 between active or reflective states of consciousness and the seemingly contradictory relaxed state that is free of attentional focus (or an “open state” that is akin to a meditative experience). Such fluctuating states of consciousness lead to a liminal threshold that is “universally described as having the potential to transform disorder and confusion into some new form, often of ‘higher’ order” (Payne, 2011, p. 191). Furthermore, when a uniform normality of conscious awareness is breached, the oscillating tension moves toward a dynamic threshold, which “is not a static place but rather a transition in progress. It is undefined, contradictory, chaotic and ultimately creative potentiality” (p. 190). The oscillating tension between active and relaxed states of consciousness is where the possibility for creative material to come from the unconscious arises (Maldonato & Dell’Orco, 2016, p. 323; Payne, 2011, p. 190). In some intensified or extreme fluctuating systems or states, such tension becomes a “Pandora’s box” of potential material (Richards, 2010, p. 195). New content arises from the unconscious, as Jung suggests, due to the forces of energy between opposites, prompting the emergence of a constellation of life possibilities (Jung, 1971/1990, pp. 479–480). Novel manifestations of such dynamic tension arise as symbolic representations in the mind in a process that becomes the transitional reality for creative thoughts, new ideas, original artistic expressions, and unique creative actions like dance or social movements (van den Berk, 2012, pp. xv, 47–48). A dynamic view of conscious awareness will aid us in understanding how creativity arises into conscious thought and action. For example, one of the last major outbreaks of the bubonic plague created great upheaval in Europe, and in 1666 it temporarily closed Cambridge University and Trinity College, where Isaac Newton had been studying intensely. With little ability to do work at his lab and while being in leisurely activity at his family’s estate, Newton witnessed an apple falling from a tree and had an “Aha!” moment that prompted innovation (a new theory) and changed the course of scientific history (Falk, 2005). Consciousness, as this example shows, is subject to a dynamic transformation due to active states of conscious tension (i.e. the microscale of the intense focus of studying set in the macroscale of a society impact by the bubonic plague) and relaxed states free of tensional focus (i.e., walking leisurely at his family’s estate). The disordering tensions transform to ordering processes of creative potentiality with psychological output yielding actual creative products, people (i.e., their personality), processes (i.e., thinking such as new ideas), and places (or creative environments; Rhodes, 1961, p. 305). Descriptions of creative processes as dualistic tension between conscious 101 and unconscious states are rarely described in the contemporary literature of psychology, but such tension indicates a non-cognitive creative process in conscious awareness before reflective experience occurs.60 The transformation of psychological material between disordering (entropy) and ordering (negentropy) also happens in the mindscape of a worldview (Bohm, 1987, p. 267; see Gabora, 2017, p. 10). The evolutionary process of self-organization occurs when “psychological entropy” occurs and alerts a mind to gaps of understanding in its worldview (Hirsh et al., 2012, p. 304). As a form of arousal-provoking uncertainty, psychological entropy triggers an oppositional self-organizing dissipation of the entropy into a spontaneous, restructuring or ordering of the mind in what could be called “negative entropy” (Gabora, 2017, pp. 2, 9–10; 2018, p. 3).61 It then evolves the mind toward greater consistency through states of potentiality in a contextualized honing process of “half baked” thoughts and ideas (2017, pp. 10, 30). The movement between psychological entropy and negentropy is the force of creativity as expressed through the mind experiencing uncertainty and transforming toward a more neutral state of ordered equilibrium, thus resolving the situation (see Manuscript #2; Gabora, 2017, p. 10; 2018, p. 8).62 From a psychological perspective, an individual’s arousal system may trigger a psychological entropic cascade of conceptual change in its transition to negentropic ordering by honing multiple ideas or concepts toward a worldview transformation (see Gabora, 2017, p. 35). For example, Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface Inc. (a carpet tiles company) was an oligopolist striving for greater market share only to be confronted by his staff with his products’ destruction of environmental resources and thus his own product supply. In increasing tension between maintaining shareholder value and the destruction of the planet, Anderson had an existential crisis which led to an abrupt cascade of conceptual change toward a new worldview that radically changed his company policy and direction toward a “mission zero” sustainability leadership style (Anderson & Lanier, 1998/2019, p. 132). Creativity may gradually increase in imperceptible interruptions or perturbations in a chain of daily life events, or as in the Anderson example, in 60 Much has been written on creative cognitive processes, including seminal advances such as divergent thinking (Guilford, 1950, 1968), bisociation (Koestler, 1964), and honing theory (Gabora, 2017). 61 Gabora presents a much more nuanced model in her honing theory (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). 62 Gabora’s theory is essentially founded on the oppositional quality of the mind to reverse or dissipate entropy through self-organization; however, she does not focus explicitly on its “oppositional” role as I emphasize here. 102 much larger “breakthroughs” of causal normality (see Manuscript #2, p. 130; Bergson, 1911/1944, p. 108). Individually, a breakthrough happens in a moment of insight (an “Aha!” moment) when a worldview shifts in a bifurcating moment. Collectively, a breakthrough may occur as an exogenous shock in the economy (Arslan & Tarakci, 2019, pp., para. 15; Knudsen & Lien, 2013, p. 2); in nature it may occur as a punctuated shift of equilibrium in specie development (Bak & Boettcher, 1997, p. 144; Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 84). Life evolves toward novel species in an effort to restrict and reverse entropic disordering (Bergson, 1911/1944, pp. 250, 259; Cooperstein, 1985, p. 216; Neumann, 1954/1989, p. xviii).63 Individual (or microsystemic) consciousness is not separate from the macrosystemic “collective” of consciousnesses because both individual and collective worldviews transition between disorder and order. While social systems have been seen as dynamic processes of human action (Parsons, 1951/1991, p. 3), they can also be seen as complex collectives of interacting worldviews in a self-organized network of understandings (Gabora, 2018, p. 5; Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). As Gabora (2017, p. 30) argues in her work on honing theory, creativity is the “process by which internal models of the world—worldviews—heal and reorganize themselves [i.e., ordering], thereby fueling the evolution of culture” (p. 30). Unrau and Gabora (2021, p. 193) argue that the driver of a social system is creativity in which entropic collective worldviews go through a “destruction” process in their integrated effort to generate ordered ones. Schumpeter (1943/2003) described this type of dynamic in economic systems as creative destruction. Creative destruction is a system’s structure that revolutionizes itself “from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one” (p. 83). I reserve the term “creative destruction” for the destructive or disordering force of creativity and call “creative restruction” the creative 63 Bergson carefully charts out in his classic Creative Evolution (1911/1944) how the advance of reality is interrupted (or perturbed) during the manifestation of a creative output (p. 230), which is consciousness (both individual and in principle) oscillating between the oppositional ordering creative reality, and a disordering mechanical or analytic reality. He actually calls disorder the oscillation between two “orders”; however, he then claims that the second is a function of the first and thus is disorder (pp. 245–246). Bergson also comments on “entropy,” but given the limited advance of science on the topic at the time, little research had been done on the notion of negentropy or the “effort” that life takes to reverse entropic disorder (p. 259). Bergson uses the term “force” to describe the pure creative activity of consciousness in its efforts to restrict the entropic disordering of systems (p. 259). 103 restructuring or ordering force of a system’s process of change (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 543).64 When describing economic structures of capitalism, Schumpeter used the term “creative destruction” and acknowledged its general systems application. For example, agrarian economies gave way to the industrial revolution in a transition from a rural-oriented society to an urban-oriented society; and in North America a transition has occurred from a factory-based economy to an online-based economy (Schlesinger, 1986/1999, p. vi). Schumpeter’s term “creative destruction” can also be understood symbolically as the force of creativity within social systems in a destructive transformation toward creative order (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 193).65 This type of transformation occurs in part due to perturbations in the system as well as transitions in temporal and geospatial scales (Geels, 2010, pp. 495–510; Goldstein et al., 2010, p. 6; Turchin, 1977, p. 91). Whether through an individual or a collective, creativity is a force of dynamical transformation of interacting and self-organizing worldviews, transitioning between disordering and ordering, passing-away and coming-to-be. To illustrate how individual creative consciousness is shaped by broad-scaled societal entropic forces, I will return to the concept of Theatre of the Oppressed and the example of Jana Sanskriti. Before Theatre of the Oppressed was devised and published, Augusto Boal was kidnapped, tortured, and forced to leave his home due to his artistic activities in Brazil, which was in the chaos of an authoritarian regime (Boal, 2001, pp. 205–206). Such societal destruction inspired an individual negentropic transformation in Boal through offering a new perspective that the world had not seen before. While in exile and giving a workshop, an opportunity arose when an angry audience member shouted out at the end of one of his productions that the lead actress should alter her character’s actions to change her husband’s terrible behaviour in order to reach an improved outcome. In the tension of uncertainty in how to deal with the audience member’s disruption, Boal allowed a spontaneous ordering of his mind to dynamically transform his notion of theatre into a novel idea of theatrical change. He let the audience member come on stage and replace the actress and alter the scripted performance to a brand new in-the-moment solution. In a 64 As used in Unrau and Gabora (2021, p. 191), I use the term “restruction” as a combination of the words “restructuring” and “construction.” Please see the Glossary for further clarification. 65 Large- scale systems going through creative destruction is not unknown in diverse cultural representations in society; the Hindu god Shiva represents destruction in the world in order to re-create it. The cobra around his neck is one of the most powerful enactors of destruction while shedding its old skin for a new one. The Shiva linga, a phallic symbol, represents the power of creation as the masculine seed of the universe (Zimmer, 1946/1989, p. 199). 104 moment of creative consciousness, Boal allowed a new possibility to arise in contrast to a commonly held static worldview of what theatre “should be.” The result became Forum Theatre, a new conception of theatre that has since touched millions of lives. Individually, the moment functioned as a creative ordering in response to the disordering of a disruption in the theatre. Collectively, the entropic broad-scaled social forces triggered an individual negentropic response: Boal’s worldview transformed and in turn a collective of global worldviews transformed toward a new form of theatre for social change. Thus, creative consciousness through a complex systems view offers a deeper understanding of individual and social transformation. In the next section, this theory and example will be expanded in my analysis of the forces of creativity across multiple complex systems and will aid in the application of the concept of creative consciousness to critical consciousness, specifically in terms of how it impacts collective worldviews. 3.2.3 Critical Consciousness Since the potential for creativity is natural, the principal question is that of revealing the rigid assumptions in the tacit infrastructure that block this creativity and then being able to dissolve them. This will bring about a transformation in the order of awareness and attention, which enables the mind to respond freely to fresh creative perceptions. (Bohm, 1987, p. 266) Critical consciousness describes how an individual may raise their consciousness of social, political, and economic contradictions in the world so that they may take “action against the oppressive elements of reality” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 36; Yu, 2018, pp. 6–8). It allows for a deeper understanding of one’s beliefs, biases, and worldviews to critically reveal how social structures impose conditions of injustice onto oneself and onto others in our interconnected world (Kumagai & Lypson, 2009, p. 783). Freire proposed that such injustices occurred due to the power dynamics of social structures; and thus, the goal of critical consciousness is to rehumanize oneself and the world (Freire, 1974/2005, p. 56; Halman et al., 2017). This can occur through conscientization (see “conscientização”; Freire, 1974/2005, p. 35), which points to a transformative dialogue process in both reflection and action that reduces oppressive social structures to liberate oneself and the world through the praxis of their realization of social reality (p. 51). Modern interpretations of Freire’s work suggest three main means of consciousness- 105 raising: critical reflection, critical motivation, and critical action. These enable one to critically focus on the normative development of individuals from their youth into adulthood in their socialization process (Diemer et al., 2016, p. 216). These forms of consciousness-raising represent a dynamic process of awakening to an interconnected interpretation of reality (Yu, 2018, p. 1). Critical consciousness is also a dynamic force of creativity. Freire suggests that the conscientization process does not happen through a reality in stasis, but through a process of dynamic transformation as it “affirms [people] as beings in the process of becoming… found in the interplay of the opposites permanence and change” (emphasis in original; Freire, 1970/2000, pp. 83–84). Consciousness that is oriented toward permanence may be a reaction to change that holds a static worldview socialized in a predominantly rational, rigid, and empirical search for stability (Cooperstein, 1985, p. 216).66 Consciousness that is oriented toward change can be experiential, flexible, and directly related to knowing rather than knowledge-making, embracing uncertainty and instability with curiosity in a “dynamic present” (Cooperstein, 1985, p. 216; Freire, 1970/2000, p. 84), which can restructure the mind to something new. Both permanence and change orientations can happen in collective worldviews over a long temporal scale or even in the immediacy of a punctuated event. The world is not static and closed or a predetermined fixed reality, as Freire reminds us (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 32), but rather, it is a processual ordering and disordering in flux (Whitehead, 1929/1960, pp. 127, 254). In systems theory, the term “morphogenesis” has been used to describe the continuity of changes in previous forms (Thom, 1972, p. 7),67 and the term refers in particular to the elaboration or dynamics of a social system’s change in form, structure, or state (Buckley, 1967, p. 58). “Morphostasis,” as an opposition to morphogenesis, is the tendency to preserve or maintain a system’s given form due to conserving and constraining processes at the expense of dynamic and diverging emerging forms (Archer, 2010, p. 228; Buckley, 1967, p. 59). Knowing can occur similarly, it is in process (Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 194), or it constrains and preserves a position of stasis. In more extreme cases, a 66 In Bohm’s (1987) words, “A very important question is that of how this new order of creativity can ever get started. For both individually and socially, consciousness is rigidly conditioned—by a host of assumptions that lead to their own concealment through false play” (p. 267). 67 “Morphogenesis” is a biology term that refers to the transformation of tissue into forms, such as in the development of cells, muscles, or bones (Thom, 1972, p. xxvii). 106 worldview may be orientated toward permanence, where stability is maintained in opposition to the fluidity of the environment. This may occur when consciousness protects the individual from the destructive forces of entropy. Doing so, however, reduces the opportunity to “breakthrough” the intensification of internal tension and innovate in a negentropic generation. The preservation may also propose a “creative” solution but in actuality only alter the social structure toward a stability incongruent with change. A consciousness that is oriented toward a static worldview may lead to ambiguity, conventionalism and rigidity with a tendency to impose collective worldview categories on experience (Adorno, 1950, pp. 464, 480). In extreme cases, static worldviews may lead to intolerance or authoritarian domination or aggression where creative destruction is craved rather than creatively opposed (Adorno, 1950, p. 676).68 For instance, people who adhere to their parents’ static worldviews and impose them on their own children can limit their children’s creative spontaneity (p. 476). As a result, normalized socialization is a compounding limitation of broad-scaled critical consciousness. Prevailing forms of stasis-seeking socialization enculturate an individual’s basic social bonding need toward the conformity and adaptation to the group’s worldview (Cooperstein, 1985, p. 216; see also Gabora, 2019a, pp. 222–223; Adorno, 1950, p. 476). When it is dominant, the individual’s consciousness can become split: as human developmental stages advance, the concretization of socialized normativity domesticates the “intentionality of consciousness” (Cooperstein, 1985, p. 215; Freire, 1970/2000, p. 83). Dissociating consciousness from its earlier experientially dynamic stage, can lead an individual to abandon (but not destroy, as Freire reminds us) inherent creativity as a self-organized dynamism. The developmental stages of the individual thus fluctuate between an open, divergent, change-oriented consciousness and a closed, convergent, permanence-oriented consciousness. The result might be an often-unconscious orientating process toward either creative consciousness or a prevailing static-worldview position (Cooperstein, 1985, p. 216; Liane Gabora, 2019a, p. 221; Piaget, 2015, p. 122; Pierotti, 2018, p. 299). When it receives new information or has a new experience, consciousness either accommodates newness by restructuring the worldview to adapt and learn or it assimilates it by fitting it into the preexisting worldview in an effort to maintain 68 Sibley and Duckitt (2009, p. 99) more recently show that the Social Dominance Orientation Scale is more accurate than Adorno’s interpretation of personality. 107 stasis and recurrence of the known (Piaget, 2015; Gabora, 2019a, p. 221). Critical consciousness is one’s awakening of the becoming process to perceive critically the socialized self and find liberation from the stasis of one’s worldview. It can lead one toward an experiential becoming with the world in the process of dynamic transformation (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 83). The potentiality of creativity is foundationally present, so “the principal question is that of revealing the rigid assumptions in the tacit infrastructure that block this creativity and then being able to dissolve them. This will bring about a transformation in the order of awareness and attention, which enables the mind to respond freely to fresh creative perceptions” (Bohm, 1987, p. 266). Critical consciousness is never in stasis but always in the process of restruction as the force of creativity transforms it into new and concurrent forms. The oscillations between active and relaxed states of consciousness may occur collectively such as in cultural communities and societies as well. In these cases, social systems align toward the strong social norms of a static worldview orientation in a “tight” culture or to weaker social norms of creative consciousness of self-organized ideas and beliefs that are open to change in a “loose” culture (Gelfand, 2012, p. 420). Oscillations may occur between such cultures rigidifying the trend to polarize norms. As they shift alignment from creative consciousness to more static and rigid forms, collectives or societies may further diverge and split into fragmentations or pockets of the network of collective worldviews as a result of disordering trends that include rigidity (Bohm, 1987, pp. 208, 215). Such fragmentation could be described as collective psychological entropy of the social system and it often occurs due to “external” rules and blocked resources in social structures (Giddens, 1984, p. 19). It also occurs when individual worldview perspective influence the collective to solidify a grand worldview of perspectives toward a permanent perception of “truth.” For example, the Russian Empire led the country through dogmatic enforcement to a nationalistic fervor founded on deterministic social truths that engendered a tight culture of conventionalism and even submission. After the perturbation of heavy losses in the First World War, growing societal oscillation between aristocratic rigidity and the creative destruction of protesting upsurges split and divided the country until it reached a critical but innovative extreme-left revolution (Figes, 1996, p. xvi). Collectives, however, can also change their path of disordering toward ordering collective self-organization. Cultures evolve through self-organization and the internal restructuring of their web of worldviews through the 108 communal exchange of ideas in which “creativity is the driving force” (Gabora, 1997, p. 1; 2018, p. 6; 2019a, p. 231; 2019b, p. 80). In short, new societies arise out of a creative upsurge (Toynbee, 1947; Bergson, 1946, p. 16). The accumulation of fragmentations in the collective consciousnesses in a society may indeed determine whether the social system will drive toward stasis or creative transformation. While culture evolves through creativity, barriers can limit creative upsurges. Perceived threats and the fear they generate is one possible explanation for such barriers (Gelfand et al., 2011, p. 1100; Groth-Marnat, 1942/2003, p. 186). Threats drive individuals and collectives to evade the instability of uncertainty and seek recurring stability of a permanence-oriented equilibrium. Another explanation may be the seeking of worldview equilibrium through an internal stasis-orientation that solidifies ontological perceptions of reality in ideals such as “permanence” that are enculturated from systemic historical philosophies (Pierotti, 2018, p. 299). The Platonist concept of “universals” (Plato, 1997, p. 70) is one such culturally influential and dominant social construct. Other static worldview influencers are concepts that are solidified through influential texts as ordinance, such as the word “domination” in religious scriptures that has perpetuated a static treatment of the natural world as terrain to overcome or be conquered (see also Pierotti, 2018, p. 301).69 Such barriers may influence individuals or collectives to (unconsciously/consciously) hone ideas into worldviews that destructively enable patterns of systemic social disordering. To illustrate my point, the US was in an environment of strong “financial innovation” in 2007, offering personal financial freedom in a deregulated housing market (Agnello & Schuknecht, 2011, p. 171). Innovative actions toward dynamic change appeared to be ordering toward creatively addressing economic challenges (in a short-term context), such as the creation of mortgage backed securities like the Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae bonds of the 1970s,70 alternative mortgage designs such as the notable subprime mortgage scheme of the mid 1990s that allowed people to borrow even with less-than-perfect credit histories, and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s quiet deregulation of investment banks in 2004, allowing banks to increase their debt to capital leverage ratio from 12:1 to 30:1 (Gerardi et al., 69 For example, see Genesis 1:26 (Carroll & Prickett, 2008). 70 Ginnie Mae refers to an American government agency called Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA or Ginnie Mae), and Fannie Mae the shareholder-owned but government-sponsored Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA or Fanny Mae; Gerardi et al., 2010, p. 336). 109 2010, p. 338; Snyder, 2011, para. 14). However, such innovations were generated with the static worldview of a steady-state or enduring-growth economy, and they only ended up driving the fragile American economy toward destructive patterns such as what led to the Great Recession of 2008. Such patterns may be called destructive enablers because they appear to be creative (in the short term or microscale) but enable destructive patterns, situations, or outcomes (in the long term or macroscale). Instead, broad transformative and scalable change toward interconnected social improvement is needed (see Manuscript #3). While creative destruction may occur in broad-scaled systems, smaller collectives or individuals may already be restructively and innovatively responding to increasing instability. Some collectives and individuals may benefit from the threats to the collective in the wake of change that may occur to address it, while others will not. When critical consciousness is used to uncover the systemic barriers to creative upsurges, an opportunity is created for broad-scaled system innovations to arise in innovative initiatives for social improvement that may reduce injustice and the imbalances of power. A static worldview-orientation seeks stability amidst the ceaselessness of uncertainty and change. Worldviews are initialized by the socialization of parents, peers, leaders, institutions, or social norms when they are “deposited” into the receiving individual or collective at an early or vulnerable phase of development (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 72). Critical consciousness is an awakening to the limitations of stasis that drive systemic paternalism or oppression and lock in a fear of the uncertainty that freedom offers (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 35; Ware & Ware, 2018, p. 37). Critical consciousness, then, in its creative drive to liberate people from the “circle of certainty” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 39) that a stasis-oriented worldview provides, toward the consciousness-raising process of autonomy generation even in the threat of uncertainty. It awakens not only the individual but the collective network of worldviews. Such dynamic transformation is the process of creativity toward long-term and broad-scale improved social change and thus cultural evolution (Gabora, 2018). This occurs “in the twofold sense that not only do collective forms of action and social movements contribute significantly to developing and changing social order, but they can also be understood in themselves as models of social order in the process of self-generation” (Joas, 1996, p. 199). The result is the rehumanizing of the people through individual or collective “limit-acts,” which are ways in which individuals challenge their own conformity to the limits of social convention rather than accepting the status quo or “business-as-usual” routines 110 and norms that are “given” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 99). When limit-acts are networked, seemingly insurmountable barriers are re-perceived and transformed into creative action, novel ideas, and social innovations toward a continuing praxis of social change (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 101). When the limits of permanence-oriented worldviews are reduced, redirected, or liberated, the barriers that limit creative upsurges relax, soften, or change, and a dynamic-oriented consciousness allows the natural fluidity of systemic-dynamic creativity as a force to process new possibilities as creative ideas, products, or actions in individual minds and societies. From a creative perspective, critical consciousness can be seen in how Jana Sanskriti uses Theatre of the Oppressed to approach complex social issues. The company’s head office is located in West Bengal, and focuses much of their work on reducing domestic violence toward women. Between 2011–2012, West Bengal led the country in reports of domestic violence (Premantha, 2018, p. 155; MWCB & Shakti, 2017). The positionality of the company is the result of its composition of a diverse group of upper-class, lower-caste, urban, and rural members, many of whom are women. As an organization, Jana Sanskriti has been considered a process rather than an entity (Mohan, 2004, p. 184), and it is “oppositional” in its structure, practice, and method (Mohan, 2004). For example, it performs scripts created by a few but also scripts performances created by the many (Mohan, 2004, p. 185). This refers to the fact that audience members are not only objects of the performance but also subjects within the play when they replace the actors during the performance by going on stage and becoming “spect-actors.” The company is transformational in its organizational focus on diversity as well as how it shifts the audience’s worldview from stasis of the dominant cultural paradigm to the dynamic understanding of individual and communal autonomy. It is transformational not only as a process of diversity-making within its organizational structure but also in contesting the powerful history of political regimes in Bengali history (Mohan, 2004, p. 190). By using a critically conscious creative process, the company offers a forum for individuals and groups to engage in critical examination of the marginalizing worldview assumptions that the performances stage, and in doing so rehumanize communal exchange toward valuing human agency. Audience members are invited to reimagine social interaction as an opportunity to build self-worth and affirm community (Mohan, 2004, p. 193). In one study by the Bengali government (CTRPFP, 2016), hundreds of “voiceless oppressed women” were given a voice for self-expression, and men changed their worldview 111 away from violence to be more inclusive of women’s opportunities.71 Another study from the World Bank Development Research Group, (Hoff et al., 2020, p. 19; Bhatttacharya, 2017, para. 18-19, 29) states that Jana Sanskriti has led to a reduction in incidents of domestic violence by 25%, halved the proportion of males who believed it was okay to hit or beat their wives, and increased the number of women who had a voice in household decision making. Jana Sanskriti’s work is not only a creative-consciousness-raising process of critical reflection and autonomy generation but also a pedagogic transformation of systemic domestic violence. The work supports, as Ganguly (the founder) argues, the “dynamic nature of thought” (2010, p. 134). However, as Ganguly states, thought can become static when it is overtaken by dogmatic worldviews (2010, pp. 131–132). The creative transformation of critical consciousness and the empowerment it brings to individuals and communities is tied to the “liberation of the human mind and spirit, and with the transformation of participants… into conscious being aware of claiming voices and choices in how their lives will be lived” (Boon & Plastow, 2004, p. 7). Jana Sanskriti’s use of Theatre of the Oppressed addresses culturally static worldviews that allow for domestic violence and transforms them to be more dynamic to the rise of women’s voice in decision-making. Such critical consciousness challenges complex social issues by transforming the creative consciousness of the constituents to a social reality previously unexpressed, starting with the individual agents and instigating audience members (and thus their families and communities) into a dynamic critical experience of social reality. When creative consciousness and critical consciousness are considered together, “creative critical consciousness” describes a complex-systems understanding of a dynamic, generative ordering of individual and collective worldviews through a critical lens to reduce rigidity and stasis and open the potentiality of processual and new creative forms of consciousness and social structure to emerge. Systemic-dynamic transformation is freed when creative critical consciousness reveals limiting individual and collective worldviews and social structures and in doing so liberates permanence-oriented consciousness to the natural restructive transitioning of creative change. Creative critical consciousness does not exist in isolation but is an 71 The randomized controlled trial had a sample size of 8,000 individuals of married people between the ages of 21 and 49 in 123 villages. The study showed a decrease in men justifying violence and an increase in joint decision-making, trust in finances and in community building as well as women’s understanding of legal matters in communities impacted by Jana Sanskriti’s work, compared to those which were not (CTRPFP, 2016). 112 interconnected process of change within individuals and collectives in broader society and thus is the “creative communion” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 48) of dynamic-oriented consciousness produced by the freedom of a generative ordering of relations. As Freire states, “It is as transforming and creative beings that humans, in their permanent relations with reality, produce not only material goods—tangible objects—but also social institutions, ideas, and concepts” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 101). As a concept, creative critical consciousness troubles worldviews that are stasis-oriented and proposes that creativity is the force behind consciousness-raising and cultural evolution. It offers novel possibilities for how to see the world. One practical method to engage in creative critical consciousness, as I will suggest next, is a praxis of a critical but creative mindfulness. 3.2.4 Creative Critical Mindfulness Creativity originates in the depths of the generative order, and the proper role of mental energy is to respond to such perception, and ultimately to bring it to some manifest level of reality. (Bohm, 1987, p. 250) The awakening of creative critical consciousness includes the continuing praxis of simultaneously creating history and becoming creative beings through the transformation of worldviews fixed in time into the dynamics of a historical continuity (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 101). . However, the process is also a personal and social awakening of an intersubjective awareness of the force of creativity driving natural, social and psychological ordering toward creative transformation. In the collective lifeworld of ceaseless change (Bergson, 1911/1944, p. 47; Husserl, 1954/1970, p. 48), I propose that the praxis of a creative and critical consciousness is “creative critical mindfulness,” a tool for engaged facilitators of social change to use. Mindfulness, in this case, is the conscious awareness of novel distinctions of transitional change in the present moment and a reflexive critical awareness of how one’s socialized worldview may normatively influence one’s experiential perception. To understand this further, I will now turn to the concept of mindfulness and creativity from a critical conscious perspective. While mindfulness is often considered the conscious awareness of our experience as it comes-to-be and passes-away in every moment (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009, p. 5), psychologist Ellen Langer proposed that mindfulness is “simultaneously drawing novel distinctions in the 113 present moment” (Haller et al., 2017, p. 894; emphasis added). This description of mindfulness, noticeably a Western approach,72 offers a connection to creativity where mindfulness is the nonjudgmental conscious awareness of the qualities of objects and events that can lead to novel associations between distinct and new features of one’s experience (Carson, 2014, p. 328). It results in a “greater sensitivity to one’s environment, more openness to new information, the creation of new categories for structuring perception, and enhanced awareness of multiple perspectives in problem solving” (Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000, p. 2). A Langerian approach to mindfulness includes a conscious sense of spontaneity and possibility out of the unknown as well as the curiosity of drawing novel distinctions of experience. This curiosity leads to an open observation of experiencing objects and events in their interconnected relation to collective worldviews. The link between mindfulness and creativity has been well studied to determine whether mindfulness has an impact on creativity (Baas et al., 2014, pp. 1092–1106; Greenberg et al., 2012, p. 6; Ostafin & Kassman, 2012, pp. 1031–1036; Ren et al., 2011, pp. 961–965). Individuals and companies have been interested in determining if mindfulness skills have a positive and uniform relationship with factors that lead to creativity. For example, observation, when described as “the ability to carefully observe, notice, or attend to internal (e.g., bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions) and external phenomena (e.g., sounds, smells)…. consistently predicted enhanced creativity” (Baas et al., 2014, pp. 1093–1094). Observation, which I will describe as attention of conscious awareness, has been considered one of the stronger indicators of creativity (Baas et al., 2014, pp. 1093–1094; L. S. Colzato et al., 2012, p. 116). It is associated with being open to experience and assisting in the development of adaptive responses to uncertain or complex situations (Siegel & Siegel, 2014, p. 30). Research also found a positive correlation with mindfulness meditation on positive insight problem solving as well as a reduction in habitual responses and cognitive rigidity (Greenberg et al., 2012, p. 6; Ostafin & Kassman, 2012, p. 1031). Mindfulness was able to reduce automatic and habitual strategies that leave us “stuck” in business-as-usual interpretations of a situation that are no longer novel. Another way to state this is, conscious awareness reduces the stasis of permanence-orientation in our worldviews. 72 Mindfulness has also been described from a Western approach as something akin to the “moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, p. 1481) that can be cultivated by paying attention in the present moment. 114 Openness to novelty and the flexibility to change perspectives are crucial aspects of mindfulness as well as creativity (Langer, 1989, p. 125; Bercovitz et al., 2017, p. 195). Although results are not unanimous, with these considerations in mind, I suggest that mindfulness “leads to” creativity in the sense that the more mindful a person is in their observation of experience the more likely they will be able to reduce limitations to creativity. I will call mindful creativity the type of creativity that is enhanced through the conscious awareness of mindfulness (i.e., mindfulness “leads to” creativity). The term is commonly used (Haller, 2015, pp. 517–526) to describe how mindfulness can enhance creative productivity. However, I will refer to creative mindfulness as the mindfulness that is enhanced through a process of creativity (i.e., creativity leads to mindfulness). This term refers to the experience of freeing the structural stasis of worldview adherence through engaged creative acts and behaviours that enhance deeper or more focused states of conscious awareness. These definitions, first proposed by Gabora and Unrau (2019b, p. 145), may redirect how the terms “mindful creativity” and “creative mindfulness” are used in the literature to position the noun in each case as the resulting state or activity and the denominal adjective as the precuring state or activity. The terms indicate a mindfulness enhancing creativity or creativity enhancing mindfulness not in a strictly temporal staged manner (as in one and then the other) but, as I propose, as concurrent processes of the experience of creative ceaseless change as both creativity and mindfulness. The proposal here, in brief, is that a person who is being more mindful might become more creative and someone being more creative might become more mindful. Augusto Boal was mindful and open to a new experience when an audience member came on stage to try a solution to the scene’s problem because he was mindful of the distinction between what is has been done before (i.e., “business-as-usual”). In this creative mindfulness, he devised a new form of theatre: Forum Theatre. 73 Creative mindfulness, however, is not just for a personal experience of increasing 73 Another example: On Monday, September 3, 1928, Alexander Fleming returned from a month-long holiday and entered his laboratory (Brown, 2004, pp. 21–-26). Prior to his leaving, his work had included putting a common influenzae bacterium into petri dishes for examination. However, Fleming’s tendency, unlike his colleagues’, was to leave plates of up to forty to fifty cultures in an overflowing array at his work station, unlike his colleagues, specifically to see if anything might happen with them. Upon his return, he examined his plates, of which several had yeasts and mould tainting them, but noticed something strikingly new in one particular dish: there was little bacterium near the mound, including bacterium that were “obviously undergoing lysis” (i.e., they were dying; Fleming, 1929, p. 226) (i.e., they were dying). “That’s funny!” (Brown, 2004, p. 23), he said, and showed the unusual “mould juice” by-product to his colleague, who was unimpressed by the discovery. So, he showed it to several 115 individual awareness and creativity, but also for the deepening of a social experience that is aware of how worldviews socialize individuals and societal collectives. The opposite of mindfulness, according to Langer, is mindlessness. Mindlessness encourages automatic reactions to behaviours from the past instead of the present without regard for possible alternatives (Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000, p. 220). Langer (2014, p. 11) describes it as a state of mind akin to stasis rather than process, caught in a reduced or singular perspective but unconscious of such statsis and thus governed by social rules and resources rather than informed by them (Chanowitz & Langer, 1981, pp. 1051–1063). In mindlessness, unquestioningly believing in conceptual structures of knowledge fosters the limitations of a static worldview, and maintaining the illusion of control over uncertainty,74 especially when such knowledge is believed as “truth” (Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000, p. 220). When societies “accept information as if unconditionally true, we become trapped by the substantive implications of the information. Even if it is to our advantage in the future to question the information, if we mindlessly processed it, it will not occur to us to do so” (Chanowitz & Langer, 1981, p. 1052). Such “truthful” information then becomes destructively enabling of the mindless disordering of creating structures that only limit the future with the past. A critical approach to “creative mindfulness” involves critical consciousness that acknowledges the power structures in collective worldviews while being mindfully engaged in a process of creativity. As such, creative critical mindfulness becomes the conscious awareness of the stasis of socialized worldviews that enable limiting, mindless beliefs by making novel associations between distinct experiences to rehumanize social structures toward transformative social action. It is not only a greater sensitivity to new information and creative categories with scientific guests that day, who were equally unimpressed. But Fleming persevered and later his discovery was verified as penicillin, the beginning of the first antibacterial treatment, and thus an innovative revolution in medicine. Much more work and sustained efforts from other scientists ensured that the discovery turned into a global phenomenon, but it began because Fleming was mindfully curious in drawing novel distinctions between possibility and anomaly and did not mindlessly discard it as a “contamination” (Carson, 2014, p. 328). With this story in mind, I argue that drawing novel distinctions is key to creativity. If he had not been aware of that one petri dish out of the many that had mould in them or if he had judged the “mould juice” to be unimpressive, Fleming’s life-changing innovation may not have been made (Carson, 2014, p. 328). 74 As Langer (1975, p. 323) notes in her seminal theory on the illusion of control, people are motivated to move out of unfamiliarity in order to control their environment. As such, instead of being open to the dynamism of change, we “misconstrue the nature of our own mental processes” (Langer, 2014, p. 13) and move toward mindless acceptance of a familiar and static state. 116 curiosity and spontaneity, but it enhances reflexive problem solving of permanence-oriented worldview adherence that enable the destructive disordering of social structures. It reveals the deep interconnectivity of human relations that calls for a conscious awareness of non-judgmental problem-solving. The awakening of creative critical consciousness is done through a praxis of creative critical mindfulness in the simple present moment conscious awareness of one’s worldviews as they limit creative change while engaged in social action. Although it is not a “practice” in a formal sense, it could be used as such not only in one’s daily life but also in any social interventions that delicately require critical consciousness of the socialized or oppressive structures of groups that require creative possibilities for mindful change. It is a personal and social awakening to the interconnectivity of individual and collective consciousness and worldviews through the unitive force of creativity as the driver of ordering systems in their ceaseless change. Social transformation can occur with creative critical mindfulness. When one is mindfully critical, the process of transformation, which is creativity in systemic-dynamic change, cultivates a conscious awareness of the deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge (and its dogma) toward an emancipation in social change (Hanley, 2013, p. 9). This is realized through any domain. However, it is particularly focused in the creation and the expression of the arts. The arts are so omnipresent that their plurality and diversity is novelty-generating as a rich manifestation of creative consciousness. However, without creative mindfulness, the arts can go unnoticed: The work of transformation by artists is so pervasive that it often goes unconsciously experienced, which is undoubtedly a factor in the notion that the arts are superfluous, when in fact the labor of the arts is central to that which makes us human—the act of making meaning, the fulfillment of which is freedom, agency, and power—justice. (Hanley, 2013, p. 10) Through the creative mindfulness of novel distinctions of artistic experience, changemakers can become critical and conscious participants in the transformation of society via artistic creation. The transformational work of the arts will then no longer go unconsciously noticed. Instead, creative critical mindfulness will consciously enable freedom from socialized worldviews that support structures of power. Art used as propaganda in wartime might be novel; however, it is overall destructively enabling the transformation of social systems toward shorter-term benefit rather than longer-term broad-scale improvement. Methods like Theatre of the Oppressed and 117 groups like Jana Sanksriti are the artistic expressions of creative critical mindfulness when they are applied as an individual or group practice or infused in the generation of its organizational structure. Creative changemaking groups such as these are raising consciousness among people and communities who have had their basic rights marginalized (Shank & Schirch, 2008, p. 226). They offer work in the world as “limit-acts” for social change. When limit-acts are part of the facilitated discourse of social transformation, creative critical mindfulness offers an opportunity to simultaneously focus on the present-moment observations of perceived reality and on the socialized filters through which worldviews are creatively perpetuated. Creative critical mindfulness offers a practical tool for groups and theorists to use for personal and social transformation that is already dynamically in process in the form of negentropic broad-scale systems of change. 3.2.5 Conclusion Thus, if there are rigid ideas, old assumptions in the tacit infrastructure of consciousness, the net result is not only a restriction on creativity, which operates close to the “source” of the generative order, but also a positive presence of energy that is directed toward general destructiveness. (Bohm, 1987, p. 269). Throughout this manuscript, I have suggested that looking for novel distinctions from a complex systems view of creative critical consciousness not only within one’s own worldview but also within social structures and societal engagements can be a method for social awareness whereby changemakers may discover new possibilities for social change. Although there is little literature that describes creative critical mindfulness in this manner, I propose that being consciously aware of novel distinctions of creativity could enhance the critical mindfulness of oneself and the world and increase creative and critical consciousness in seeing “the world not as a static reality but as a reality in the process of transformation” (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 12). A praxis of creative critical mindfulness could then lead to greater social awareness as well as creating transformative environments for individuals, communities, or societies to innovatively address complex social problems. Indeed, it may be that “only socially creative individuals will be able to act efficiently on these global issues and invent viable social solutions” (Mouchiroud & Bernoussi, 2008, p. 379). 118 Some systems (i.e., psychological or social systems) may self-organize toward order through creativity by recurrently perpetuating destructively enabling patterns, such as disruptive innovations.75 Although at first glance they appear to do so, destructive enablers do not evolve the system toward negentropic equilibrium over a longer time period. Instead, they reveal positive feedback loops that alter the course of the system toward eventual entropic and therefore destructive processes. For example, the housing market in 2008 was seen as a positive “deal” for new homeowners. However, a feedback loop led the system to collapse in an entropic destruction of market stability that lost billions of homeowners’ dollars (Snyder, 2011). Systems that behave recurrently in destructive enabling patterns still offer a “choice” toward constructively enabling the system’s transition toward resilient self-organization in greater multiphase or long-term holistic system dynamics. Despite broad-scaled and long-term creative destruction, regional or local systems may be in a phase of creative restruction with innovative patterns supporting novel processes (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 191). For example, even if a national economy is trending toward mono-economic patterns with unstable monopolizations, local social enterprises may still initiate novel local change. As such destructive enablers may be counterbalanced with multiple local or a global social innovation for broad-scale transformative benefit. While this manuscript’s theoretical proposition about creative and critical consciousness is speculative, much empirical research has been focused separately on mindfulness, creativity, and critical consciousness. For this reason, the amalgamated approach to creative critical consciousness presented here offers a novel yet amply supported perspective of how these terms in their research intersect toward possibilities of a new study. A complex systems approach to creativity research of individuals and collectives across multiple disciplines and systems in a social and mindfulness context may act as a starting point toward a creative critical consciousness understanding of our world. This starting point can then function as a practical and creatively mindful reconstitution of human interconnectivity, thereby leading to creative social change. 75 See Christensen et al. (2006, pp. 94–101, 163) in their article “Disruptive Innovation for Social Change.” 119 4. MANUSCRIPT #2Systems in External Complexity: Novelty Generation The “creative advance” is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates…. The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the “many” which it finds, and also it is one among the disjunctive “many” which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesizes. The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively “many” in process of passage into conjunctive unity. (Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. 32) 4.1.1 Background and Narrative In this chapter, I will address the second problem statement, which states that there is a gap in the interdisciplinary literature of nonlinear dynamical investigations of novelty generation as it occurs across multiple systems (i.e., human systems, as well as natural systems) and disciplines. This gap is significant because the creativity that drives innovative solutions to the most complex social challenges is not solely found in new ideas alone (as studied in psychology), but as described in the Framework, it also is found across multiple disciplines and complex systems of change. Understanding what drives the transition of a system from one state to another across multiple systems is needed so that social innovators may find areas or “points” in a system’s novelty generating processes in which to intervene and leverage to accentuate or reduce the type of novelty occurring. In this manuscript, I will describe how this driver arises across multiple systems, what the preconditions for novel transformative change are, and how to assess or identify novel transitions. I will show that creativity occurs across multiple systems and reveals itself in both simple and complex ways. This knowledge will enable changemakers and social innovators to practically understand how the creative drive in complex systems occurs from a transsystemic perspective across multiple systems. The discussion will also show how a nonlinear dynamical approach to novelty generation may be applied to systems innovations in real-life scenarios. 120 I will offer an example from my own life of the need for a nonlinear dynamical model of novelty generation as it occurs across multiple systems. In the summer of 2021, I was hired through the University of British Columbia to work with the City of Vancouver, Canada, as a sustainability scholar. I was to help city staff measure social capital for community mobilization toward climate action. City council had adopted a Climate Action Emergency Plan on November 17, 2020, to reduce carbon pollution in half before 2030 (City of Vancouver, 2020),76 and who developed a community mobilization project to engage citizens city-wide. With global mean temperatures possibly increasing 3–4 ˚C by the end of the century, considerable environmental and economic challenges are possible (NRC, 2021, p. 18; see also Thurton, 2021) if global trends do not limit warming to 1.5 ˚C. Climate change challenges such as flash floods or sea-level rises threaten cities and ocean-based economies, with a possible increase in the cost of living, loss of cultural identity, and economic failure if “business-as-usual” thinking continues as a pervasive worldview. One study found “climate shocks” in sea temperature variability in the North Atlantic region had shifted local fish species and reduced catch and revenues for local fishing sectors (Oremus, 2019, p. 26444; Bundale, 2019, para. 5). Given the encroaching threat to seaside cities around the world, one senior staff member at the City of Vancouver reflected on the urgency of meeting the climate emergency with broad-scaled social change in a short period of time. Would it be possible before April 2022 for masses of citizens to act quickly on climate action initiatives supported by the City to reduce climate change’s impact? I proposed that a possible “punctuated” social change initiative may assist the City’s target goals if resources were available. When social change is punctuated, social system dynamics undergo a sudden rapid shift so that novel or innovative systems structures replace older ones in a “creative destruction” process of economic and social change at micro, meso, and macro scales (Geels & Schot, 2010; Schumpeter, 1943/2003). When social systems like metropolises have grand worldviews that incorporate rigid “business-as-usual” mental models that keep adaptations to climate change in stasis or which cause inconsistent economic conditions, feedback in the system may lead to increased tension toward a sudden shift or transition in the system in what is often called a tipping point or bifurcation (Cilliers, 1998, p. 111; Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 108; 76 By 2030, “the carbon pollution from buildings will be cut in half from 2007 levels” (City of Vancouver, 2020, p. 3). 121 Goldstein, Hazy, & Silberstang, 2010, p. 108; McKelvey, 2001, p. 138; Unrau, 2021, p. 15). There are examples of purposeful tipping interventions that result from predesigned mass mobilization programs (Unrau, 2021, p. 16). In 2014, the ALS initiated the Ice Bucket Challenge, which became one of the most financially successful and broad-reaching fundraising campaigns to go viral online (van der Linden, 2017, para. 1). People watched videos of others dumping cold water on their heads 10 billion times, and 28 million people joined the effort worldwide, raising $115 million USD in donations. Mobilization can become viral through an existing social network, where a chain of social contacts has a contagion effect through a “six degrees of separation” scenario (Alstott et al., 2013, p. 2). My final report for the City of Vancouver included a recommendation on punctuated social change as a possible conscious campaign toward tipping interventions to assist meaningfully in community mobilization toward climate action.77 The model I proposed included a nonlinear, dynamical, and novelty generating process that crossed multiple municipal and regional systems to impact a broad-scale diversity of governmental and civic institutions, organizations, and communities, including patterns of behaviour. The model was based on nonlinear dynamical processes of complex systems science (see the manuscript below in chapter 4.2; Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977; Lewin, 1992; Gabora, 2017), which indicates that systems undergo systemic change due to entropic–negentropic patterns of disordering–ordering or creation–destruction, as alluded to by Schumpeter’s (1943/2003) concept (see below for details). Governments attempting to mass mobilize communities quickly toward climate mitigation face considerable multisystemic challenges. When “bounded” rational decision-making is implemented (True et al., 2006)—that is, when decisions are subject to cognitive and worldview stasis (such as business-as-usual thinking)—then policy decisions offer stable choices but do not embrace innovative possibilities (Unrau, 2021, p. 15). Therefore, decisions are susceptible to the destructive elements of novelty generation and do not yield the benefits of leveraging systems paths for beneficial change through social tipping interventions. Tipping interventions may lead cities and communities toward a tipping point that scales up the rate of change toward the desired goal: in this case, climate action (Otto et al., 2020, 77 As of today’s date (October 22, 2021), there has been no word of possible implementation or results of the recommendations to report on as the project is still in process. 122 p. 2354). When tipping interventions are consciously designed to have a sizable impact, transition points may be reached quickly. The interventions must be transsystemic in nature, effecting not only municipal governments but the local citizenry and surrounding communities to self-organize toward novel change. The following manuscript will investigate the nonlinear dynamical novelty generation processes that underpin broad-scaled social change and the resulting social systems innovations that occur in social contexts as well as in multiple other systems. The text will offer social innovators a complex systems understanding in how to approach a social intervention through novelty generation toward a tipping point so that forward-facing and innovative paths of behaviour may be an option toward resilient positive change. When changemakers track the systemic patterns across multiple systems, they may be able to determine the preconditions of novelty generation, understand the indications of whether a system might breach a tipping point, and then alter or leverage the system toward new behavioural paths or innovative possible solutions. Then, as in the example above, city councils may support purposeful campaigns toward social mobilization that are consciously designed and activated. I now turn to the manuscript to offer a fresh approach to the novelty generation of creativity and innovation, offering an assessment heuristic to determine the preconditions of novelty across multiple systems. 123 The Manuscript: Novelty Generation and Assessment A Multidisciplinary and Complex Systems Approach by Mike Unrau Abstract Most scholarly discussions of novelty offer only partial or specified views of how it is generated or assessed particular to a discipline or study. This paper investigates several of these perspectives with the specific goal of offering a multisystemic (and, ideally, generalizable) approach to novelty to be applied across multiple disciplines and systems. It also offers an alternative view of how novelty arises in a breach of causal normality or in a causal “breakthrough,” thus placing emphasis on a temporal context in both description and assessment. Through both a qualitative view that honours subjective experience and a quantitative view that addresses nonlinear dynamics, the paper investigates novelty generation and its assessment and includes a specific temporal section on low-recurrence self-organization. It sums up novelty through four preconditions and offers a practical heuristic for novelty assessment usable in interdisciplinary contexts and studies. Key Words Novelty generation, novelty assessment, complex systems, nonlinear dynamics, causality 124 4.2.1 Introduction Order is not sufficient. What is required is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system. (Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. 515) Novelty is a key feature of complex systems and is intrinsically part of creativity, innovation, and emergence as these concepts are understood across different disciplines (i.e., psychology, physics, arts, or sociology). Yet much of the literature on novelty offers only partial, monodisciplinary or domain-specific investigations (Allen & Holling, 2010, para. 12; Crosby, 2005, p. 1; Morgan, 1933, p. 30; Müller & Wagner, 1991, pp. 229–256; Pimentel et al., 2014, pp. 215-249; Radeloff et al., 2015, p. 2051; Shah et al., 2003, p. 117), which leaves a gap for a broad understanding of novelty in how it may be applied across multiple disciplines or systems. A “generalizable” view of novelty requires a qualitative and quantitative investigation that is applicable to the humanities and sciences. It should also satisfy the “problem of novelty” (i.e., how “something coming from nothing” is possible; Hausman, 1966/2010, p. 5) and the deterministic proportionality of causality (i.e., in which there are the “same causes same effects”; Bunge, 1959/2017, p. 218; Mayer, 1842, p. 233). In this paper, I investigate the generation and assessment of novelty from a complex systems lens with an emphasis on the nonlinear dynamical behaviour of a system path before and post-bifurcation (Morgan, 1933, p. 32). In order to find novelty’s generalizability (term usage per Cropley & Cropley, 2005, p. 176), 78 I suggest an investigation of entropy, which is applicable across multiple disciplines and systems (see the Framework). As such, I investigate the entropy of a system that is “disordering” but also a system that is in transition to its negative of “ordering.” I find that entropic far-from-equilibrium states that transition toward negative-entropic (or “negentropic”) states of low-recurrence path behaviour or structure are more “novel.” I also discover that novelty is the result of a breach of causal normality or what I refer to as a causal “breakthrough.” Such dynamic transformation of general systems trending toward a critical (bifurcation) point that display novel behaviour have, as I suggest, four “preconditions” (tension, competition, instability, and diversity). I also offer a 78 Cropley and Cropley (2005) define “generalizability” as that which is “broadly applicable—it can be transferred to situations other than the present one and opens up perspectives for solving other problems” (p. 176). 125 practical heuristic of novelty assessment that includes both the subjective experience of novelty and an objective consideration to quantify novelty via a normality threshold as well as a recurrence profile. A concept of novelty must be applicable across multiple systems to be relevant for both academic and practical usage. While some systems may diverge into specific complexities, many systems maintain general properties that are shared amongst them (von Bertalanffy, 1968). Research “into complexity is continuous with the development of general systems theory” (Gare, 2000, p. 334) so that both complexity and generality are related: Classical physics regarded complex systems as exactly that: systems that, when powerful enough analytical tools were eventually at hand, would require complex descriptions. The central discovery of the recent interest in nonlinear dynamical systems is that this assumption is incorrect. Such systems may indeed appear complex on the surface, but they may be generated by a relatively simple set of sub-processes. (Lewin, 1992, p. 12) If a complex system is generated by a relatively simple set of sub-processes and is driven by forces of self-organization (e.g., in far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic systems), any emergent and novel properties “should be generalizable across system types” (Sundstrom & Allen, 2019, p. 3). Although traditional “hard” sciences tend to reject a generalized complexity as only subjective philosophy because it is without a clear restricted objectivity (Morin, 2005, p. 24), this is partly because, as Morin reminds us, such science cannot make the “epistemological and paradigmatic revolution which complexity obliges” (pp. 23–24). As Morin concludes, a generalized complexity is actually inclusive of and integrates the restricted complexity of the hard sciences, which is aligned with Jaynes’ (1957a) argument for a “subjective” statistical mechanics with general applicability (pp. 629–630). Similarly, Cilliers (2010) suggests that a general approach to complexity starts with an “approximate” understanding by employing a plurality of descriptions (p. vi). For example, entropy has been studied in thermodynamic systems (Clausius, 1867, p. 365), statistical mechanics (Boltzmann, 1877/2015, p. 2008), information systems (Shannon & Weaver, 1949/1964, p. 12), psychological systems (Gabora, 2017, p. 35; Hirsh et al., 2012, p. 304; Kępiński, 2014),79 and social systems (Bailey, 1990; Mavrofides et al., 2011), which reveals the concept of entropy is a fundamental concept (Jaynes, 1957a, p. 629). The theoretical proposal 79 Kępiński presents a psychological model of organisms as systems in their relationship to the environment. We cite here the original Polish publication; for an English review of Kępiński, see Stelmach (2020, p. 124). 126 for novelty described here is therefore grounded in entropy because, for it to be robust, a concept of novelty must exhibit a generalizability across multiple systems and disciplines as well as acknowledge a subjective and objective distinction that can be supported powerfully by statistical mechanics and its rules for “a very general type of scientific reasoning” (Jaynes, 1957b, p. 172). To address the generalizability of novelty, I will begin by contextualizing the practical usage of the term and addressing the subjective and objective form of novelty. I will then turn to causality to demonstrate how “something comes from nothing” through an excess of possibility in the deterministic flow of causal time. Doing so will lead us to examine the causal efficiency of a system as it dissipates possibility in order to evade disorder, and the negentropic or self-organizing (and thus dissipating) properties of complex systems as they trend to a critical state. I will then investigate a nonlinear dynamic approach to post-bifurcation novelty generation and show how novel paths choose low recurrence. I summarize the manuscript by introducing four “preconditions of novelty” and offer a novelty assessment heuristic as an overall practical framework to determine novelty in a system. As a whole, this paper offers researchers a deeper subjective and objective understanding of novelty generation and its preconditions across multiple complex systems in order to assess novelty as an interwoven expression of subjective and objective aspects of what makes novelty “new.” 4.2.2 Contextualizing a Definition The term “novelty” is often used to describe the newness of a system, which, in this case, means what is original or unusual and what is unexpected or uncertain and therefore a surprise (Goldstein, 2001, p. 146; Hausman, 1966/2010, pp. 4, 8, 11; Lee & Crompton, 1992, p. 733; Morgan, 1933, p. 12; OED, 2003, December; Shah et al., 2003, p. 117). For example, splattering paint onto the floor may result in a pattern of paint that is unexpected and new; however, what is new is not necessarily original nor novel. For example, in 1946–47, Jackson Pollock introduced an original and unusual “drip method” painting style, which splattered paint onto a canvas on the floor and secured a new phase of art called abstract expressionism (Krauss, 1999, pp. 158, 168). The difference between novelty and newness lies in the context of the originality that made it an unexpected surprise in the domain of art as defined by the field of professional artists and critics, 127 not just the new arrangement of splattered paint on a canvas (see Csikszentmihalyi, 1999, pp. 314–315; Gabora, 2005, p. 262).80 Novelty is also a construct of comparison, both of time and space. Temporally, what is “new” in the present is no longer what is “old” and what is “novelty” is the description of the comparison between them. For example, when it was invented in 1882, the electric oven was a novelty in comparison to the gas oven (invented in 1834) or the wood oven (used since 1490), because it introduced an original and surprising innovation compared with its standard usage (Sarkar & Chakrabarti, 2011, p. 357). Spatially, what is “abnormal” as an outlier compared to a “normal” distribution of constituents is considered “novel.” For example, in a flock of 100 white swans, a black swan could be an outlier to the “normal,” and thus novel in its extremity (Markey-Towler, 2018, p. 369; Taleb, 2007, p. xxiv).81 Novelty applies to (a) novel patterns, behaviours, processes, or functions, and (b) novel structures, ideas, characteristics, or products (Martin et al., 2019, p. 2; Mayr, 1960, pp. 351–352; Wagner, 2010, p. R49). To exemplify novel behaviour, in the 2008 world chess championship, Viswanathan Anand introduced to the game a behavioural novelty when he sacrificed two pawns in the seventeenth move that exhibited a new pattern in chess that the world had not previously seen (Gobet, 2019b, p. 92). To exemplify novel structure, in evolutionary biology, feathers are considered an evolutionary novelty because of their unique structure, which likely evolved as a form of thermal control from theropod dinosaur scales due to organogenesis that coincided with structural changes in the forelimbs to a “wing” (Erwin, 2015, pp. R935–R937; Mayr, 1960, p. 369; Peterson & Müller, 2013, p. 348).82 To exemplify both, the community of Bonavista, Newfoundland, transitioned from a fishing to a local tourism economy, which resulted in a behavioural novelty (in this case, social innovation) that introduced social enterprise products or novel structures such as a microbrewery and skin-care business to the town that had been devastated by the 1992 cod fishing moratorium (Schrank, 2005, pp. 407–420). 80 See Csikszentmihalyi (1999) for a system approach to creativity. This approach holds that creativity includes a person, their domain of creation, and the field of critics who decide what is creative or not (pp. 314–315). Gabora (2005) claims creative thought is a “context-driven actualization of potential” (p. 274). 81 In the 1600s a European analysis of swan populations would reveal a normal distribution of a feather colouration as 100% white (as in a “white swan”). However, in 1697, a Dutch explorer in Western Australia found black swans as an abnormality, and thus a novelty of feather colouration. 82 Still, debates continue as to whether homologous transitions are considered “novel” and whether scale to feather or forelimb to wing transitions are homologous (Erwin, 2015, pp. R935–R937; Mayr, 1960, p. 369; Peterson & Müller, 2013, p. 348). 128 However, challenges arise when one attempts to define novelty, because people identify novelty based on subjective and shifting understandings. Novelty is perceived and based upon an individual’s subjective and thus socially constructed worldview and the limitations of the one observing the system (Crutchfield, 1994b, p. 1). As Crutchfield rightfully points out, a system moving toward a unique state does not necessarily know that its behaviour is unique. Rather, newness is in the eye of the observer. As a result, multiple definitions and descriptions of novelty linger in the literature specifying certain aspects of the concept based on siloed paradigms of the researcher. I propose a formalized description of novelty that complements both its subjective and its objective condition, which challenges the common usage of the term. Based on the common language definition of novelty as “[t]he quality or state of being new” (OED, 2003, December), I suggest that novelty is both a quality and a state. First, the quality of being new is that which is qualifiable and thus offers a subjective as a social construction to what is new, but is limited by the worldviews of the observer and the domain and field in which the observation occurs (Csikszentmihalyi, 2015, p. 164). A quality approach to novelty demands that I acknowledge the normative evaluation of subjective perspectives, collectively agreed upon or not, and the changing nature of human language and humans’ ability to understand the complexity of any given phenomena. Second, novelty is also a state of being new, which is a condition or property of a system at a specific time depending on variables such as its behaviour or structure (OED, 2012, December, para. 3a). As such, that which is new or “has not previously existed, differs from what existed in the past” (OED, 2003, September, para. 1). The state of being new is the difference or the comparison of current to past conditions or normal to abnormal distributions in time and space, and thus offers a measurability to quantify the property of the system according to mutually agreed objective contexts as used in science. The quality of novelty refers to its qualifiabiliity, and the state of novelty refers to its quantifiability. There is a tendency in the literature to either entirely quantify or qualify novelty. For example, there are several models for novelty detection that suggest it is measurable (Aguayo & Barreto, 2018, p. 717; Radeloff et al., 2015, p. 2051; Shah et al., 2003, p. 117). Yet most quantifiable accounts of the term exclude the subjectivity of experience, which are limited by siloed models from specific disciplines. Quality and quantity should be intertwined (Simonton, 1989, p. 193). As such, I will use a 129 complementarist approach that finds complementary strengths of subjective and objective perspectives of novelty from different disciplines, paradigms, and worldviews (Flood, 1990, p. 143). Complementarism draws on an exploration of theoretical relations, objective analysis, and subjective experience to improve the success of the connections of relations and yet decrease contradictions. Novelty is also part of creativity, innovation, and emergence. Creativity has a “standard definition” of being both novel and effective (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 1). An innovation is “the materialization of a novel idea” (Sabelli, 2008, p. 1) and is “either more effective or more efficient than preexisting alternatives” (Phills et al., 2008, p. 34). Emergence has been defined as the “coming into being of qualitative novelty” (Bunge, 2003, p. 3). While all three terms are difficult to define because of their varied usage and application across multiple disciplines, I argue that this is in part because all three terms have qualifiable conditions specific to each domain, field, and person using them, which most definitions do not account for. However, if the “novelty” part of creativity, innovation, and emergence were used in its “quality” and “state” form, a qualifiable and quantifiable novelty may be complemented into the three terms to increase chances of measurability from an objective perspective, without negating the importance of an observer’s subjective experience. Indeed, by emphasising both qualifiability and quantifiability within these terms, researchers will be more accountable in their research because they will need to more carefully consider how to reduce subjective–objective bias splits in their usage of each term. Novelty is qualifiable and quantifiable specifically because it is a comparison in time and space. The temporal distinction between “earlier” and “later” in a system (Rosen & Kineman, 2005, p. 224) reveals the subjective and objective contrast between system states when looking through the lens of qualifiability and quantifiability because the descriptions of earlier and later have both subjective qualities (such as the context of the speaker, power dynamics of who is doing the analyzing, and normative conditions ascribing value to one over the other), but can also be quantified. I will now turn to a temporal and thus causal perspective of novelty to understand it how it might arise. 130 4.2.3 Causality and the Chance of Novelty ‘[B]ecoming’ is a creative advance into novelty. (Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. 42) The “problem of novelty” (Hausman, 1966/2010, p. 5) says that something cannot come from nothing. This has been stated because determinism decrees a proportionality of causality (Bunge, 1959/2017, p. 218) such that a “causal chain” (as in Heraclitus’ “all things flow”; Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. 317) holds the effect “in” the cause (Bella, 2019, p. 6). A causa aequat effectum (“cause equals effect”; Mayer, 1842, p. 233) tells us, through the eyes of determinism, that nothing “new” can arise (Bunge, 1959/2017, pp. 166, 198).83 As an example, a new type of oven is not possible because nothing new can be, and thus anything that appears new is only a restructuring or recombination of “old” elements. Breaking the causal chain into indeterminism, and thus the rational order of reality’s continuity, has long been debated (Bunge, 1959/2017; Goldstein, 2000a; James, 1950; Mayer, 1842). However, here, I introduce a conciliatory explanation. For novelty to be new requires a kind of indeterministic “break” in a deterministic causal chain. As Hausman (1966/2010) claims, “if creative activity yields novelty proper, then there must be a break in the uniformities of nature which are ordinarily present in non-creative processes” (p. 19). To satisfy the notion that novelty cannot be a causal “break” of a system’s continuity and thus not violate the proportionality of determinism, I turn to a system’s normality (i.e., normal versus abnormal; Deutsch, 1992, p. 163). Many descriptions of novelty detection search for an unusual, unexpected, or abnormal behaviour or structure of a system (Aguayo & Barreto, 2018, p. 718; Goldstein, 2018, p. 519; Pimentel et al., 2014, p. 216; Shah et al., 2003, p. 117).84 In such cases, normality is distinguished by a decision boundary (Pimintel et al., 2014, pp. 217–218), where what is considered abnormal breaches the “novelty threshold.” A commonsense 83 Ex nihilo nihil fit (“nothing comes from nothing”) is a causal philosophy which seems to mirror the Christian philosophy of creatio ex nihilo (“creation from nothing”); the latter phrase implies that only the Creator can create (Pope, 2005, p. 37). 84 Wagner (1999, p. 90) argues that “regular causes,” which are regularities in system behaviour, may only relate to linear systems, whereas in nonlinear systems a regularity notion of causation breaks down due to system dynamism and the possibility of discontinuous shifts in equilibria and thus chaos (p. 98). “Normality” in this context is a qualitative understanding of system dynamics; however, can be likened to “normality” in novelty detection studies in relation to normal distribution curves (Gaussian bell curves) and thus correlative to formal quantitative measures. 131 understanding of what is “normal,” however, suggests a type of default reasoning, and while defeasible, allows for logical chain of inferences (Boutilier, 1990, p. 1), from one causal event to another. For example, normally, people put milk or cream in their coffee and not poison (Halpern, 2008, p. 7). As such, “‘in the most normal course of events in which A holds, B holds as well,’ or ‘A normally implies B’” (Boutilier, 1990, p. 1). While a logical chain of causal events may be considered normal, the series can be perturbed. When the causal chain of normality is altered in the pattern or structure of a system, it undergoes what I call a “breach of the system’s normality,” which is where novelty may arise (Crosby, 2009, p. 46). The “breach” I describe is not the notion of a causal break in which the cause-and-effect link is disproportionally broken, as is used or implied by others (Goldstein, 2000b, p. 7; Kolak & Martin, 1987, p. 341; Morgan, 1933, p. 25; Morin, 2008, p. 51; Suprun et al., 2013, p. 21). Rather, it is a causal “breakthrough”85 of normality due to novel possibility replacing actuality in an over-and-above breach in the causal chain where the causal flow is not broken. In ecology, for example, Allen and Holling (2010, para. 9) suggest that scale-breaks, discontinuities, or gaps are where unpredictable or novel behaviour occurs.86 They describe the success of invasive non-native species being introduced to an ecosystem as an example of the insertion of novelty into the system, or as an ecosystem undergoing a systemic novel transition to a new ecosystem interaction (Allen & Holling, 2010, para. 9). As such, a system generates novelty when linearity is not determined and still within the continuous flow of change, and thus, novelty has the opportunity to arise as an indeterminate (or spontaneous) break of a system’s normality.87 This occurs as a system moves toward a critical state and thus deviates toward an abnormal or “novel” possibility that exhibits low amounts of repetition to previous patterns or structures (see further below for more on non-repetition (Framework; Crosby, 2009, pp. 46–59; Deutsch, 1992, p. 163). 85 The term “breakthrough” in common parlance means “a significant or sudden advance in knowledge or achievement; a development or discovery” (OED, 2014, June, para. 4) and implies the “illumination” stage of the creative process (Wallas, 1926, pp. 10, 80). However, here, its usage is restricted to a breach in the normality of a causal chain. 86 Torrance (1965, p. 663) suggests creativity occurs in gaps, problems, or deficiencies. 87 Goldstein (2000b, p. 8) rejects novelty as a “causal break” and instead suggests a deterministic way forward by noting the limitations of the observers, implying that reality is simply moving too fast for them to understand. Here, however, we propose a causal breach of normality due to the indeterminism of excess possibility (as described below) and not the kind of “break” that he is referring to. 132 The appearance of novelty in a causal breakthrough of normality occurs because of the “ceaseless upspringing of something new” (Bergson, 1911/1944, p. 47), in which “possibilities may be in excess of actualities” (James, 1897/1960, p. 150). A causal “excess” view of novelty offers “newness” because a surplus of possibilities goes over-and-above the chain of actualities and fill the void of asymmetric time in a variance of possible new paths. Systems are in dynamical continuation and are causally driven forward when the actuality of the causal present is pushed to the past due to the pressure of the excess possibility to come. The excess of possibility drives asymmetric time. Unless possibility is in excess of actuality, the plurality of new future possibilities is an illusion because equal causal links leave no reason for a system to “flow,” which would mean the end of novelty and time (Crosby, 2009, p. 48; Whitehead, 1929/1960, p. 317). Such a “surplus” causal view of the universe implies that the “excess” of possible change or transformation in the Jamesian sense is the continual process of “coming-to-be,” replacing what is “passing-away” in new or variant forms.88 An excess in causal possibilities over actualities is indeterministic and appears as “chance” to the rationality of an observer, but to “one who stands inside it is the expression of ‘free creative activity’” (James, 1920, p. 398). Such indeterministic possibilities arise due to an “over creativity” within the system, as Prigogine (1980) alludes to, which are in surplus but are then “integrated into the system by the deterministic relations prevailing at the moment” (p. 128). The actualization of causal determinism is not lost, and discontinuities do not damage causal continuity, because actuality perishes in the causal gap but is imminently replaced by the creation of actuality as the excess of possibility integrates under the pressure of system’s forward drive. The replaced actuality is equal and not in addition to the replacing possibility, and thus the proportionality of causality is maintained. For example, the mind as a psychological system may also undergo a “state of potentiality” when undergoing psychological entropy, and in the interaction with the contexts of its environment may actualize its potential through new ideas (Gabora, 2005, pp. 262–271 Newness, however, is not novelty. Newness “leaks in insensibly” (James, 1920, p. 399) to a system in gradualistic micro-moments of time in a system’s drive forward (for instance, 88 It could be suggested that a coming-to-be brings a Becoming (possibility) and a passing-away leaves a Being (actuality). As such, a causal excess view of the universe is implied in Whitehead’s “creative advance” or the becoming of continuity and the instances of it (Whitehead, 1929/1960, pp. 31, 32, 42). 133 consider phyletic gradualism; Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 87; Mayr, 1960, pp. 50–52). It can also “jump” or “leap”89 forward after a buildup of excessive possibility in a punctuated “shock” to the system (Akhoondzadeh, 2013, p. 15; Huang et al., 2012, p. 1063). There is a long history of new patterns or structures being studied as punctuated shocks or leaps. For example, saltationism (Bowler, 1983/2003, p. 127), or Eldredge and Gould’s punctuated equilibria (1972, p. 84), describe a sudden leap in new specie development. In catastrophe theory, critical points on the cusp of catastrophe indicate the possibility for innovation adoption (Herbig, 1991, p. 136; Homer-Dixon, 2006, p. 7; Thom, 1972, p. 42; Zeeman, 1976, p. 68); “inductive leaps” describe subjective conceptual novelty generation (Crutchfield, 1994b, p. 8); exogenous shocks can stimulate innovation (Arslan & Tarakci, 2019, para. 15; Salamonsen, 2015, p. 1790); and chaotic systems can “jump in a virtual instant from one mode of behavior to another” (Freeman, 2000, p. 11). Localized periods of stasis perpetuate greater dynamical spontaneity or rapid change even while global gradualistic processes may be at play (Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 108). Still, not all breaks in causal normality, whether gradual or punctuated, generate what I would call “novelty.” Some system possibilities may arise as “new” but behave in similar ways with recurrent or repetitive features as other previous states (i.e., each firework display is a new chaotic expression of a system dynamic; however, the world has had fireworks displays before). Alternatively, the system possibility may be new but too chaotic for subjective use (i.e., a splatter of paint on the floor may be new but not novel). Only system paths that go “beyond” normality and are non-repetitive might be considered novel. Such behaviours or structures breach their repetitive tendency and move toward a novel state that could be qualifiably described as “new” and quantifiably assessed as abnormal with less recurrence than previous states. For instance, in Bonavista, NL, the community’s main source of income was cod fishing until the external shock of a moratorium destabilized the local economy until a critical point (Schrank, 2005, p. 412). A punctuated causal break to the economic normality forced the community to embrace uncertainty and go “beyond” traditional normal actualities to novel possibilities as it turned to tourism for a new source of income. However, tourism is not new to Bonavista. It is a substantial novel direction to the old recurrent patterns of systemic relations. 89 James (1920) actually comments that novelty does not arrive by jumps and jolts; however, here we agree with modern interpretations that it may arrive either way. 134 Novelty comes into being when, from a nonlinear dynamics perspective, a system transitions from disorder to order. While the term “disorder” is a qualitative description, it points to entropy as the “measure of its degree of disorganization” (Wiener, 1948, p. 18) or the amount of uncertainty in a system (Shannon & Weaver, 1949/1964, p. 18).90 The term “order,” on the other hand, points to entropy’s opposite as negative entropy or negentropy.91 To avoid chaos, a system must efficiently evade destructive disorder and maintain or increase dynamic order; thus, it must have potential that is actualized. If it is too efficient at dissipating potentials, the system will decrease potentiality and slow the system’s potentializing toward stasis; if it is not efficient enough it will move the potentializing toward a state far-from-equilibrium where the possibility for novelty will be high. Order increases a system’s rate of entropy production (of the system plus the environment), and thus it must pull in sufficient resources and dissipate them or others to satisfy the balance equation of the second law of thermodynamics (Swenson, 1998, p. 172).92 As it moves toward order, “the system will select the path or assembly of paths out of otherwise available paths that minimise the potential or maximize the entropy at the fastest rate given the constraints” (or the law of maximum entropy production; Swenson, 1998, p. 173; emphasis original; Martyushev & Seleznev, 2006, p. 3). The evading function of a system, as it moves away from disorder and toward order, exemplifies negentropy in the sense that it organizes free energy, constituents, or information away from its environment for exchange with the system such that it might reduce its entropy and maintain ordered organization. Thus, the system’s 90 Linking the term “disorder” to entropy is a qualifiable proposition, which challenges a truly scientific link between a qualifiable and quantifiable description or measurement of entropy (Jaynes, 1965, p. 398). However, there is great merit, I argue, in attempting to make such a link, to avoid the trappings of the scientific sentiment that only quantifiable proof has value, and to “interweave” the qualifiable and quantifiable in an effort to understand both the subjective and objective as inherently linked. 91 “Negentropy” is generally understood in terms of free energy in the sciences (Gibbs, 1873, pp. 49–50), but we use it here in the way Schrödinger does (1944/1991, p. 70), as a generalizable term for readers across multiple disciplines to describe dynamic order creation in complex systems. Mahulikar and Herwig (2009, pp. 1939–1943) redefine “negentropy” as the counter-principle of existing entropy principles for dynamic order existence by pointing to the specifics of the entropy deficit of a system with respect to its environment’s chaos. Their principle of the “creation” of order as a path taken by the local non-equilibrium systems is an indication in their model that order is created. However, they do not define what makes the creation “new,” other than dynamic order or complexity, which we argue cannot define novelty and thus creativity until the “new-ness” is further defined via low repeatability or low-recurrence along with a subjective approach. 92 The second law of thermodynamics, which describes the irreversible process of entropy increasing in an isolated system (Clausius, 1867, p. 365). 135 transition from disorder to order is a “negative” disordering of potential and thus a novel ordering of the actual. Other disciplines have also pointed out entropy’s role in novelty generation in complex systems. For example, a “mind” can be seen as a complex dynamical system where bifurcations offer creative growth (Abraham, 1995). Gabora (2017, p. 10) posits that creativity is the capacity of a worldview to evade psychological entropy (when a worldview is disturbed, bored, curious, or encounters a problem) through a self-mending form of self-organization toward a consistent or integral worldview. In social systems, Mavrofides, Kameas, Papageorgiou, and Los (2011, p. 360) reaffirm Maturana and Varela’s (1972/1980, pp. 107–111) claim that creativity occurs due to interactions between the social system and its environment but specific to entropy. In these examples and in the contexts of psychology and sociology, a nonlinear dynamical view of novelty generation is applied. While scientific concepts (such as scientific definitions of entropy) cannot be directly applied to all concepts from all disciplinary contexts, the principles behind the concepts have tremendous value across multiple systems. For example, a negentropic ordering of dissipating entropy as the temporal drive of a system toward novelty is, as proposed here, applicable to multiple disciplines and systems. The associated concepts have great heuristic value, as is discussed further below. I will now examine how a system’s entropy leads to a causal breakthrough in its normality, specifically through a generalized nonlinear dynamic lens. 4.2.4 Nonlinear Dynamics, Bifurcation, and the Preconditions for Novelty The interest in entropy is not surprising since it provides many advantages for interdisciplinary, multilevel investigations. Its unifying potential can hardly be overemphasized. (Katakis & Katakis, 1982, p. 118; emphasis added). For a system to come-into-being and yield novel behaviour or structure, it must be open to undergo a breakthrough in causal normality, and change from disordering (entropy) to transition toward ordering (negentropy). An open system is always in dynamic tension between disorder and order. For example, a human body requires air, water, and food from its environment, and people will find creative means to obtain these resources. However, if a person is closed to taking in these resources (and expelling others), their body will become dominantly entropic and die. Such tension between opposites as disorder and order, entropy and negentropy, stasis and 136 dynamism, equilibrium and disequilibrium are the foundation for novel behaviour and structure to arise (Framework; Bergson, 1911/1944, p. 238; Crutchfield, 1994a, pp. 45–46; Jung, 1954/2014, p. 144; Rosen, 2016, p. 118; Rothenberg, 1971, p. 197; Sun, 2009, pp. 271–272; Whitehead, 1929/1960, pp. 32, 43, 46, 128–130, 142). Tension increases in a system that is moving toward disorder through disturbances or perturbations and competition between constituent parts (Kliminko, 2013, p. 13; Kondepudi & Prigogine, 1998/2015, p. 432; Soliveres & Allan, 2018, p. 807). Such perturbations and tensions increase fluctuations, which augment the instability of a system and move it toward a critical threshold (Caravelli & Staniczenko, 2016, p. 2; Murray, 2003, p. 82; Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 69). At this stage the system exhibits heightened variance and diversity93 (Allen & Holling, 2010, para. 8; Sabelli & Abouzeid, 2003, p. 41; Simonton, 1989, pp. 195, 199; Solé et al., 2002, p. 678), thereby increasing the possibility of a novel outcome (for more on tension, competition, instability, and diversity, see The Four Preconditions of Novelty in chapter 2.1.4.c). If it trends toward a critical point of instability (or a bifurcation point; see Guastello, 2002, p. 21; Kondepudi & Prigogine, 1998/2015, p. 431; Kubicek & Marek, 1983, p. 49; Poincaré, 1892/1993, pp. 153–154), the system may self-organize by maximizing its dissipation of entropy (Kondepudi & Prigogine, 1998/2015, pp. 112, 484; Martyushev & Seleznev, 2006, pp. 2; see also Bak, Tang & Wiesenfeld, 1987, p. 1381 for a description of self-organized criticality). It is the system’s transitioning from pre-bifurcation to post-bifurcation in which the gap or breach in causal normality occurs and where negentropic forces generate the possibility of novelty. The result may be a gradualistic transformation or a “leap” toward a new system state with features that exhibit low-recurrence compared to other system states. Alternatively, the system may enter a recurring steady state that either stabilizes the system or directs it to new instabilities. Such a critical stage may be described as a “zone of transition” or a phase of causal breakthrough from possibility to actuality, and thus the “birthplace” of novelty. Whether such a zone of system behaviour is gradualistic or spontaneously punctuated in short periods of rapid transition depends on a multitude of factors, including the building of tension as parts of the system in stasis destabilize while dynamic 93 We define “diversity” as both the number of constituents or their variances, the number of their interactions (Solé et al., 2002, p. 678), and also the diverse range of possibilities that may result. The term is used here to describe a multivariable initial condition of a system signifying the diverse number of possible outcomes after bifurcation (i.e., microstates). 137 pressure increases the likelihood of a spontaneous shift (Bak & Boettcher, 1997, p. 19; Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 108). As a system transitions toward novelty, it reaches a point where the recurring patterns or structures may be deemed “novel,” in that they surpass a threshold of recurrence or normal distribution and may be described as of low-recurrence or as abnormal. The threshold is a “transition point,” which may or may not be the same as a bifurcation point, because a transition point is defined first by qualitative and therefore subjective evaluative means (i.e., even algorithms that find novel behaviour are still defined by human subjectivity). It is the point that defines the moment of transition from disordering to ordering and that describes when novelty is born. In essence, novelty generates due to a system breakthrough (a gap, leap, or shift) because of the tension of inherent variance or diversity in a system as it transforms from disorder to order. To exemplify this process, let us examine the transformation of Bonavista following its cod moratorium in 1992 through the lens of a simplistic nonlinear dynamics model (see Figure 4.2.4.a).94 At t0, the system is in dynamic equilibrium: the townspeople are fishing cod extensively and thus following “business-as-usual” practices in a smoothly functioning economy. At tơ (July 2, 1992), the system experiences a perturbation: Minister of Fisheries John Crosbie implements a cod fish moratorium (Schrank, 2005, p. 409).95 Previously, tension had been building between the system’s resources (energies, constituents or information) due to the technological advancement of fish trawling and its consequential negative environmental conditions related to climate change and habitat damage (Perry & Ommer, 2003, p. 513); i.e., external stress increases from the environment. Due to what has been called the “largest industrial layoff in Canadian history” (Sider, 2003, p. 32), the community goes into shock and an increase occurs in economic instability (Newfoundland Statistics Agency, 1994), outmigration (Statistics Canada, 1996), and alcohol consumption (Hemeon, 2007; Murray, 2000). 94 For the purposes of this model, I will consider the town of Bonavista and its related biozone a “closed system.” I would also like to acknowledge the lands on which this example is offered as the ancestral lands of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq peoples. 95 The moratorium was extended indefinitely in 1994 when funding ran out. The Canadian cod moratorium was to limit technologically advanced fish trawling and negative environmental conditions in order to recover traditional fish populations in the Atlantic Northwestern fishery (Schrank, 2005, pp. 409–410). 138 Figure 4.2.4.a. A graphic model of a noisy-state system far-from-equilibrium bifurcating, with resulting microstates as either in recurrence or in low-recurrence (novel). Graphic by author. Competition for resources intensifies the tension and the system reaches a threshold at ta during which fluctuations increase and the end-state attractor(s) pull the system toward a far-from-equilibrium critical boundary. The community’s desperation for financial stability draws people to compete with each other for jobs (HR, 2007) and increases conflict.96 The community attempts to decide whether to continue fishing (a different species? Or a different location?), or to find a new source of income. The system is in a “noisy” state of instability in which feedback is dominant. Debt in some areas of the townspeople’s lives enables debt in other areas of their lives such that the general financial instability of the town increases rapidly. I propose that the higher the variance in the average number of fluctuations (𝑓𝑓)̅, the higher the probability for a diversity of outcomes. The greater the diversity of outcomes, the greater the probability of a novel path. The number of fluctuations diverge and increase or decrease to be different than the average number of fluctuations. The townspeople increase unstable behaviour as they move out of town, find different jobs, or apply for unemployment compensation. As average fluctuations increase, the 96 In the summer of 2003, a dispute between Indigenous peoples and local settlers arose about rights to hunt in a wilderness area near Bonavista (“Newfoundland court,” 2003). In the summer of 2020, multiple skirmishes occurred between Mi’kmaq and non-indigenous fishermen in Nova Scotia about the treaty rights to hunt and gather even during provincial restrictions (“Violent opposition,” 2020). The Marshall decision of 1999 affirmed the territorial rights of eligible First Nation communities to fish, hunt, and gather for a moderate livelihood (FOC, 2021). 139 gain increases and so does the tendency for the system to move toward spontaneity and dissipate entropy through bifurcation. In the zone of transition (tb – tc), the system may bifurcate into variant “branches” of possible solutions. In the absence of fluctuations, the system may “choose” the branch with the strongest attractor. Each attractor will depend on the initial state of the system. Bifurcations occur or reoccur into patterns or periodic variations, which provoke the system to evolve into new “ordered states” or steady states over time (Kondepudi & Prigogine, 1998/2015, p. 421). Not all states will become a steady state, and other perturbations may lead to secondary bifurcations. The system over time will transition toward a new attractor: the town chooses the new economic outlook of tourism. The townspeople choose a path of low-recurrence and breakthrough their normal pattern of business-as-usual and come together as a community to generate a new source of sustainable economic income. I posit that a system breakthrough as the origin of novelty generation is generalizable across multiple systems and applicable to varying domains and disciplines and not specific to them. The nonlinear dynamical process of a bifurcation breakthrough reveals “preconditions for novelty” that may assist researchers in finding novel, creative, innovative, or emergent patterns or structures in complex systems. The preconditions are: (a) tension (of opposites), (b) competition (between structured entities and behaviours or either), (c) instability (i.e., gain in feedback and perturbed behaviour), and (d) diversity (as variance of structures, behaviours and possible outcomes). See the subsection “The Four Preconditions of Novelty” in chapter 2.1.4.c for a detailed explanation of this conclusion. Describing these terms in a dynamical context will allow for a qualitative and quantitative approach depending upon the domain of use. I will offer a section in the conclusion as a more in-depth description of these preconditions with examples. Now, I will turn to what makes the novelty generated in a zone of transition “novel” by examining a path of low recurrence. 4.2.5 Novelty in Nonlinear Dynamical Processes of Low-Recurrence Nonlinear dynamic systems theory and self-organization concepts insufficiently describe how novelty generates in a system primarily because they do not describe the manner or context 140 in which path behaviour post-bifurcation exhibits a path that is “novel.”97 Prigogine and Stengers (1984) use the phrase “‘nonaverage’ behaviour” (p. xxiv) to describe innovation,98 but they do not offer a distinctly subjective and objective definition. The term “nonaverage” is akin to the use of the terms “anomaly” or “abnormal” path behaviour in the novelty detection literature (which I will investigate further below). A system’s path may have arisen unexpectedly and is new, but it must exhibit patterns of behaviour that are original or unusual, and unexpected over time. As Hausman (1966/2010) indicates, where novelty occurs, “there must be something that is not repetitious of factors identifiable in non-creative processes” (p. 19). In a temporal context, there needs to be a quantifiably supported difference in path behaviour pre- and post-bifurcation. The difficulty of qualitative or observational descriptions of “novelty” or “innovation” highlights the benefits of a generalizable quantitative description. New post-bifurcation system structures are temporal, in that they are comparatively different from earlier or later stages. As new solution states arise, they may either be stable or chaotic in behaviour, and if chaotic, may disappear depending on a change to the system’s parameters (Kubicek & Marek, 1983, p. 1). Structures may become stable because the system is able to maintain resilience during small (or large) perturbations, or, the new structure may become unable to establish a coherent function and thus not survive (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984, pp. 189–190). The system also may have no reason to become novel; the “new-ness” may be statistically different but transient enough to have no impact on the environment. Some structures may be “new” to the system but maintain or repeat system behaviour rather than generate novel behaviour. Even if ordered behaviour lasts for some time, chaotic behaviour may return, where the system transitions from stability back to instability (or “dormant” to “active”; Kampis, 2003, p. 3) until a new structure emerges (Kaneko & Tsuda, 1994, p. 4). The behaviour of these systems may have itinerant features (i.e., the oscillation between stasis and dynamical transitioning i.e. “chaotic itinerancy”), while other stationary systems may have greater recursiveness (Kaneko & Tsuda, 2003, p. 24), and yet others may exhibit novelty. The oppositional binaries of static and 97 This is also questioned in Goldstein (2001, para. 21). 98 While Prigogine emphasizes the term “innovator” (as well as “innovation”), he uses the term as something new coming into form (such as a new structure or species). We, however, define “innovation” as the application or implementation of a creative idea, product or process, and thus, for our purposes we will instead use “novelty” as the driver or force behind innovation. See Sabelli (2008, p. 1). 141 dynamic as well as ordered and disordered all imply a temporal context of change as a key feature of novelty. Recurrence in dynamical systems is key to describing the system “newness” in novelty in relation to time. As Kuhn (1962) points out, concepts arise not out of “isolated events but extended episodes with a regularly recurrent structure” (p. 52).99 An observed “anomaly”100 indicates that nature has breached the “paradigm-induced expectations of normal science” (pp. 52–53), and a system transformation of novelty has likely occurred. Anomalies, or abnormal system behaviour (Clifton et al., 2008, p. 269), stand out against “a large measure of ‘recurrence’” (Morgan, 1933, p. 43), and thus, novelty, I argue, must be of a “low” measure of recurrence. A recurrence indicates that the present state is in some way similar to a former state (that is, where an attractor trajectory runs through a region in the phase space it passed before; Marwan, 2008, p. 4), and is a sequence of values that have a pattern. Poincaré formulated the idea of recurrence as a fundamental property of dynamical systems, stating, “it can be shown, that the system recurs infinitely many times as close as one wishes to its initial state” (see Marwan, 2008, p. 3).101 Some of the earliest definitions of novelty connect it to recurrence (Kuhn, 1962, p. 52; Morgan, 1933, p. 43). A recurrence view of nonlinear dynamical systems allows for the comparison of earlier system states versus present states in a time-series with the difference in behaviour or structure as a determinable location for novelty (Marwan, 2008, p. 5). This can be analyzed by examining the percentage of recurrence or the “recurrence rate,” divergence from the norm, or the entropy of the distribution, as obtained through recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) by way of recurrence plots (Markov chains are a stochastic model to determine possible events of low recurrence). A time series may be stationary where the underlying conditions of the system do not change over the course of the time series or it may be nonstationary where a system’s tendency is to exhibit dynamical change over multiple time scales (Casdagli, 1997, p. 99 A note about novelty and discovery: often, new “discoveries” seem like a discovery of novelty but do not actually reveal novel system behaviour as in “new” patterns in the world historically, but only what has always been occurring but simply observed for the first time. Still, concepts referring to a historical system process may be novelty, and thus, the novelty in these cases are less about the observed system behaviour and rather the observing system behaviour. 100 Other common terms for anomaly detection are “instruction detection,” “fault detection,” “condition monitoring,” and “outlier detection” (Aguayo & Barreto, 2018, p. 718). 101 Marwan translates Poincaré’s (1890) “Introduction,” Acta Mathematica, 13(1–2), pp. 5–7. 142 12). A time-series driven by varying external forces has been shown through RQA to exemplify coordinate transformation and thus a likelihood of broad-scaled (although in this case slow) creative change (Casdagli, 1997, pp. 13–14). Through observation and analysis, a shift of the dynamics underlying a time series between two state regimes can be found in a “change point” (Casdagli, 1997, p. 13). This shift reflects novel behaviour (Lee & Roberts, 2008, para. 2–3). Alternatively, an observer can search for an “anomaly” in the normality of the system state due to a deviation from a statistical norm (Lee & Roberts, 2008, para. 2). Either way, comparison of recurring features in phase space or a time series provides insight into where novelty may be found. Nonlinear dynamical processes of self-organization may generally maintain a system’s stability through repetitive feedback of similar system states or lead the system toward high entropic states of unusual or abnormal behaviour. When post-bifurcation occurs or a change point is reached, self-organization offers path behaviour that is low recurrent or non-repetitive and results in new paths that the system may follow toward steady states of order (Sabelli, 2001, p. 90). Recurrence is high when the probability of the path chosen is greater than the probability measured in a random series. Novelty is generated when the probability of recurrence is less than the probability of a random process. The probability of novelty increases when the transition of a system allows for increased stochasticity (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 13; Simonton, 2003, p. 476). Novelty occurs in the system state in which the probability of the resulting path exhibiting recurrence is low. Since the driver or force of systemic change post-bifurcation demands a dynamical trend, systems are generally pushed toward disorder and thus reciprocating order (or vice versa) in new or novel ways to generate a trend toward equilibrium. Dynamical behaviour can be considered a generalizable or universal indication of change (Kampis, 2003, p. 6), where transitions occur from disorder to order due to specific conditions (i.e., predetermined) or even stochastic variations in an ordering of system flow. While low recurrence and abnormal behaviour or structures may arise as new features in a system’s zone of negentropic transition, such features are not novelty on their own. Importantly, the resulting system behaviour or restructuring becomes novel specifically due to the subjective model of the system’s observer. Goldstein (Crutchfield, 1994a, pp. 21, 47; Goldstein, 2001, para. 143 21)102 rightfully points out the limitations of claiming that emergence (and thus novelty) is a nonlinear dynamical process of self-organization that is to be used to search for emergence, because it only perpetuates a circular definition of what is “new.”103 However, such circularity can be overcome by framing the observational bias as a subjective ingredient into the formulae of a seemingly objective observation of a nonlinear process. I will expand upon this further below by using a subjective notion of novelty intertwined with an objective notion of novelty to clarify the subjective role of observation and system or boundary definition. Searching for novelty generation in a complex systems low-recurrence or abnormal behaviour or structure will be advantageous for novelty detection. However, I first need to determine whether novelty has been found. 4.2.6 Novelty Assessment: A Generalizable and Complex Systems Approach Assessing system dynamics for the generation of novelty is best done through a heuristic process that includes both quantitative measurement and a qualitative method to better understand the subjective experience of novelty and “newness.” Novelty assessment must be transferrable to multiple disciplines or systems other than the current one to be broadly applicable (Cropley & Cropley, 2005, p. 176). To ensure a generalizable approach to novelty assessment, I will begin this section with an examination of both quality and state forms of novelty, as described at the beginning of this paper, positioning novelty as a comparative difference in time and space. A 102 Goldstein (2004) argues that Prigogine’s self-organization implies a primordial hylozoist self-referentiality, and he solves this by offering the concept “self-transcending constructions” as a possible systemic process of novelty generation. However, he appears to conflate the “problematic” notion of hylozoism and what he calls “fundamental organicity” to a reductionism “all the way down” to the basics of nature, assuming that that automatically enables a constructionist approach of simply building the universe back up. While a constructivist approach to nature seems to answer artificial intelligence (Kaneko & Tsuda, 1994), Goldstein apparently excludes larger stochastic universal processes as-yet-defined, including the very obvious hard problem of consciousness. As such, he inevitably encourages the dualistic debate between materialism versus idealism and thus isolates readers who do not hold such a paradigmatic worldview. I choose instead a complementarist perspective that is inclusive of physicalist perspectives while allowing a readership whose worldview includes uncertainty (i.e., the “mysterious”), and the possibility that the objectivistic separation of a physical world “out there” is not so distinct from internal conscious experience of the subject. Therefore, I will keep and use the term “self-organization” in its standard usage (Anderson, 1972, p. 393). 103 However, Goldstein uses this for a case to throw out a nonlinear dynamical and self-organizing view of novelty generation. Instead, I use a quantitative approach to nonlinear dynamical and self-organizing novelty generation but include the qualitative stance of observation and system definition (i.e., boundaries) through a subjective lens. 144 complementarist (Flood, 1990, p. 143) approach to a subjective/objective novelty will reduce possibilities of worldview bias and increase applicability of a measurement of novelty in conjunction with real-world application. First, I will explore the degree of novelty in a subjective sense, to understand how to approach “low recurrence” for quantification. Morgan (1933, p. 32) offers the term primary novelty to describe the first time a pattern or structure appears in an unprecedented way (this is also known as “absolute novelty”; Berlyne, 1960, p. 19).104 An example of primary novelty can be found in the first appearance of the term “entropy” in 1867 in Clausius’ (1867, p. 357) work on heat transfer, which was an unprecedented description of this phenomena. Clausius’s concept of entropy is a primary novelty. Since then, Shannon (1948, p. 10) introduced the term “entropy” in relation to information theory in 1948, Bailey (1990) used it for social purposes, and Hirsch et al. (2012) used it in the context of psychology. These instances of “entropy” usage are examples of secondary novelty or relative novelty; such instances have familiar or repetitive features of other novelties but are subsequent “new” uses of the term (Berlyne, 1960, p. 19; Morgan, 1933, p. 32). Morgan claims novelty should be a “new pattern of substantial relatedness” (p. 33; emphasis added), suggesting, like Goldstein (2018, p. 509) does with his usage of the term radical novelty, that an applicable novelty needs to display “higher-level” differentiations. These may include features of unpredictability (ensuring unexpectedness), non-deductibility (committing to unusualness), non-traceability (assuring a primary nature by limiting the instance to earlier accounts of novelty in that domain), and scale (local novelties versus systemic novelties). Differentiating novelty using terms as these allows for a greater human usage than “everyday” novelty (Sarkar & Chakrabarti, 2011, p. 357).105 I shall use the term substantial novelty in the vein of Morgan’s description to describe novelty that is unexpected (but measurably probabilistic), does not have recurrent prevailing patterns or structures (is a surprise and original) but may exhibit low recurrence (e.g. the microwave oven still has recurrent features and yet is novel), and that reaches an optimal “arousal potential” (the qualitative experience of a high 104 “Absolute novelty” is also used in patent offices to determine the “novelty,” “usefulness,” and “obviousness” of the invention in question (IPIC, 2016, p. 12; Sarkar & Chakrabarti, 2011, p. 350). 105 Sarkar (2011, p. 357) offers degrees of novelty: very high novelty (where no other product/idea existed before), high novelty (variations of previous novelties but with significant original features), and medium novelty (where similarity to previous novelties is more dominant) in the literature of novelty detection. 145 degree of novelty; Berlyne, 1970, p. 284; Zhao & Lee, 2016, p. 316). While, contextually, “radical novelty” and “substantial novelty” could be equated, to avoid misrepresenting the variant versions of radical novelty as used by multiple authors, I will keep with the Morgan-influenced “substantial novelty” for this paper. a. Subjective Quality in Novelty Assessment To develop a novelty assessment heuristic, I begin with the quality of novelty to describe a subjective experience as intrinsically part of novelty. Lee and Crompton (2008, based on Jenkins 1969, Judd 1988, and Pearson 1970) summarize novelty as “the degree of contrast between present perception and past experience” (p. 733), which highlights not only the temporal comparison in terms of novelty assessment but its subjectivity as well. Novelty from this perspective is an experience and, although collectively shared, is individually experienced. In human psychological systems, novelty can evoke a personal and social experience of awe and wonder. For example, the Crystal Palace of 1851 and the Eiffel Tower erected in Paris in 1889 inspired awe in those who gazed upon them due to their novel design (Janz, 2018, p. 147). Novel stimuli, such as seeing such architectural wonders, triggers the experience of arousal (Berlyne, 1950, p. 79). However, stimulus properties depend on personal judgements of the attributes of stimulus patterns, producing a “subjective novelty” (Berlyne & Parham, 1968, p. 415). When the arousal potential is substantial, the degree of novelty may be high, as described by the qualitative Wundt curve (Berlyne, 1970, p. 284; Zhao & Lee, 2016, p. 316).106 However, novelty is not only the experiential stimulus or feelings of arousal but also the subjective construal of human experience (that is, the framing, desirability, feasibility, categorization, and mental models of novelty; Forster et al., 2010, p. 737; Forster, 2009, pp. 383, 394; Griffin & Ross, 1991, p. 321). Through a subjective judgement process or “appraisal process,” an evaluation of a system’s behaviour or structure deemed novel occurs in terms of a positive or negative “fit” to a perceived goal (Skavronskaya et al., 2020, p. 3). It can be said that novelty is experienced through both the 106 The Wundt curve is a qualitative experiential heuristic that indicates the “optimal level of stimulation,” and suggests that when a subject experiences an increase in the degree of stimulation they will increase their arousal until it becomes uncomfortable. Berlyne (1970, p. 284) proposed the “intermediate arousal potential” theory, which claims that too much stimulation generates anxiety, but too little stimulation generates boredom (Zhao & Lee, 2016, p. 318). 146 perception or construal of a new structure or behaviour and the subjective feelings about that perception, giving novelty a dual quality that includes a specifically personal experience of a perceived novel pattern or object (e.g., the “redness” of a colour can only be experienced by the person experiencing it; Arieti, 1976, p. 235). What makes an idea or pattern novel is specifically its subjective originality, usefulness, and surprisingness (Simonton, 2013, p. 257). Whether novelty stimulates a sense of awe or surprise is partly a subjective experience. As Hausman (1966/2010) so articulately states, novelty “cannot meet the demands of rational thought” (p. 12). It cannot be comprehended from a deterministic rationality alone, as, from a subjective view, it arises from an indeterminate potentiality. A question that might help us assesses novelty from a subjective view could be “does the novelty in question evoke a sense of surprise or unexpectedness?” or “what is the positive or negative ‘fit’ to the purpose of this assessment?” Because novelty is a socially constructed experience limited by the worldview of the observer, an assessment requires a subjective boundary consideration. Ulrich (2002, p. 1) tells us that a boundary critique is the central notion of critical systems thinking and is necessary to consider what are deemed “facts” (observations) and “norms” (valuative standards) in what is kept or left out of the decision-making process when defining the novelty of any system. Boundary judgements always involve an observational or worldview bias even in claims of objective knowledge. Even if novelty thresholds in determining abnormal versus normal distributions are quantitatively derived through learning algorithms, the selection of the quantitative metrics are chosen by human subjects and therefore are subject to worldview bias and need to be critiqued. It is impossible to identify social innovation (and thus novelty) if groups within communities are left out of the system determination processes due to discrimination. As an example of how worldviews biases our understanding of novelty, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a painting largely lauded as initiating the innovative “cubist” movement in the 20th century, was deeply influenced by established styles in African art (Blier, 2019, pp. 1–5). Is it possible to even see something as “new” when the subject matter is biased through eyes of old? A boundary critique to consider such implications would include questions as: what is the system boundary in which the novelty is arising? Who decides what is novel and why (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999, pp. 314–315)? What is the purpose of the assessment (for whose benefit and who or what will it impact)? Ulrich offers a metric of twelve questions to assist in the systems boundary 147 critique (Ulrich, 1987, p. 280). A consideration of critical systems thinking demands acknowledgement of the normative evaluation of subjective perspectives, collectively agreed upon or not, and the changing nature of human perception and ability to understand the complexity of any given phenomena.107 Worldview bias, although it is also individual and subjective, is shared by all. Most importantly, the subjectivity of novelty is exemplified through an examination of the subject itself that is observing an object (i.e., the perceived “external” system).108 The subject is also experiencing self-organization in a possible breakthrough of conceptual normality of what is “known.” In psychological negentropy, the mind self-organizes new thoughts to mend arousal-inducing discontinuities in the mind (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). Can the mind through its own subjective self-organizing processes perceive an actual objectively observed self-organizing process in a perceived “external” system? Alternatively, does the mind, through its own self-organizing processes, only perceive self-generated percepts of its self-organizing self? I offer a complementarist perspective that supports the notion that the subjective experience of novelty is a mutually arising subjective–objective experiential interaction of dynamic transformation between observer–observed; that is, both the observer and observed “system” are undergoing a dynamic transformation simultaneously. When novelty is substantial in a system, the observer that is having a realization or “Aha!” moment is transforming old understandings to new ones as the system is also undergoing a transformation of old behaviours or structures to new ones. A “discovery,” on the other hand, would be an arising subjective–objective experiential interaction between observer and observed where only the observer is having their “Aha!” moment while the system is recurrently doing what it always has done. For example, imagine being an observer while Anand is creating his novel chess move and you are concurrently realising it is a primary novelty. Now, oppose this to being with Clausius as he first articulated “entropy” as the process of entropy, which is a process that has always occurred. While the subjective–objective considerations mentioned here are imminently important, I will focus the rest of this paper on novelty assessment from the view of a “static” observer assessing an objective process of novelty 107 A quality or subjective consideration of novelty also leaves space for the idea that consciousness—as well as, thus, the creative yet-to-be-defined quality of experience—is not computable (Chalmers, 1995, p. 200). 108 This section was inspired by Debrun (2019). 148 through a subjective experience. To assess the “state” of novelty generation and abnormality, I will turn to novelty detection through the lens of an objective “abnormality” and “recurrence.” b. An Objective State Form of Novelty Assessment As a system state, novelty can be objectively measured. There are two important considerations when quantifying a novel state’s behaviour or structure. First, similar to a subjective experience, the system’s boundary or what is often called the novelty threshold must be defined in terms of “normality.” To know whether the elements of the observed systems are actually distinct and the degree to which they are distinct, a clear boundary definition or decision boundary must be generated (Debrun, 2019, p. 19; Pimentel et al., 2014, pp. 217–218). Second, a temporal quantification or comparative analysis is required, which I will refer to as a recurrence profile.109 Both a novelty threshold of abnormality and a recurrence profile will create the objective portion of our novelty assessment heuristic. Novelty detection has become popular when large datasets from critical systems are being assessed (Pimentel, 2014, p. 240). The practical applications of such analysis include serious medical diagnostic problems (Pimentel, 2014, p. 216)—for example, in mammography (Tarassenko et al., 1995, pp. 442–447)—complex industrial system failure (Tarassenko et al., 2009, pp. 1–22), credit card fraud detection (Patcha & Park, 2007, pp. 3448–3470; Jyothsna, Prasad, & Prasad, 2011, pp. 26-35), and data mining (Basu, Bilenko, & Mooney, 2004, pp. 59–68), to give just a few examples. The system structure or behaviour between what is known and unknown, or “normal”110 and “abnormal,” can assist us in describing a “novelty threshold” (Clifton et al., 2008, p. 278; Markou & Singh, 2003, p. 2485; Marwan et al., 2007, p. 247; Pimentel et al., 2014, p. 218). The challenge with the definition of a novelty threshold using only normality and abnormality alone, which is often used in the recent upsurge in “novelty detection” studies, is that it assumes novelty 109 Crutchfield (1994a, pp. 1–7) attempts to eliminate a subjective bias by pointing to the intrinsic emergence in a system that is referential to the system itself. Ultimately, this approach attempts to reduce subjective bias through quantification. However, according to the approach in this paper, a subjective bias need not be quantified but qualified through an interwoven novelty assessment in a heuristic. 110 The normality of a system, while varied in its application across the sciences, could be described as the continuous probability of a system’s behaviour over time (Markou & Singh, 2003, p. 2490). It is common is some disciplines to consider order and regularity as equivalent, however, regularity refers to repetition in geometric elements, whereas order is probabilistic and refers to configuration, i.e., in physics (Ossi, 2003, p. 3). 149 is (only) an abnormality. Novelty detection has been treated as synonymous or correlated with anomaly detection, intrusion detection, fault detection, condition monitoring, and outlier detection (Aguayo & Barreto, 2018, p. 718). Several pragmatic issues are involved with such a definition, as Aguayo suggests (2018, p. 718): the amount of data to determine abnormality, whether classification or regression models are used, and the stationarity of the system (i.e., whether underlying dynamics are stationary or not; see Kennel, 1997, p. 316). When determining the novelty threshold, multiclassification schemes require a priori datasets with known abnormal modes (Pimentel, 2014, p. 216), in which case a multiclass classifier is used. This model leaves less opportunity to “learn” about the abnormalities as they arise. One-class classification typically does not have well-sampled negative classes and can consider critical systems of high variance between subjects, limiting the need for a priori available data of “abnormality.” These models learn to construct an abnormality model by inferring parameters of what is “abnormal” in order to assign novelty scores. The larger the novelty scores, the more “abnormal” it is compared to the established model of normality. Multiple methods for setting parameters for a decision boundary across the literature vary (see Pimentel, 2014; Markou & Singh, 2003). The assumption of most assessment processes generally considers “abnormal” data those healthy data points that lie further away from the majority in the feature space as outliers (Markou & Singh, 2006, pp. 1664–1677), and thus, “novel data occur far from their nearest neighbours” (Pimentel, 2014, p. 218; also see Markou & Singh, 2003, p. 2491). A quantitative boundary definition of “normality” and “abnormality” relates to the earlier proposed causal breach of a system’s normality through the understanding of normality as distributed data points or “events” in a phase space or as causal events in a chain of actualities with a threshold that may be breached with excess possibility. Newly created possibilities arise as abnormalities because they are “new” or “abnormal” to the system’s normality. However, normal-versus-abnormal novelty threshold definitions can be challenged by the dynamical nature of the system in question. As such, they may be an initial place to look for novelty but require further definition as specific to recurrence. This is because novelty is related to space and time, and thus is a comparison of the “here” to the “there, as well as the “new” to the “old” in a dynamic transition from one state to another. To further explain: let us correlate “normality” with a thermodynamic view of “order” in a near-equilibrium state and “abnormality” 150 with “disorder.”111 While an abnormality is considered an indication of novelty in statistics, disorder is not an indication of novelty in thermodynamics. Novelty in dynamical systems is the turning away from disorder or the transition of the systems behaviour or structure from disorder toward order. An end state of abnormal disorder is not novel, it is the dynamic transition that describes novelty or the dynamical “ordering” of a systems disorder. This is intuitive when we hear a joke—the joke feels novel because it is the transition of the old use of words or phrases re-imagined into unexpected and original uses. If novelty was the end state of the joke itself, the joke would remain novel forever, which it does not because listeners become familiar and thus the joke loses its novel element of “surprise” (Fantz, 1964, p. 669; Palm, 2012, p. xiii; Zajonc, 1968, p. 1). The microwave was novel in its time, but it is no longer considered novel. A system post-bifurcation that follows a new pattern or behavioural path is not novel simply because it is new; it is novel because the transition following pre-bifurcation has interrupted the causal normality and reveals a newness in the system not seen elsewhere through subjective observation as well as objective analysis. Novelty is contextually related to time. To account for a clearly temporal understanding in novelty detection, I turn to creating a “recurrence profile” of the system. To assess novelty from a dynamic-temporal view, studies have been conducted using dynamic and learning models called self-organizing neural networks (SONNs) with time-series data (Aguayo, 2018, p. 717). In Aguayo’s (2018) comparison review of non-recurrent and recurrent dynamic SONN’s using both real-world and synthetic time series data, recurrent methods outperformed other methods (Aguayo, 2018, p. 741). Recurrence probability density entropy measures repetitiveness in dynamical and stochastic systems in a time series (Little et al., 2011, p. 14), and may be used in conjunction with extreme value theory (Lee & Roberts, 2008, paras. 2, 8) to analyze broad-scale catastrophes such as earthquakes. Another approach is recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), which uses recurrence plots (Eckmann et al., 1987, pp. 973–977; Webber & Zbilut, 1994, p. 966) to determine abnormal or unexpected behaviour or patterning in a time-series. Sabelli (2001, p. 93) examines recurrence plots of heartbeat data to find the percentage of possible recurrences minus a random shuffle of the data. Recurrence methods have also been used, for example, in communication data to analyze general 111 Little et. al. (2011, pp. 1–35) use the term “normality” in opposition to “disorder” in defining data for speech signals and thus places to look for opportunities for best performance and also abnormalities. 151 patterns of human discourse (Angus et al., 2012, p. 988), and have been used in poetry to determine patterns of novel poetic phrases or phrase combinations (Orsucci et al., 1999, p. 21). A recurrence profile, therefore, is a framework by which novelty can be assessed in a temporal context by looking at dynamical recurrent features. The framework compares two or more similar datasets in a time-series for analysis of novel features or abnormalities across a normal distribution of data for that dynamical system. While studies in recurrence currently have not yet sufficiently described “novelty” as it applies to a general understanding of nonlinear novelty generation or assessment in a dynamical time-series, a recurrence profile holds an important future direction (particularly in future analysis of a discreet novel interruption of Markov chains). I suggest the probability of low recurrence against a random series as a description of novelty for future research. Next, a summarizing heuristic as a generalizable approach of novelty assessment is introduced that is inclusive of both subjective and objective approaches to normality and recurrence. c. Heuristic for Novelty Assessment Below is a generalizable heuristic for novelty assessment based on the subjective and objective perspectives of novelty generation described above.112 It can be used as a research guide to stimulate answers to the questions below in order to see if the system behaviour or structure is indeed an example of novelty, and, to determine a method of measurement of how much novelty is involved. Answering each question is not necessary; however, the questions progressively lead the researcher through the considerations necessary to assess for novelty and its measurability. i. Take a pattern or structure deemed as “novel.” ii. How do you determine the boundary of what is novel and what is not? A subset of questions includes: (a) what is the system; (b) what is its environment; (c) what is the exchange or interaction between the system and environment; (d) 112 I will use the term heuristic as a “rule[s] of thumb that let one simplify a decision task or problem to make it more tractable” (Langley, 2004, p. 461). Heuristics, despite its imprecision, is “a very rich field that refers to experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery” (Martí et al., 2020, p. v). While there is criticism that suggests heuristics are unreliable means of inference that limit knowledge making (Alfano, 2014, p. 107), others disagree, saying that heuristic-based inferences have shown remarkable accuracy in communication and perception (Bland, 2018, p. 1). 152 what is the change from before and after the interaction (inspired by Srinivasan, 2009; para. 9). iii. Who is making the decision? A subset of questions includes: (a) what is the purpose (intention) of creating assessing novelty; (b) who is included in the decision making (and who is not, and why); (c) who is impacted by the decision; (d) what worldview is informing the assessment and evaluation (and is it shared by all) (Ulrich, 1987, p. 280). iv. Is the novelty unexpected? A subset of questions includes: (a) does it evoke a sense of surprise (what is its surprisingness); (b) what is the positive or negative “fit” to the purpose of this assessment; (c) what is the state of potentiality (Gabora, 2005, pp. 262–271); (d) what is the degree of stochasticity in the system (see stochastic differential equations)? v. Are tension, competition, instability, and diversity present in the system? (subjective or objective)? A subset of questions includes: (a) what is the dynamic tension in the system (i.e. force); (b) what are the competition dynamics (i.e., consider exogenous or endogenous, competitive exclusion, competitive ability, anti-competition, hierarchical or in/transitive competition or competition reversals); (c) what kind of instability challenges the system (i.e., consider perturbations, fluctuations, unpredictability, gain, diffusion, and feedback); (d) what is the diversity of the system (i.e., consider variance, heterogeneity of the system, redundancies, possible outcomes after bifurcation)? vi. What is the novelty threshold? A subset of questions includes: (a) what transition point or transformation is taking place (consider transition theory); (b) what is outside the normality of the system (i.e., normal distribution parameters); (c) can abnormality be known a priori; (d) what is the novelty score? vii. What is the recurrence profile? A subset of questions includes: (a) what is the temporal or dynamic state parameters (time-periodic, steady-state, etc.); (b) what is being compared and when (is it broad-scaled, what is the similarity, one or more time-series datasets); (c) what is the dynamical rate of change (is it gradualistic or sudden); (d) what is the “measure of its degree of disorganization” (entropy and/or negentropy; Wiener, 1948, p. 18); (e) what is the measure of critical instability (i.e., bifurcation point); (f) how is the recurrence defined, or measured (recurrence quantitative analysis)? 153 At the heart of the heuristic above is an exploration of what makes the behaviour or structure (i.e., the system) in question an expression of novelty through the important contextualization of comparing subjective and objective experiences of originality and unexpectedness through the social determination of worldview bias and time. The heuristic includes linear and nonlinear dynamical considerations, specifically recurrence, which will be an important future direction of novelty assessment and in determining novelty generation. 4.2.7 Conclusion Novelty is found everywhere, within creativity, innovation, and emergence and across multiple disciplines and systems. I have proposed here a means to understand both the subjective and objective or qualifiable and quantifiable contexts of novelty, depending on their usage in the context of the worldview of the domain and field of observers. As this paper has shown, novelty is the spontaneous ordering or transforming of old patterns into new possibilities to reduce instability or disorder in a system. It is the “new-ness” in the processual transformation or evolution of a system from one state to another in a causal breach of normality or a causal breakthrough. Through a nonlinear dynamics perspective of dissipative processes, I describe novelty as it occurs in a system far-from-equilibrium through a process of self-organization to dissipate disorder by spontaneously choosing a path of low-recurrence over time. Novel dissipative processes can be found in systems that exhibit entropic disorder and its negentropic opposite allowing a system to transition from disorder to order. An entropic-negentropic duality of systems is in line with general complexity (Morin, 2008), and general systems theory (von Bertalanffy, 1968), ensuring the “generalizability” of the model. Novelty has preconditions, which have been summarized by bridging scientific, sociological, and practical language (i.e., the tension, competition, instability, and diversity). Novelty arises as a result of (a) a causal excess of normality in a breakthrough of possibility over actuality, (b) self-organization or the spontaneous ordering of unexpected structures or behaviours, and (c) low recurrence or the abnormality in different patterns or entities compared to previous pre-bifurcation states.113 113 This hypothesis could be a description toward a “breakthrough theory” of novelty across multiple complex systems. 154 A novelty assessment considers the degree of novelty as primary or secondary (or relative but substantial). A subjective quality form of novelty assessment can be done through an examination of subjective construal, a boundary definition (to be explicit about worldview bias), and the subject’s self-organizing processes of novelty in mutuality with the object’s novel self-organizing processes. An objective state form of novelty assessment can be done through a novelty threshold and recurrence profile as a spatial and temporal dynamical analyses of path behaviour and structure. While being rooted in nonlinear dynamic systems theory, this heuristic approach to novelty generation and assessment herein has applicability across multiple systems and disciplines and offers a point for further investigation in an effort to measure novelty in the context of qualifiable and quantifiable contexts. Thus, the paper has value to future research when predicting novelty generation and detection across multiple complex systems. To contextualize the theoretical research in practice, I have generated a salient example of novelty generation as applied to a fictional scenario to the real-world outport town, Bonavista, Newfoundland, in Appendix B. The example shows how social innovation indicators can produce recommendations for policy makers to implement new strategic directions of community or city programming that are based on natural social innovation processes occurring in the system. Next, however, I will offer an application of the above nonlinear dynamical perspective of novelty generation and assessment to a social context. Application to a Social Context We are led, therefore, to regard energy dissipation as the driving force of evolution. In this respect it is pertinent to point out (de Duve, 1974) that, despite the increase in organization and complexity of living systems, there has been an acceleration of biological evolution in the course of time. It seems as though each new step increasing functional organization has in itself the germs for further evolution. (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 442; emphasis original) 4.3.1 A Negentropic View of Social Systems & Collective Worldviews While the above publishable manuscript (section 4.2) offers a transdisciplinary approach to novelty generation as applicable to multiple systems, it does not offer a direct description of 155 how the process applies to social systems, and thus, it does not directly tie in to this dissertation’s next chapter and manuscript. The below subsection will highlight the findings of Manuscript #2 on the topic of low-recurrence and self-organizational processes in a systemic negentropic transformation to dissipate entropy, and it will transfer this understanding to the context of social systems. The value of using an entropic–negentropic perspective of social systems is that it offers social innovators a complex systems assessment of novelty and a means to find “transition points” in a system where novelty is suspected to arise. When found, transition points help determine the probability of novelty in the system and thus can direct social innovators to intervene and leverage a system toward innovative change. Here, I will specifically explore a transsystemic, nonlinear dynamical approach to social systems considers the oppositional tension between entropy and negentropy. What are the challenges of using a scientific-oriented understanding of entropy–negentropy and applying it to social systems in the first place (Bailey, 2006, p. 375–376)? Entropy is a term that has two general usages: (a) it is a socially constructed, qualitative way to describe a “disorder” of constituents in a system (as described by Wiener, 1950/1989, p. 28), and (b) it is a quantitative measurement of the number of arrangements of constituents in a system over time, as first articulated by Clausius (1867, p. 357).114 While some may shun the earlier usage, the term “entropy” as it is related to describing a general “disorder” or “uncertainty” holds relevance even if it does not relay scientific exactness; it finds utility in its practical application to qualitatively describe a system’s state of orderliness. Debate about the usage of the term is partly a result of the scientific treatment of human societies, which is prone to the trappings of an objectivist reality and tends to conflate the diversity of pluralistic social experiences into symbolic, homogenized, or mechanistic observances of socially constructed worldviews. Still, if we can acknowledge the “knowledge-constitutive interests” of the observer, as Ulrich (1983, p. 64) tells us, or if we can free the hidden normative presuppositions of a determinable objective reality as “facts,” we may work within a qualitative view of a social system that includes a scientific or quantitative approach in a heuristic framework for social system analysis and intervention. Thus, a social system understanding of entropy and negentropy must be viewed with 114 Other authors have commented on the challenge of a quantitative approach to social systems (Byrne, 1998, p. 54; Elliott & Kiel, 1996, p. 3) 156 caution. I will use a transsystemic perspective of entropy–negentropy through a complementarist lens to deal with this challenge. Such an approach connects the similarities between a quantitative and qualitative approach to causation, and thus to how a quality and quantity perspective of a nonlinear dynamical novelty may apply (see Bryman, 2004, p. 170). Since the symbolic view that societies become more disordered (entropic) or ordered (negentropic) has great metaphoric significance, I maintain its usage in this dissertation due to its qualitative heuristic value. How can a nonlinear dynamical view of entropy–negentropy be applied to social systems and particularly to a collective worldview? I will answer this question by examining what happens after a perturbation or break occurs in the causal flow of normality in a system of collective worldviews and an arousal-provoking uncertainty is generated thereby increasing entropy. To describe this practically in the context of social systems, I will create a fictionalized town as a thought experiment: a single-resource town experiences a climate change induced flood that destroys infrastructure, triggering a destabilization of the economy (this thought experiment is relevant to Manuscript #3 as well). I propose that the destabilization occurs due to an entropic disordering of the economy. In this case, entropy refers to the amount of uncertainty or disorderliness that provokes anxiety in individuals (Gabora, 2017, p. 10), but also refers to the collective amount of uncertainty and disorderliness in a social group, where communication breaks down and conceptual structures, rules, and resource flows destabilize the social system. Applied to our example, the resource town experiences considerable challenges during and immediately after the flood. Infrastructure damage creates a basic need for food and water, and as such tension between townspeople arises. Soon after, social communication becomes dissonant, misunderstandings occur between people, groups and nations, and identity conflicts occur between static collective worldviews and dynamic collective worldviews oriented toward change. Competition increases between townspeople, and the social cohesion fluctuates to generate a growing sense of disharmony and instability. Social services are under-resourced due to an overwhelming demand. Randomness, disruption, or disparate independent behaviours or structures occur. This is a social system in crisis. However, the town has a high level of diversity amongst its constituents, both culturally and in terms of skill and educational background. Natural, economic, social and human resources are rich in the community. As a result, the system exemplifies having the four preconditions of novelty (tension, competition, instability, and 157 diversity). It is in this type of far-from-equilibrium state that creative output tends to arise (Guastello, 2002, p. 170). As the system breaches its causal normality, possibilities flood the system in a breakthrough of actuality, or, the system chooses a path that trends toward a “business-as-usual” response. The collective worldview of the townspeople shifts either gradually and incrementally over time, or in a sudden punctuated or dramatic social change. To examine how a collective worldview may undergo nonlinear dynamical novelty generation, I will examine here the concepts of self-organization and diversity (of outcomes) to highlight key processes of novel change during the zone of transition. The four preconditions of tension, competition, instability and diversity of constituents lead up to the bifurcating point of transition; however, self-organization and diversity are of significance within the transitional zone. A collective worldview self-organizes, self-generates, or self-mends toward a diverse range of creative cultural outputs (Gabora, 2017, pp. 12, 37). As Gabora (2017) claims, it is “creativity as a process that catalyzes the transformation of self-organizing worldviews” (p. 37). Self-organization in a social system refers to the spontaneous ordering or efforts to reduce the disordering of complex tension, instability, competition, and variability (i.e. the Four Preconditions of Novelty in chapter 2.1.4.c). When a system like a collective worldview moves toward a state of chaos (i.e., very far-from-equilibrium), self-organizing feedback loops synergistically stabilize it to reduce entropy (Guestello, 1998, p. 45). For instance, the community tries to mitigate unemployment, reduce competition of sparse resources, and increase social services for depression or anxiety. As the diversity of constituents increases, the types of interactions increase as well, which can trigger counterbalancing forces of the system’s instability (Solé et al., 2002, p. 678). In other words, overall heterogeneity leads to an eventual increased stability or order.115 Honing theory indicates that an entropic mind detects different concepts in states of potentiality and considers those concepts from different contexts (Gabora, 2017, p. 24). Diverse contexts allow for, I argue, a collective worldview to undergo a process of reconceptualization until the group’s psychological entropy is dissipated to acceptable levels. As 115 The great diversity–stability debate (McCann, 2000) in ecological systems reminds us that diversity, instability, and competition do not have linear or simplistic relationships. While pre-1970 researchers observed that greater diversified ecosystems had greater stability, May (1973) showed through mathematical models that greater diversity decreased stability. However, with the variance of constituent interactions and spatial dynamics contextualized, over-all diversity does give rise to system stability; the reason for this is complex and not due to diversity alone (McCann, 2000, p. 232; Gravel et al., 2016, p. 6). 158 such, “diverse creative processes” (p. 24) aid in “the restructuring of worldviews and the evolution of culture” (p. 24) in which such processes stimulate innovation. Self-organization and diversity are important parts of an entropic–negentropic model of creativity and innovation, because self-organization is the nonlinear dynamical driver of the system from entropic disordering to negentropic ordering, and therefore is ultimately the driver of systemic change). Since Gabora claims that psychological entropy is fundamental to individual creativity (2017, p. 10), I suggest that entropic disordering of a social system is an important trigger for social innovation, through the collective worldview dissipation of uncertainty or disorder. It is through the negentropic process of self-organization and diversification that a social system attempts to reduce its entropy to self-mend its collective worldview toward order. Negentropy here refers to the collective self-mending that is generated through innovative means with an increase in resource flows and novel perceptions within collective worldviews. The community reaches a “transition point”, which is the threshold of departure from the normal business-as-usual behaviours toward unusual or outlier options that do not repeat past decisions. In the resource town from above, the community reaches a “critical turning point” and makes a far-reaching decision, such as choosing new policies that lead the city toward innovative entrepreneurial possibilities. In practice, however, a transition point is unlikely to be singular and more likely to occur in a zone or phase of heightened shifts, decisions, policy change, or new social directions over a (relatively) short period of time. Low recurrence and thus novelty occurs in a social system when the number of possible recurrent paths taken by a collective after the transition point is low. Low recurrence helps social innovators understand why a social innovation is “novel.” Lower than random repetition indicates an “active process of innovation” (Sugerman & Sabelli, 2003, p. 832). In this scenario, the disordered flow of social conditions transitions toward novel order through the low-recurrence in self-organization. In other words, social systems undergo transformative innovation when the shift from a previous state to a new state lacks repetition or redundancy. The community reviews the perturbing problem from multiple perspectives and recursively and collectively hones new ideas through various communication processes. The community’s uncertainty provokes change: they exchange the old single-resource economic model for a diversified and sustainable economy and change business-as-usual policy decisions for slightly riskier but calculated alternatives. They 159 also enter into uncertainty with a clear communal vision by creating prospective ideas in a “come together” attitude that invigorates the community to form a new communal movement toward social change. Honing theory suggests that the arousal-provoking uncertainty of psychological entropy can be experienced as a “wellspring for creativity” (Gabora, 2017, p. 10) in an overall effort to displace the “entropy” in a worldview back to order, consistency, or integrity (Gabora, 2017, p. 11). Gabora’s description of a wellspring aligns with the proposal herein of the breakthrough of excess of possibility, offering a rich source of potential creativity. The wellspring may manifest as new behaviours such as entrepreneurial efforts or as novel social structures of new policy or social services. These processes include, for example, consensus decision-making, dotmocracy, participatory processes such as plurality or quadratic voting, or even creative processes like synectics, morphological analysis, or soft systems methods. Whichever novel decision-making processes arise, low recurrence and innovative solutions will be optimal so that the same system-wide perturbation is much less likely to arise again. In the following Manuscript #3, I will use an entropic–negentropic understanding of social systems innovation as a starting point to develop the concepts and apply them to a further broad-scaled approach to social systems while looking further at processes of “destruction” (or entropy) and “creation” (or negentropy). 160 5. MANUSCRIPT #3 Systems in Social Complexity: Social Systems Innovation We need a thinking that recognizes its incompleteness and can deal with uncertainty, the unforeseen, interdependencies, and inter-retro-actions that quickly expand to a planetary scale, discontinuity, nonlinearity, disequilibrium, ‘chaotic’ behavior, and bifurcations. (Morin & Kern, 1999, p. 131) 5.1.1 Background and Narrative In this chapter, I switch the focus from a generalizable multi-systems approach to systemic-dynamic creativity to a social systems approach to creativity as it arises in social systems innovation. While complex systems theory has been applied to social innovation (Geels & Schot, 2010; Goldstein et al., 2010; McCarthy, 2017; Westley & Antadze, 2010), the current social innovation literature has insufficiently accounted for a nonlinear dynamical view of broad-scaled social systems change. Such an account would offer social innovators a deeper understanding of the transitional processes of systemic change such as the entropic–negentropic thermodynamic tension found as “generalizable” or shared traits across multiple systems. An entropic–negentropic dynamic approach to social systems would assist changemakers in understanding the disordering–ordering processes of broad-scale systems change as it occurs in societies, as well as in individual worldviews. While the term social innovation is often applied to social enterprises (e.g., wind turbine businesses), I will investigate systemic transformations of a generally broad nature, such as the development of the Internet (Tjörnbo, 2017, p. 116). Such a systemic social innovation is sometimes referred to as social systems innovation. In this chapter, building on Manuscript #2, I investigate creativity as the force that drives the process of self-organization in social systems as a result of disorder transitioning toward order (negentropy). I then suggest that the entropy–negentropy dynamic may be related metaphorically to Schumpeter’s creative destruction. When changemakers understand a nonlinear and dynamic view of how innovation is generated across multiple systems (i.e., human systems in their 161 interaction with natural systems), they will be able to make clearer assumptions and therefore create methods to find novelty in the system to determine how transitional “points” of innovation may be leveraged or accentuated for successful intervention. As an example, an appropriate intervention that a nonlinear dynamical approach might address includes working with a city council to transition a single-resource “boomtown” economy to a diversified and sustainable economy. For ten years I have been involved in the local economy movement of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which has taught me about the need for a nonlinear dynamic view of innovation as a tool for social intervention. Calgary has long been considered a boomtown (Wells, 2005; Atchison, n.d.) due to the economic success of the oil and gas industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Calgary’s small open economy, however, leaves it susceptible to the volatility of the international trade of its crude oil exports (City of Calgary, 2021, p. 3). External disruptive factors—such as the 2007/2008 economic crash; the 2013 city-wide flood; and an oil price crash that started in 2015—have caused destructive economic conditions to be contrasted by oil price increases due to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 and the concurrent climate-change-related forest fires, heat waves, and hailstorms (City of Calgary, 2021, pp. 4, 14). Local citizens have had to ride a destructive–creative rollercoaster of economic uncertainty, due in part to the economic dependence on oil as a singularly main resource. Additionally, Calgary has become the second most unequal Canadian city in terms of income gaps between the median wage earner and the top 1% (Statistics Canada, 2018). I felt compelled to find an innovative response to the economic disparity of a volatile economic landscape and single-resource dependency, and thus, I joined the team of the locanomics social enterprise: Calgary Dollars (2016). Calgary Dollars is a social innovation and community economic development program that offers Calgarians an alternative revenue-generation source through a local economy business network. I started managing the program in 2011 and co-initiated its transition to a digital currency to establish it as a social enterprise and revenue generator with a social purpose. With the same values and drive as the transition movement, which is a people-led alternative to oil dependency and climate change (Hopkins, 2010, p. 14), Calgary Dollars attempts to address the complex challenge of an unstable monetary velocity, low-income revenue generation, and an oil-dependent globalization through administering a citizen-inspired economic wellbeing program. 162 While the program has aspirations of having broad-scaled and multisystemic social innovation application in its relation to sustainability, climate change, locanomics, globalization, wellbeing, and poverty reduction, it is challenged by its ability to make an impact of scale across the city of Calgary such that it generates systemic interventions in its participants’ lives with growing benefit. The program addresses complex and dynamical social system challenges—primarily a leaking economy built on the single-resource of oil—and can benefit from a complex systems approach to systemic change. Although I have since left the program, I feel it is a novel social enterprising effort that is ripe for a nonlinear dynamical model of social systems transformation. Such a transformation might benefit its changemaking staff in their efforts to scale impact and address complex social challenges across multiple fields and disciplines. The following manuscript supports an understanding of the theoretical and practical roots of transsystemic drivers of complex social change through offering an entropic–negentropic model of social system dynamics. It then discusses how resource-dependent boomtown economies are susceptible to challenges of a worldview that drives consumption of resources at the expense of long-term sustainability. It also offers several conceptual possibilities for systems innovations to address such issues. Part of my focus as a scholar–practitioner has been to scale my complex systems thinking to be applicable to systemic conditions for interventions applicable to smaller entrepreneurial efforts, such as in the Calgary Dollars example. The below manuscript is one outcome of that quest to learn and explore possible concepts and develop new ideas towards social systems innovations for beneficial change. The manuscript starts with a section on how technology evolves, and explores creativity in relation to worldviews and their creative potential for cultural change. It then investigates creativity as a driver for social systems innovation via creative destruction, offering examples to support its points. 163 The Manuscript: The Cultural Evolution of Creative Ideas and Social Innovations A Complex Systems Approach Chapter 10 in New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation: Novelty Creation in a Serendipitous Economy116 By Mike Unrau and Liane Gabora * I offer footnotes to the subsections that are Gabora’s writing. The Introduction and Conclusion were co-authored, and the other subsections were written by this dissertation’s author. Abstract We apply complex systems science to the study of social systems and show how a complex-systems-inspired theory of creativity, which is referred to as “honing theory”, provides insight into social innovation. We propose that creativity and social innovation are processes of self-organization that yield a lower-entropy state in worldviews, which are self-organizing webs of understanding. This allows us to offer a novel perspective on the evolution of technology, the role of creativity in cultural evolution and the manner in which creativity drives innovation in social systems, such as the economy. We also introduce creative destruction as having metaphoric relevance for a social system transition from entropy to negentropy, and offer a social innovation example addressing economic collapse and resilient reorganization. We conclude that concepts from complex systems theory, and particularly entropy, shed light on both creativity and social innovation and further our understanding of how innovation affects social systems, such as in cultural and economic change. Keywords Complex systems, honing theory, creativity, social innovation, cultural evolution 116 Unrau, M. & Gabora, L. (2021). The Cultural Evolution of Creative Ideas and Social Innovations: A Complex Systems Approach. In G. Cattani & M. Mastrogiorgio (Eds.) New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation: Novelty Creation in a Serendipitous Economy (pp. 185-210). Oxford University Press. 164 5.2.1 Introduction The role of technological innovation in driving cultural and economic change is widely appreciated. Less appreciated but equally important is the role of social innovation. We define social innovation as a new and broadly effective solution to a problem that is social in nature (e.g. gang violence or unemployment due to economic collapse) for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole as opposed to individuals. By incorporating insights from complex systems science and, more specifically, the complex-systems-inspired theory of creativity, which is referred to as “honing theory” (HT) (Gabora, 2017), we demonstrate how social innovation can be fruitfully viewed as a creative process. Therefore, the wealth of theoretical and experimental research into creativity sheds new light on the nature of social problems, how they are represented in the minds of individuals and groups, and how these representations can shift to yield new approaches and solutions. Our approach to creativity and social innovation incorporates concepts from complex systems science—for example, the transition from confusion to insight (in the case of creativity) or social unrest to a strengthened civil society (in the case of social innovation), where both are described as processes of self-organization yielding a lower-entropy state. This chapter also discusses the cultural and economic impacts of social innovation and its role in cultural evolution. We begin by addressing the sense in which elements of culture, including but not limited to technology (i.e. also including languages, mannerisms, activities, stories, and so forth) can be said to evolve. Thereafter, we outline our view of how the creative process fuels cultural innovation. We then discuss how creative processes in a social innovation context fuel cultural evolution and economic change. We offer a speculative account of how concepts from complex systems theory may shed light on the dynamics of how social innovations affect cultural and economic change. 5.2.2 In What Sense Does Technology Evolve?117 The significance of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was that it integrated scattered biological knowledge into a united framework, thus enabling us to see how species fit 117 Written by Gabora. 165 together in a unified “tree of life.” Given that languages, technology, and so forth change over time in a manner reminiscent of biological evolution, it seems reasonable to view culture as a second evolutionary process. By culture we mean extrasomatic adaptations, including behaviour and artefacts, that are socially rather than sexually transmitted. The elements of culture diversify and become more complex over time and exhibit phenomena observed in biological evolution, including niches, drift, epistasis, and punctuated equilibrium (Bentley et al., 2004; Durham, 1991; Gabora, 1995, 2001). Furthermore, cultural evolution has mechanisms for introducing variation and preserving fit variants, similar to biological evolution. Given the similarities between these two evolutionary processes, it should be determined if the framework developed by population geneticists to formally describe and explain evolution by natural selection (Fisher, 1930; Wright, 1931; Haldane, 1932) can also apply to culture. Indeed, there is a history of attempts to frame culture as a Darwinian or selectionist process (Boyd and Richerson, 1985; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 1981). The approach remains widespread; the formal frameworks of population genetics and phylogenetics is being adapted for application in anthropology (Brewer et al., 2017; Creanza et al., 2017; Mesoudi, 2017), archaeology (O’Brien and Lyman, 2000), economics (Hodgson, 2002; Essletzbichler, 2011; Nelson and Winter, 2002), neuroscience (Edelman, 1987, 2014), and creativity (Campbell, 1960; Simonton, 1999a,b, 2011), and is being applied to the evolution of languages (Pagel, 2017; Fitch, 2005). However, culture cannot be accommodated by a Darwinian framework (Gabora, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2019b). First, cultural variation is not randomly generated. To the extent that this is the case, the distribution of variants reflects whatever is biasing the generation away from random in the first place, rather than Darwinian selection, i.e. differential selection on the distribution of randomly generated heritable variation in a population over generations. Cultural Darwinians sometimes concede this point (e.g. Heyes, 2018) but fail to recognize its implications for the assumed validity of a Darwinian framework. Second, there are two kinds of traits in biological evolution: (1) inherited traits (e.g. eye colour), which are transmitted vertically from parent to offspring by way of genes, and (2) acquired traits (e.g. a tattoo), which are obtained during an organism’s lifetime and are transmitted horizontally to others. Vetsigian et al. (2006) showed that crossing what they refer to as the Darwinian threshold from a non-Darwinian to a Darwinian evolutionary process required 166 the emergence of a self-assembly code (such as the genetic code), i.e. a set of instructions for how to reproduce. The low-level information-bearing components of the code must be organized in an orderly manner so that they can be parsed into meaningful units; otherwise, the precisely orchestrated process by which it is expressed to generate offspring is disrupted. A Darwinian explanation works in biology to the extent that acquired change is negligible relative to inherited change; otherwise, the first, which can operate instantaneously, overwhelms the second, which takes generations. There is no evidence that cultural evolution has crossed this threshold. Indeed, cultural evolution does not possess the signature characteristic of having crossed this threshold: a lack of transmission of acquired traits. In cultural evolution, there are no vertically transmitted inherited traits, and all change is more acquired. Therefore, cultural evolution is not due to the mechanism Darwin proposed (i.e. differential replication of heritable variation in response to selection). Indeed, considering that (as Darwin himself noted) his theory concerns the consequences of competition among existing organisms, it does not address how they come into existence in the first place. This precludes a selectionist but not an evolutionary framework for culture. There is increasing recognition of the impact of non-Darwinian processes on evolution (e.g. Arnheim and Taylor, 1969; Kauffman, 1993; Killeen, 2019; King and Jukes, 1969; Koonin, 2009; Ling et al., 2015; Woese, 2002). The improbability that a structure as complex as RNA could arise spontaneously led to the now predominant view that the earliest life forms evolved without a self-assembly code via the self-organization of autocatalytic molecular networks and the horizontal (lateral) exchange of catalytic molecules between them, with natural selection emerging later from this more haphazard ancestral evolutionary process (Baum, 2018; Cornish-Bowden and Cárdenas, 2017; Gabora, 2006; Hordijk et al., 2018; Hordijk et al., 2010; Kauffman, 1993; Steel, 2000; Vetsigian et al., 2006). Kauffman (1993) showed that when catalytic molecules interact, they generate new molecules such that their diversity increases; therefore, there is a probability that some subset of them reaches a critical point where there is a catalytic pathway to every member, a state he referred to as autocatalytic closure.118 Autocatalytic sets emerge for a range of 118Although “closure” has different mathematical meanings and sometimes refers to a condition that bounds a set, Kauffman (1993) (following Erdos and Rényi) used it to state that the set surpasses a threshold density of connectedness by way of catalysis events. 167 hypothetical chemistries (i.e. different collections of catalytic molecules). It has been suggested that autocatalytic networks can also explain conceptual closure (CC), which is the origin of the kind of cognitive structure that makes cultural evolution possible (Gabora, 1998, 2000, 2013; Gabora and Steel, 2017). Just as interactions between catalytic molecules generate new molecules, forging associations among concepts generates new concepts, which in turn enables new associations. CC is attained when some subset of them reaches a critical point where there is an associative pathway to every member. In short, self-other reorganization (SOR) posits that culture evolves through the interplay of communal exchange between minds and self-organizing processes within minds (Gabora, 2019b). SOR bridges the cultural evolution literature with the literature on creative thinking and psychological growth. Since, unlike the Darwinian approach, SOR is compatible with the transmission of non-random acquired change, support has come from demonstrations of this phenomenon in studies of creative people (Ranjan et al., 2013; Scotney et al., 2018; Weissmeyer et al., 2019). 5.2.3 Creativity: The Process That Drives Cultural Evolution119 Creativity research has emphasized the generation of multiple ideas over what is sometimes called honing—reflecting on a question or idea by viewing it from different perspectives, with the output of each such reflection providing the input to the next, recursively (Gabora, 2017). Therefore, the creator comes to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of it. The honing of an idea is shepherded by an overarching conceptual framework, the structure of which reflects the individuals’ worldview: their self-organizing web of understandings about their world and their place in that world (in other words, the creator’s mind as experienced “from the inside”). As in other self-organizing systems, a worldview interacts with and adapts to its environment to minimize internal entropy, which is a measure of uncertainty and internal disorder. The concept of entropy, which comes from information theory and thermodynamics, refers to the amount of uncertainty and disorder in a system. Open systems (e.g. living organisms) obtain energy (or information) from the environment, use it to maintain semi-stable, far-from- 119 Written by Gabora. 168 equilibrium states, and displace entropy into the environment, thereby keeping their own entropy low. Hirsh et al. (2012) used the term psychological entropy to refer to anxiety-provoking uncertainty and claimed that humans continually try to keep it at a manageable level. Elsewhere, the term has been used to refer to arousal-provoking uncertainty, which can be experienced negatively as anxiety or positively as a wellspring for creativity or both (Gabora, 2017). Redefining psychological entropy in terms of arousal as opposed to anxiety is consistent with the finding that creative people exhibit higher tolerance of ambiguity and greater openness to experience (Feist, 1998), which may predispose them to states of cognitive uncertainty. Creative people also exhibit higher variability in arousal (Martindale and Armstrong, 1974), which may reflect a predilection to enter situations that increase psychological entropy, relish them, and resolve them. According to the “honing theory” (HT) of creativity (Gabora, 2017), the creative process makes use of psychological entropy, a macro-level variable acting at the level of the worldview, to drive intuitions and emotions that help the individual track and monitor creative progress. Honing continues until psychological entropy decreases to an acceptable level. To use Piaget’s terminology, during honing, each new “take” on the idea is assimilated, and the worldview changes in response to accommodate this new understanding. In honing theory, insight is explained in terms of self-organized criticality (SOC) (Gabora, 1998, 2017; Schilling, 2005). SOC is a phenomenon wherein, through simple local interactions, complex systems tend to find a critical state poised at the cusp of a transition between order and chaos, from which a single small perturbation occasionally exerts a disproportionately large effect (Bak et al., 1988). While most thoughts have little effect on one’s worldview, an insightful idea is one for which one thought triggers another, which triggers another, and so forth in an avalanche of conceptual change. While it is tempting to assume that creative thought entails the generation of multiple, distinct ideas, there may be just one underlying mental representation that affords some degree of ambiguity in its interpretation. Even though the different designs for a possible work of art or prototypes of an invention take different forms when expressed in the physical world, this does not mean they derive from different underlying ideas in the mind. The designs or prototypes may be different external realizations of the same underlying idea at different stages of a creative 169 honing process. As the idea loses potentiality and gains concreteness, psychological entropy dissipates. 5.2.4 How Creativity Drives Innovation in a Social System120 As discussed earlier in this book, when an open system acquires energy, resources, and/or information from its environment, entropy may be displaced, thus creating a semi-stable state. By way of this kind of change of state, the system may evolve (Schrödinger, 1944). In cultural evolution, what is evolving is human worldviews, and psychological entropy provides an arousal-provoking signal that a more evolved state is possible. As we saw above, psychological entropy may be generated by a problem, need, inconsistency, gap in knowledge, missing element, or disruption, and through self-other reorganization it transitions121 from an entropic or disordered state towards a more ordered or stable state. In an individual worldview, this happens via creativity. In a collective worldview,122 we propose that the old structures that are transformed into new ones undergo a transition between these two states via a social system innovation. A social system innovation is an innovation that takes place in a social system, such as a new way in which an economy, organization, group, or sociotechnical system functions. In contemporary usage, the term “innovation” often refers to creative processes or outcomes (Pavitt, 2006; Badiru, 2020). When an innovation pertains to the creation of a process or outcome in a social system for a broader societal value in addressing a social challenge, it is called a social innovation (Ward, 1909; Phills et al., 2008; Andrew and Klein, 2010). While any innovation may address a social problem or need, a social innovation directs its value towards novel solutions for the benefit of the societal whole.123 All innovations have similar processes, including the 120 Original writing, as is from here on until the Conclusion. 121We will use the term “transition” to describe the transformation or even replacement of the deep structure (or regime) of a system through the constant iterative changes that reinforce each other towards the emergence of a new structure (Grin et al., 2010, p. 326). 122This term is used as a collective of the individual worldviews of a group or society and their coherently connected web of interrelations, as opposed to a whole entity operating independently. Therefore, the term encompasses how individuals in a social group collectively weave their narratives and understandings by interacting with the world. Here, the term ‘collective’ is not meant as in collectivism, or as a political structure; rather, it is a multitude that includes the plurality of all variations of individual worldviews within it (Aerts et al., 1994, p. 21). 123Although innovations can have positive and negative impacts upon a social system and be designed as such (think of the nuclear bomb as a radical innovation of the time), social innovations are geared towards positive impacts relative to what is paradigmatically and collectively decided as a ‘benefit’ in that particular society’s milieu. For 170 generation of novelty, the transitioning of novelty into artefacts, and the filling of unmet needs or functions in society (Pavitt, 2006; Badiru, 2020; Gabora, 2018b). Here is an example that we will return to throughout the chapter: a small oil “boomtown” experiences a “bust” and a person loses her job but develops an idea to start a wind power business. The individual’s worldview experiences a disruption and triggers personal stress, which stimulates a creative solution. Let us look at the same scenario from a collective perspective. After the resource town experiences the economic collapse, a town meeting instigates a shared vision that inspires a few individuals to work on a local wind power project. The meeting results in a new policy that encourages a burgeoning renewable power sector that stimulates a new energy source, strong social networks, and the local economy. The collective worldview undergoes a disruption that triggers economic stress, which stimulates the advance of a social innovation. In either case, in the transition from an entropic or disordered state to a stable or ordered state, ideas are honed to dissipate entropy by organizing, replicating, and exchanging different perspectives. Let us consider the process as active in social systems when people are seeking solutions via creative ideas and as passive when people are not seeking solutions but ideas arise out of necessity owing to external pressures or shocks.124 When it is passive, the innovation process could be likened to what happens in the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolutionary biology, in which rapid evolutionary events interrupt speciation stasis for short periods of time (Eldredge and Gould, 1972). Likewise, a sudden or short-term event in a social system in which the innovation process is passive may stimulate increased idea generation. Entropic disruptions happen in societal systems (such as the economy) with unpredictability: steady growth may be interrupted by runaway entropy production, and social structures can be threatened (Bailey, 1996). Perhaps jobs are lost and an increase in poverty ensues. However, the proposal here is that innovations introduce energy, resources, and information that fight against entropy (in a type of “negative example, the “intelligence test” was geared to solve a social problem at the turn of the nineteenth century, but a hundred years later is considered to have been collectively damaging (see McGowan, 2017). 124 Here, we associate active and passive innovation with transport phenomena in biology (Rosenberg & Johanson, 1948). Plawsky (2014) summarizes the concept by saying it is the process of going from nonequilibrium to equilibrium states or vice versa. 171 entropy” or negentropy) by allowing the system to change or evolve and/or stimulating self-organization in interrelated systems or subsystems.125 5.2.5 The Role of Creative Destruction A social system innovation, we propose, is like individual creativity in that it can emerge in response to an entropic, disordered, or even destructed state. An entropic worldview can innovate to originate novel output. Worldviews move towards stability when they self-organize new components out of older or destructed ones, self-replicate or reconstitute a successful component such as by iterating itself in a new context and exchange components for novel restructuring (Gabora, 2018a: p. 4). The result might include enough of a worldview modification to evolve not only knowledge creation but also technological advancement and the development of a new economic paradigm. In social systems, this can be described as creative destruction because old elements are destroyed in the creation of new ones (Schumpeter, 1942). The economy is a collective network of social agreements (positive or negative) that is part of our culture (Freeman, 1990; Rawls, 1993) and is thus subject to collective worldview change. Old elements of an entropic collective worldview are “destroyed” to create new ordered ones through novel restructuring. A destructed state transitions through creative means to a “restructed” one. Schumpeter applies the term creative destruction to the economic structures of capitalism by claiming that capitalism has creative destruction built within it and must evolve or die (Schumpeter, 1942). Any economic system that utilizes its resources to its advantage continuously in an immediate timeframe may fail compared with a system that utilizes its resources continuously over the long term. In this case, innovation is the active or passive process that moves from any inherent limiting elements in an economic system that are destructive (e.g. the continuously immediate utilization of resources to the cost of the long term) to the dynamic elements that respond to the limiting ones but are resilient enough to find balance in the unpredictability of the long term. In this situation, innovation can be seen as holonic, that is, fully considering the part (the need to utilize resources in the immediate timeframe advantageously) 125 In terms of the ‘puzzle’ example from earlier in this book, the friend in the trunk of the car may not put the puzzle back together in its original arrangement but instead glues different pieces together creatively to make a sculpture. This action helps the friend acquire an unmet need: getting out of the trunk of a car. 172 and fully considering the whole (the need to utilize resources over the long term). Koestler (1967) used the term holon, which was based on his observations of biological and social systems, to refer to a whole that is also a part of another whole (see also Botti and Giret, 2008). If a destructive agent in an economic system is gradualistic and causes little obvious morphological change, then the innovation process in the system may be less noticeable. An economic system may “hum along,” recursively altering the system continuously in a short-term timeframe with minimal increments. However, if the destruction is abrupt (such as in a punctuated equilibrium model and in an unforeseen crisis of resources in an exogenous shock), the resulting process out of crisis into opportunity essentially creates possibilities or demands for innovation. The economic system’s utilization of resources, continuously at incremental adjustments, builds up tension in the system when long-term considerations are unforeseen and therefore suddenly “explode” into chaos. Such destructive crises are often seen as negative. However, if they are viewed from this Schumpeterian point of view, such crises have built-in possibility for innovation. The types of resulting innovations are not necessarily system-linear or domain-specific but can be across domains and even exapted.126 The driver of a social system such as an economy (whether it be gradualistic or punctuated) is the innovative process by which old elements of an entropic collective worldview are “destroyed” to create new ordered ones. A transition process such as this one is instigated through different possible forces, such as perturbations (shock), incremental change (gradualistic), and the recombination of, or shift between, systems, scopes, and temporal or geospatial scales (Geels & Schot, 2010; Turchin, 1977; Goldstein et al., 2010). The heuristic adaptive cycle (Gunderson & Holling, 2002) describes the nonlinear path that many social systems take (and others, such as environmental systems) and shows how a perturbation or shock initiates creative destruction to release the tightly bound or rigid limitations of the system, thus instigating a phase of innovation or reorganization and is followed by a system’s slower exploitation and conservation (for another interpretation, see Fath et al., 2015). Once a system reaches its critical point, it shifts to redirect its resources to adaptive change via self-organization 126Exaptation refers to the cooption of a characteristic that originally evolved for one purpose and was then used for a different purpose. For example, although feathers evolved to provide insulation, they were later co-opted for flight (see Gould and Vrba, 1982). 173 and low recurrence, fighting against entropy towards negentropy via innovation and reorganization. Innovation drives the social system’s transformation toward new growth, similar to creativity in psychological systems and emergence in complex natural systems. It also highlights honing theory’s proposal that cultural evolution occurs through the honing of creative ideas in individual or collective worldviews (Gabora, 2017). We propose that Schumpeter’s term “creative destruction” can also be used to describe metaphorically the processes within social systems that represent the transition towards entropic states of instability (“destruction”), and the transition toward negentropic states of stability (“creation”). A social system’s transition from a disordered state to a novel stable state occurs through innovation. 5.2.6 An Economic Example and a Social Innovation Response Let us examine how economic systems evolve by using the example of the utilization of resources. Oil has been claimed to be “the lifeblood of the modern economy” (Bentley, 2016: p. 1) because it comprises the largest portion of the world’s traded supply of energy. When oil is in short supply, social disturbance can occur, as exemplified by the oil crisis of 1973, the European fuel protests of 2000, and the 2018 Brazilian state of emergency. Peak oil, or the notion that oil supply will peak and then reduce in supply (Hubbert, 1956), suggests that further social disruptions may yet occur (Bentley, 2016). As resource availability depletes or becomes more challenging to access, and as we shift from conventional oil supply to nonconventional oil supplies such as oil sands and shale, supply decreases, and prices tend to increase. When this happens, energy descent occurs, and disruption to economic and social systems develops, thus creating a gap in the supply-to-demand (Bentley, 2016). In current oil-based economies (e.g. Alberta, Canada), the energy demand is being met with technological innovations, such as new extraction methods like fracking, 3D seismic imaging, and MWD (Measurement While Drilling) technology and new methods are emerging all the time. However, other innovations to increase energy supply have also arisen outside of the demand for oil, namely, novel uses of renewable resources such as algae, alcohol waste, lake-bed sediment, and even human body heat (Kim et al., 2018). Whether or not these become useful large-scale solutions with broad impact as unique and new alternatives to meet the energy 174 demand, they indicate the movement from a disrupted economy’s gradualist growth to innovatively adapt, exapt, or create new avenues for supply. As an example of a type of evolutionary exaptation of older technology, windmills were originally developed to pump water or grind grains but more recently have been modernized and used for electricity generation. As a result, windmill electricity generation has become one of the fastest growing methods of electrical power creation in the world (Natural Resources Canada, 2016). The shifting away of importance from total profitability to human and environmental sustainability in a “triple bottom line” or social enterprise structure has brought to economic systems a social innovation paradigm shift from the Friedman doctrine of the 1970s (Cordes, 2014). Perhaps, as Schumpeter implies, the short-term continuous utilization of non-renewable oil-derived energy will lead to failure as supply decreases or as climate change impacts increase, compared with more resilient innovations that utilize renewable resources over the long term. These are examples of innovation arising in the transition from an entropic state to a steady-state that honing theory holds as creativity in worldviews. Although such innovations may have happened passively or with little intention or intervention originally, as demands for energy increase, they are now occurring more actively in creating positive interventions for faster and longer-term results. A large-scale renewable energy source is highly sought after; it seems that the green economy is not an obscure tangent but is an increasing percentage of the global economy that is based on natural cycles rather than a linear economic design (Danaher et al., 2016). Volvo’s commitment to producing “all electric” vehicles in 2019 similarly indicates an economic evolution towards a renewable energy source (Ewing, 2017); innovations will increase in demand if other companies and industries take a similar stance. Innovations in social systems have also resulted from the peak oil dilemma. The transition movement or “Transition,” as it is called, is a direct response to oil dependency and climate change (Hopkins, 2010). In an example of a shift in focus from global economic drivers to communal self-sufficiency across domains (social enterprise, community development, community currency, and local politics), this movement has hundreds of “transition towns” that have committed to such an emphasis. The movement has shown signs of having its own culture and could be considered a fusion between a social and an environmental movement that “transitions” away from oil dependency towards a “permanent culture” (Mollison and Holmgren, 175 1978). Permaculture, which is a social design principle that responds to the need for agricultural sustainability, was conceived at a time when Carson’s now classic book Silent Spring (1962) aroused a global consciousness of environmental issues. These social design principles have expanded across multiple domains and were exapted beyond agricultural-based permaculture to social permaculture, financial permaculture, and a permaculture-based local-regional economy (Henfrey and Penha-Lopes, 2015). Cultural evolution here is not linear or one-dimensional, and the resulting innovations (both technological and social) cannot be attributed only to the disruptions triggered by low peak oil or environmental and economic degradation; still, the innovation process is non-arbitrary in that some innovative outputs can be attributed to the cause, as in the transition case (Hopkins, 2010). Innovations in a complex system accumulate change in the sense that, once an element such as permaculture has been introduced into the collective worldview, it can be drawn upon for future iterations or adaptations (or even simply as a reference point) regardless of its immediate success, reach, or broad adoption. Transition is an example of a social innovation, which is further defined as a “complex process of introducing new products, processes, or programs that profoundly change the basic routines, resource and authority flows, or beliefs of the social system in which the innovation occurs. Such successful social innovations have durability and broad impact” (Westley and Antadze, 2010: p. 2). Whether transitioning from an oil-based economic state towards a renewable sustainable state or from a global economic oil-dependent culture towards a sustainable economic or social permaculture, such systems are moving from a state of entropic disorder to a steady-state system of order via creativity in individual worldviews and via innovation in the collective worldviews of a social system. Although speculative, this is important because shifts in social systems that have the negentropic driver of innovation may lead researchers to search for transitional indicators of system (re)configuration, co-evolutionary processes, and multi-actor interactions such as social movements through entropic instability, variance, and competition (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984; Kondepudi and Prigogine, 1998, 2015; Kubicek and Marek, 1983). Once these indicators of entropy are observed in the context of the systemic negentropic change, social innovation interventions can be designed to actively or passively leverage the system toward behaviours or resource flows that increase value to the broader society. 176 5.2.7 A Complex Systems Approach to Social Innovation and its Relationship to Worldviews Social innovation can be seen as filling the gap of an unmet social need, a perceived unresolved social challenge to overcome, or a complex social problem to solve. Unmet needs that manifest as large-scale social challenges, such as persistent poverty, war, lack of education, or the economic collapse of a resource town, are inherently difficult to address successfully. The unmanageability of complex systems leads to challenges that are sometimes called wicked problems (Rittel and Webber, 1973) and to the unpre-stateability of any clear governing behaviour that would allow for a direct resolution (Kauffman, 1993). Similar to a psychological entropic state, these social complex problems (disorder) trigger an active or passive process towards innovative solutions (order) and, when approached with social innovation interventions and implementation, can create greater resilience and show promise of long-term stability (Westley, 2013). Social innovation is about change at the social systemic level and as such transcends sectors across domains and scales (Westley and Antadze, 2010; compare to creativity in Ranjan et al., 2013). The underlying mechanisms of change in social innovation evolves as culture evolves; therefore, the methods of social innovation tend to go beyond the strategies and theories that define them (Phills et al., 2008). When social innovations arise out of creative destruction and/or instigate it, they can become a type of disruptive innovation (Christensen et al., 2006). They disrupt the dominant social system and institutions as they restructure them to create new ones, thereby challenging relationships of power and resources and disturbing the basic habitualizations and belief systems of those who blindly work to uphold them (Murray et al., 2008; Westley and Antadze, 2010). For example, in Seoul, South Korea, after decades of authoritarian governments that favoured a corporate in-group domination of civil society, a new mayor created an innovative participatory process claiming that “citizens are mayors”, and gave unprecedented political access to the “everyday lives of citizens” (Kim et al., 2015: p. 171). With politically backed efforts, such as participatory city budgeting, citizen-created municipal news content, citizen-led policy creation and adoption, and real-time political meeting feedback platforms, these social innovations in municipal communications challenged established monopolies and crossed multiple domains. 177 Social innovations can be seen as having six key elements: 1) novelty (or the uniqueness of an idea, product, process or initiative) within the context of the field, domain, or system that it is being applied to; 2) implementation, or how the novel idea is implemented into the field, domain, or system and how well it can be done; 3) need, which describes the system’s need to be met; 4) effectiveness, which describes whether the innovation is more effective than the previous normalized or standard solutions; 5) enhancement, the ability for the innovation to alter society’s capacity to act; and 6) resilience, or the innovation’s ability to adapt to stress and change while retaining its basic function and structure (as described by The Young Foundation; Caulier-Grice et al., 2012). The recent development in social innovation that has heightened the focus on social entrepreneurism and social enterprise has spurred growth in the social economy, which is the “third sector” of the economy other than the government and private sector, placing people and place (environment) before profit (or in conjunction with it; CIRIEC International, 2016). This third sector is a burgeoning competitor in the global economic system, with, for example, 22 per cent of the EU population as members of associated businesses (European Commission, 2018). The social economy can be seen as a holonic system, which describes a system that is both a whole and a part, in that the social economy is part of the global economy, but its components (such as social enterprises, cooperative corporate structures, and B-Corp networks) are robust smaller systems on their own. Let us look at the scaling up of individual creative ideas to social innovations as per a negentropic process. Creative ideas start in the mind of an individual or group of individuals, from the detection of a psychologically entropic state concerning a social condition that provokes uncertainty and is arousal-inducing. Social innovations start similarly, but they occur passively or are conceived of actively in the context of a collective worldview entropic state transitioning to a social condition that is better than the current/previous condition (Caulier-Grice et al., 2012). If individual ideas are adopted or co-authored by supportive groups or communities, they can be implemented into the disrupted system that requires change and may evolve to include other strategies from the community to support the process or products required to facilitate such change. Finally, such collective ideas are integrated to address the complex dynamics of the social system, including blockages and resistances that created the disruption in the first place (McGowan et al., 2017). This describes a considerable leap from the individual (micro holon) to 178 the social system (macro holon) in which new ideas innovate over time to articulate or “bake” in the individual or group and percolate within the community and are then implemented, occurring in rapid succession owing to a sudden perturbation or shock to the system in a short period of time. The scaling up of an idea from the micro level to the macro level happens at different temporal frames for a multitude of reasons, including the ability of the idea to meet or overcome the limitations of the domain(s) in which the scaling happens within or across. Other reasons include social factors, such as the honing of ideas from the field of professionals that influences what should be implemented. Therefore, social innovations can initiate system change that involves cross-scale and cross-domain dynamics, reacting to and meeting needs in a way that can leave the system more durable, effective, and resilient in the long term (Westley and Antadze, 2010). For example, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a few individuals challenged the notion of a new national park system as only “islands of civilization in a sea of wilderness” (Dearden and Rollins, 2008: p. 112). Instead, they wanted to protect these areas in a cross-scale innovation that gathered thousands more to challenge industries, agricultures, and governments from regional to federal levels so that parks would become resilient biophysical and natural ecosystems with a focus on ecological integrity (Antadze, 2017). Now, a national park is seen more as an “island of wilderness within a sea of civilization” (Dearden and Rollins, 2008: p. 290). Social movements that challenge the societal norm, such as the parks example or the Transition movement mentioned earlier, are “early warning systems” that signal a dysfunction within a social system or a disruptive or entropic state (Henderson, 1993). Lateral information flows and citizen-led networks of social movements instigate self-organization through artefact-sharing and meaning-making, where the individual and collective worldviews respond to the gaps or interstices in destabilized social structures by challenging authority flows and beliefs towards novel, durable, and broad-scale solutions (Westley and Antadze, 2017; Henderson, 1993). Social movements often initiate social innovations; therefore, such movements are indicative of entropic processes within social systems as birthing places for novelty and the generation of innovation. New innovations tend to adapt or exapt current components or previous components upon which they were built. As worldviews evolve, so do innovations; however, the “trajectory” of this evolution may be nonlinear. If a system has an innovation trajectory that is seemingly irregular 179 but then “narrows” towards a specific “direction,” whatever the point of the direction that the trajectory is headed can be called an attractor (Lorenz, 1995; Klüver, 2000). As worldviews and innovations iterate, reinforce, and amplify each other, their trajectories could feed back into disorderly chaos; however, if they create a stable pattern of interaction held by attractors strong enough, even if disrupted endogenously or exogenously, they will return to that stable pattern (McGowan et al., 2017: p. 7). Like several rivers flowing back into the same sea (Kauffman, 1995), the “area” where this pattern returns to is called a basin of attraction. For example, as collective worldviews respond to disruptions in an oil-based economy by fluctuating to variant possible solutions that include a sustainable perspective, a novel renewable-oriented innovation that has resilient features may appear and become an attractor. To return to our earlier example of a resource town that has gone “bust,” consider the disruptive innovator who has an idea to start a wind power business, and others take interest. Instead of the other innovative ideas “leaving” the system, they return to support the novelty of the original attractor idea. If the attractor becomes a stable basin, meaning that the idea of the disruptive innovator keeps attracting the other ideas to support the direction of the attractor, the collective worldview may become more dominant and resilient. However, for reasons such as demographic stochasticity, random variation in population size (people coming and going or liking and disliking the ideas), temporal phases within the transition and perturbations (or shocks) to the basin (Stevens, 2009), not all attractors create a basin of attraction. Still, new ideas will adapt or exapt old ideas upon which they were based. In our example of a resource boomtown, a simple attractor would be the trajectory of all the insufficient but dominant routines, resource flows, authority flows, and social networks within the town’s community, organizations, and governments (Goldstein et al., 2010; Klüver, 2000) that aid its continuing use of dominant economic resources (oil). The town makes changes to its economic or social structure only to keep it stable so that the system variables do not affect the attractor or amplify the system to chaotic or disorderly levels. In other words, the boomtown continues “business as usual” and, thus, is oil dependent. However, complex systems are sensitive to initial conditions, so much so that even small initial disruptions can cause drastic outcomes (as in the butterfly effect127). Furthermore, even though outcomes cannot be predicted in complex 127A famous analogy is that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil causes a hurricane in Texas (Lorenz, 1972). 180 systems directly, the parameters that outcomes fall into can be predicted; such processes are “not random but look random” (Lorenz, 1995: p. 4; italics in original). Even though patterns of iteration occur in chaotic or random ways, complex systems self-organize and can evolve into surprisingly stable patterns. This may happen via a strange attractor (Ruelle and Takens, 1971; Kauffman, 1993; McCarthy, 2017), which occurs because of its sensitivity to initial conditions and due to the nearby trajectories converging upon it. It is “‘strange’ because it is orderly when it is expected to be random” (Rogers et al., 2005: p. 5) and can catalyse a chaotic system towards a patterned and stable structure (Dyer, 2012). Snowflakes are created in the chaos of a storm but display unique fractal patterns of self-replication and creativity that comes out of seeming disorder. Patterns of system behaviour that transition from instability toward stabilized structures can be applied to individual psychology and social systems as well (McCarthy, 2017). As described earlier, insight, through the lens of self-organized criticality, arises when a critical but semi-stable state is reached between order and chaos (punctuated equilibrium is an example of self-organized criticality) (Bak and Boettcher, 1997). If our example simple attractor is “business as usual,” a strange attractor would be the trajectory or goal that, through a catalyser or shift to the system that creates a social innovation, arises out of chaos but emerges as a unique pattern of social networks, interactions, and structures (Goldstein et al., 2010). For instance, the town may experience a flood that destroys much of the resource industry’s infrastructure. However, upon the social connectivity and “help your neighbour” attitude that organizes and restabilizes the town, a “shared vision” emerges that decides that the flooding may have been induced by climate change; as such, the town should seek innovation towards a novel renewable resource to create a sustainable opportunity (Gilstrap, 2005). If a strange attractor’s basin of attraction becomes large, it will be “highly resistant to disturbances” (Klüver, 2000: p. 114). A social innovation can be generally resilient even when there are disruptions. While complex systems can fluctuate between stable and chaotic states, strange attractors show us that something balanced can result when a system moves towards disorder. Self-organization limits complexity just within the “edge of chaos” in what some researchers call the goldilocks principle (Boulding, 1981), which refers to conditions that are “just right” (Klüver, 2000; McCarthy, 2017). The notion that a system can be chaotic and stable may seem paradoxical; however, when there is simultaneously order and chaos patterning that does not lead 181 to the extensive domination of chaos or order (yet existing in between both), the system can be called chaordic (Hock, 1999; van Eijnatten, 2004).128 For example, in a system that includes a storm (chaos) and wind turbine (stability), if neither dominate but instead complement each other, electricity can result. The storm needs to be strong enough to produce wind but not so strong that it renders the turbine useless. The tension between destruction and creation, entropy (disorder) and negentropy (order), and instability and stability may fluctuate owing to endogenous or exogenous reasons at different rates and scales. However, from a chaordic place, self-organizing, self-replicating, and exchanging elements within a social system become emergent in the sense that chaordic conditions allow for emergent structures to arise, thus leading to other emerging structures. In an iterative and evolving process, innovations create conditions that lead to other innovations (McCarthey, 2017). This implies that order and disorder (negentropy and entropy) are an integral part of innovation. Psychological entropy is an integral part of creativity and idea concretization. Similarly, we propose that creative destruction is an integral part of social innovation and implementation. This is not to emphasize the entropic or destructive process but rather to accentuate the role of creativity/innovation in the negentropic resiliency and evolution of a social system. This evolving systems dynamic can be seen as the result of the creative transition from entropy toward stability in not only individual worldviews but also the innovative transition from social disruptions toward stability in a collective worldview system. In our earlier example of an oil boomtown, when its economy collapses owing to a flood that leaves the economic situation and social network disrupted, a newly unemployed individual who is desperate to find a solid job has an idea. Psychological entropy arouses creative ideation. The individual collaborates with others and they hone their ideas in communal exchange. They see an unmet need within the community for an energy source; therefore, they begin a community wind power project that turns into a social enterprise that creates not only individual but communal economic stability. Perhaps modern technology is exapted from traditional resources, a social innovation project is sparked, and a social economy develops not only economic stability but also social network bonds. The initiative spurs the community to fund the project by 128Although chaos theory implies both chaos and order, van Eijnatten (2004) uses the term ‘chaordic’ to describe a chaotically ordered complex, and thus distinguishes it from the common use of the word ‘chaos’ as disorder or mayhem. 182 encouraging its citizens to be investors, thus resulting in a complex social network that is resilient and supports community commitment, participation, and contribution. Although not all actors in the system are benefactors, the collective begins to see that the destructive nature of the oil-based economic collapse was essential to their greater success. They find chaordic dynamism, such that the strange attractor of the shared vision of social innovation was neither dominating the system to become too large a project for the situation nor was dominated by the wicked problems of unemployment and social disruption, thus leading to a resilient outcome. The shared community effort helps to set up a system of replication of their model for exchange with others, scaling up their innovation. The government takes on the initiative, crossing fields and domains out of community effort and into political policy. For the town, the ideas of economic collapse become part of their new social innovation theory, thus evolving the collective worldviews of the townspeople towards long-term utilization of resource sustainably (see the “Sunshine Project” of Japan as a general example; Maruyama et al., 2007). The entropic disorder of their collective worldview, triggered by economic collapse, initiated social and other innovations in a transition towards a self-mended sustainable and resilient communal perspective. When a social system is in dynamic tension between order and chaos, the tension allows such systems to “continue to self-organize and remain resilient in the face of broader system change” (McCarthy, 2017: p. 135). Social innovations may lead to other social innovations, much as concepts may generate new concepts in a self-organizing network of understanding. The overall structure of the worldview in which this occurs evolves via restructuring (fuelled by the drive to reduce psychological entropy) and the communal exchange of ideas among individuals. This is the basis for cultural evolution. We refer to the process by which this happens in an individual worldview as creativity, and suggest that social innovation is one process by which this happens in a collective worldview. That is, through the iterative self-organizing of groups, communities, or societies, disruption may shift to solutions that are effective and resilient. Both psychological and group novelty generation processes involve a dynamic movement between entropy and stability. Complex systems theory, negentropy, creative destruction, as well as collective worldviews and the concept of self-other reorganization, can shed light on both creativity and social innovation, thus aiding us in our understanding of how innovation thrives and how resilient societies evolve. 183 5.2.8 Conclusion When a system such as a mind or a social group is poised in the regime between order and chaos, innovations may emerge through the modifications or exaptations of previous innovations. Such innovations may “hop” domains or scales in their drive to meet unmet needs. Creative individuals and groups exemplify the adage that creativity and destruction are intrinsically linked. In social systems, innovations can result from the disruption of unresolved complex challenges, such as the wicked problems of resource boomtowns undergoing economic collapse. We argue that as much as individual psychological entropy instigates creativity, creative destruction instigates social innovation. This in turn elicits social change towards resiliency, as in the Transition movement example. We suggest that both individual creativity and social innovation involve a psychological transition between entropy and stability that can manifest as change in the external world. Communities can significantly reinvent themselves within even extreme economic challenges through the communal exchange of ideas in a network of worldviews. As such, evolutionary thinking will need to include a serious consideration of how worldviews transform and evolve through the honing of creative ideas, and how this elicits the transition between entropy and stability or chaos and order, as a key feature of how social innovations occur. Destruction is not only a link to creativity but indeed is a part of it. This positions a destruction-creativity dynamic as a fundamental link through which the network of worldviews evolves culture, society, and, ultimately, our individual and collective human experience. 184 6. MANUSCRIPT #4Systems in Social Intervention: A Methodology [Humankind’s] general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. [one’s] general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If [one] thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how [one’s] mind will tend to operate, but if [one] can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken and without border (for every border is a division or break) then [one’s] mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole. (Bohm, 1980, p. xiii) 6.1.1 Background and Narrative Social innovators address systemic or broad-scaled complex social challenges from two essential orientations. First, they bring the totality of their internal experience, belief systems, mental models, ideological perspectives, biases, and normative assumptions—or worldviews—to their work in the world. Second, they address what is considered external to them, an understanding of the interrelations of multiple natural and social systems (albeit through the lens of their internal worldviews). While I have treated them as relatively separate until now, an internal/subjective and external/objective experience of the world is not separate at all; they are deeply interconnected (Bohm, 1980, p. xviii). In Manuscript #1, I focused on an “internal” approach to creative and critical consciousness by proposing a mindful praxis of social change rooted in dynamic and systemic creativity for a social innovator engaging in a social intervention. Manuscripts #2 and #3 focused on an “external” approach to creativity as it arises in complex nonlinear dynamical processes; this approach was applied to a generalizable perspective across multiple systems of change and to broad-scaled social systems innovation. Together, the three manuscripts offer social innovators a creative critical consciousness view of nonlinear and dynamical social systems innovation processes of change. A synthesis of the foregoing internal and external orientations through multiple theoretical and praxeological terrains creates an opportunity for a complex unity of subjective and objective experience to be co-experienced uniformly by the changemaker. Such a merging perspective of experience offers a means for 185 changemakers to engage in a deep complex systems investigation of social systems through a critical mindfulness lens with the potential for understanding their own worldview biases and creative conscious processes more clearly. While several theoretical and praxeological means have been offered until this point in this dissertation, a practical intervention process or method has not yet been proposed. Wicked problems, such as domestic violence and climate change, require an adequate research methodology and applicable method that considers a critical and creative perspective of worldviews but also acknowledges the fundamental creative drivers of social system innovations and transformation. Accordingly, I offer a critical consciousness approach to nonlinear dynamical transformations in a social innovation intervention methodology in the fourth manuscript below. I will draw upon the empirically based social planning soft systems methodology (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 191) and the practical social innovation facilitation method known as social labs (Hassan, 2014, p. 1–5; Westley et al., 2015, p. 1). To put it succinctly, by relying upon the research within the first three manuscripts, the manuscript in this chapter will merge these two methods in what I call social systems innovation methodology (SSIM). The need for an alternative social intervention method became apparent when I travelled to India in 2016 as part of my ongoing 10-year research relationship with the University of Mysore. The 2016 project was the fourth main project I had completed in India, and this time, I was invited to develop a “mini” social lab as the first phase to a larger three-year participatory action research project on domestic violence to be implemented within several small rural communities outside of Mysore. I went to specifically research multistakeholder processes of social intervention, to understand the limitations within the current practice of changemaking social technologies, and to co-originate creative and mindful practices to instigate social change. This time, I worked with the University of Mysore as well as the local non-profit Odanadi along with multiple stakeholders in a social lab context, based on my previous training with Zaid Hassan from Reos Partners, an international social change organization (2014). However, while I was in India, two significant challenges to my project arose. First, after researching domestic violence and reflecting upon my own experience of working in a village where it occurred (as described in the Introductory Narrative in chapter 1.1.1), I had assumed that dowry deaths occurred mainly in lower-caste communities and households. I had made this 186 conclusion after the 2008 project during which the dowry death occurred and during the research and data analysis prior to the 2016 project. On my first day with the Odanadi Executive Director, I commented on dowry deaths and their association with lower-caste communities, and he immediately corrected me, saying that current statistics showed a predominance of dowry deaths in higher-caste communities and households. I went back and reviewed the data. Indeed, since the dowry death in the village of my earlier project had occurred in a lower-caste household, I had viewed the data with that bias in mind and had not paid sufficient attention to the current trends as described by the executive director. My Western worldview of Indian culture had tainted my of lower-caste communities to influence my research and shape how I interpreted the data I had gathered. Secondly, about halfway through my project, the government of India shocked the world (and me) by demonetising the main currency notes, causing abrupt and widespread economic and social chaos across India (Srivastava, 2016, para. 6). My project immediately halted, banks became virtually inaccessible, businesses shut down for days or weeks at a time, and regular day-to-day functioning was impaired. My own resilience to complex endogenous “shocks” to the system was minimal, and my project was interrupted before reaching full implementation. I was not prepared to face the complex forces of creative destruction that occur in transitional points of crisis across broad-scaled social systems. I had not yet considered a systems thinking response or an innovative solution space to transform the destructive chaos into identifying new possibilities for how my project could move forward. These two personal situations indicate real-world challenges that social interveners may face: namely, (a) the potential for a worldview bias to limit the ability to see multiple realities of the social system being intervened in (and thus risking ineffective or even damaging consequences); and (b) an inability to adequately understand how social systems develop transition points of change which could prepare for social systems for the complex creative or destructive forces found in systemic change. Both can deter social innovation interventions if they are not accounted for intrinsically in the social system intervention method used. Currently, methods addressing social systems innovation do not consider a structured worldview bias or a nonlinear complex systems approach to systemic transformations in their design processes. Specifically, there are insufficient methods available to social innovators that incorporate both a 187 critical consciousness perspective of systems as well as a nonlinear dynamical systems understanding of the transformational drivers of systems change. Social interventions require careful consideration, self-reflexivity, and inquiry into unconscious presuppositions that might be made during project design. To address “mindless” worldview biases and the hidden presuppositions of innovators when intervening in a system, as discussed in Manuscript #1, I propose a creative critical consciousness research perspective and a creative critical mindfulness praxis for reflexive inquiry into innovators’ worldview bias. With an appropriate method, innovators may work with a group’s constituents within the system of the intervention to self-reflexively constitute meaningful limits of identification in their creative process. Encouraging stakeholders to offer their perspective of their boundary judgements will assist in promoting the pluralism that is needed in the architecture of system intervention design. The groups can self-referentially co-create their collective of group identity to be “meaning-constituted” (Luhmann, 1984/1995, p. 194), thus co-generating intentional worldview identifications while being mindful of limiting biases and presuppositions. In the following manuscript, I will use a complementarist approach to be inclusive and critical of assumed worldviews that may filter into a social innovation design, and I will apply a transsystemic lens to examine the challenge of creating a critical-consciousness informed method by which social innovators can understand complex novelty generation across multiple systems. I will develop this theoretical position in an applicable method in the second section of the manuscript. 188 The Manuscript: Social Innovation Intervention A Complex Systems and Soft Systems Informed Method By Mike Unrau Abstract Social innovation methodologies are generally new to the literature on social interventions, and they often focus on practical broad-scale creative processes through an iterative “design thinking” process. However, design thinking leans toward a functionalist-focused worldview that only recently added on a deeper equity lens when working in social systems. The more seasoned social planning methods such as Checkland’s soft systems methodology (SSM) have a stronger critical theory focus, yet they lack in their understanding of complex systems innovations or novelty-generating processes. A gap remains in the social change literature that includes a critical systems thinking lens as well as a complex-systems understanding of the creative drivers of social systems innovations. This article proposes a hybrid methodology for social innovators to intervene in a social system by bringing the creative processes of complex systems research into the realm of the critical-theory-aware SSM. By building from a Freirean critical consciousness perspective of worldview bias and offering a systemic–dynamic creativity approach to complex social systems, the article contributes to the discussion on social change methodologies as well as offers a practical social innovation intervention method. Although it is based on SSM, the paper departs from it by offering a new way to understand system innovation and how to tap into the naturally occurring systemic creativity that drives innovation. Keywords Social innovation, soft systems methodology, complex systems, dynamic creativity, social intervention 189 Everything we think we know about the world is a model. Our models do have a strong congruence with the world. Our models fall far short of representing the real world fully. (Meadows, 2009, p. 191) 6.2.1 Introduction When mentally constructed models of the world go unchecked and are integrated into social interventions in complex social systems, they risk destructively enabling limiting worldviews that “fall far short of representing the real world fully” (Meadows, 2008, p. 86) and potentially perpetuating damaging social conditions. Methodologies for social change interventions need to include a critical perspective of how worldview bias can influence an intervention design process and an understanding of how systems innovation processes work so that social innovators are better equipped to make broad-scaled lasting change. While contemporary corporate and grey literature has begun to recognize the need for critical theory within the “design thinking” methods for social change (e.g., adding contexts of equity, empathy, and democracy; Carroll et al., 2018; Clifford et al., 2021; Kelly, 2021, Petty & Leach, 2020; Miller, 2018), such methods still lack a critical analysis of objectivist (i.e., functionalist or mechanist) paradigmatic worldviews, dualistic or divisional ontology, and a linear causal analysis of assumptive “cause-leads-to-effect” thinking. As a result, social intervention methods are hampered by worldview biases that risk leaving resulting social innovations marginal in their application, narrow in scope, unfulfilled in potential, or destructively perpetuating the very challenges the interventions seek to change. Academia is of only limited help: there is a lack of coherent methodologies in the literature available to social innovators that incorporate both a critical systems thinking lens as well as a complex-systems understanding of the creative drivers of social systems innovations. A remedy could help create a context of systemic transformational processes to address the deeper social “problem” at hand toward the dynamic and fluid change-making process that increase beneficial conditions. A scan of the literature addressing social change methods and methodologies reveals generally two loose and paradigmatically categorized camps. On the one hand, systems dynamics theory (Forrester, 1961, p. 47; Brown, 2009) spawned methods such as the “change lab” or “social lab” methodology and are heavily rooted in an action-research approach that is constituted 190 from a more functionalist creative process-driven and design-thinking framework.129 However, they generally lack a critical theory foundation and instead offer only equity-driven add-ons. On the other hand, interpretivist soft systems design methods (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 191; Flood & Jackson, 1991a, p. 197) are more strongly rooted in critical theory, but they do not focus on systemic system innovation or creative iterations in complex dynamic transformation of systems change.130 While the array of available social innovation intervention methods cannot be perfectly split into two neat categories such as these, a general literature review will reveal a gap in between such methodological poles of a methodology that includes both in a comprehensive and in-depth way. The two camps would benefit from a hybrid or merged methodology and accompanying method to build on the strengths of both. To draw upon each of the paradigmatic methodologies listed above, I argue that addressing complex social challenges requires a method that includes both a critical-theory-informed framework embedded in the foundational design to reduce the limitations of worldview bias, and a complex systems approach to novelty generation and assessment in social systems innovation processes. The hybrid method I propose here is based on Checkland’s soft systems method (SSM; Checkland, 2006) but departs from it by incorporating a nonlinear dynamical systems approach to social transformation along with an iterative or prototyping structure. The hybrid offers an accompanying methodological framework as a foundation and toolkit for social innovators and changemakers to use in system designs for social innovation intervention (see Figure 6.2.1.a for a broad perspective of social innovation across scales). While informed by my own social change and intervention programs and experimentation with social lab methodology in India,131 this method is not an empirically tested resource but an 129 A “change lab” or “social lab” is a social innovation process and a dynamic multistakeholder platform for addressing complex social challenges (Hassan, 2014, p. 3). 130 In Total Systems Intervention, Flood (1991) uses a metaphor-based approach to a “creativity” phase, and yet, the phase is meant for generating new ideas rather than understanding—and thus tapping into—how creativity works in the world and within systems. It could be said that Scharmer’s U Process (2009) bridges between the two; however, it still lacks a specific critical theory or complex systems focus. 131 My own background as a social innovation facilitator and systems designer has led me to seek a resolution to the challenge of merging a critically conscious view of systems innovation processes. In 2016, I received funding to implement the first stage of a larger three-year project in India using the “social lab” process, where we led a participatory action-research approach to address domestic violence. The project was drastically halted, however, due to the sudden demonetization of India’s main currency notes on November 8, 2016, which caused abrupt and widespread chaos across India (Srivastava, 2016). I began to question the “social lab” process in my own quest to understand how my pre-project worldview limited the project design, precluding an innovative response to the social 191 exploration into the literature and field of practice to answer the relevant call for social intervention methodologies that are critically accountable and systemically applicable. This framework, which I call social systems innovation methodology (SSIM), will provide social innovators practical tools informed by critical theory that will enable them to address worldview bias and understand the deep roots of social systems innovation in their transformational drive toward creative social change. Figure 6.2.1.a. Spectrum of micro to macro elements of social innovation. Based on Westley and Antadze’s “Systemic View of Innovation” (2010, p. 4). Complex social problems can be caused or exacerbated by unchecked worldviews in broad-scaled and disastrous ways. For example, innovations to social conditions may be designed to benefit humanity, such as adding women to the census or an increase in fishing technology, but may be harmful. During 19th century British India, an “innovation” to the nation-wide census redesign included adding the status of women as “members” of society, a seemingly novel advancement in gender parity. The statistical process, however, was based on the worldviews of Western botanical and zoological classification systems, and it sought to categorize, rank, and cross-reference caste listings, doing so to determine who was deemed to be of social purity and challenge of the economic turmoil I was facing. I returned to Canada desiring to understand the influence of worldviews on social interventions and discovered Checkland’s (2006) soft systems methodology. 192 moral worth. When women were not formally recognized by the colonial bureaucracy as members of society, they also were not included in any caste by compilers of statistics until 1872, when the “innovative” redesign assigned women to castes on provincial lists that entrenched them into the divisive Indian caste system (Bayly, 2008, p. 124–125). In a different and more recent context in Bonavista, Newfoundland, an “innovation” increased navigation systems for fisheries. However, the innovation, rooted in a technologically driven worldview, allowed massive areas of Canada’s east coast to be trawled successfully and increase profits. The result created a biomass crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s that depleted cod levels to 1% of historical numbers, collapsing local economies and impacting communal identities (Hamilton & Butler, 2001, p. 1). There are more examples of innovations hailed as an improvement to previous social conditions that have failed due to limited or biased worldviews (McGowen & Westley, 2017, p. 42–68). Although they may believe that they are “fixing the problem,” social innovators may in fact be perpetuating systemic challenges due to the foundational biases implicit in static worldviews. Thus, innovators need to consider worldviews congruent with social systems processes. Worldviews, from the German Weltanschauungen, are a web of understandings of reality within the context of a culture (Gabora, 2018a, p. 2; Aerts et al., 1994, p. 9).132 Collective worldviews, in this context, are not single entities but are rather the plurality of distinct individual worldviews of a common identification held by that group (Aerts et al., 1994, p. 21; Gabora & Unrau, 2019a, p. 554).133 Worldviews are also, as honing theory implies, units of cultural evolution with creativity as the driver of change (Gabora, 2017, p.8). As I argue, worldviews can be biased toward certain ideological positions in social system interventions that can potentially limit or destructively perpetuate the very challenges the interventions seek to address. I group these positions into four general categories of a worldview bias framework for social system intervention (see Worldview Bias in chapter 2.1.3.a for a deeper analysis). Worldviews can be biased in terms of (a) equity, with prejudice to treat one individual or group with privilege over another, (b) paradigms, by favouring a singular view of a system through one particular 132 Churchman (1968) seems to imply that science is always biased by a worldview: “For the applied scientist, scientific method must include a philosophy… It is what the Germans call a Weltanschauung, a perception of what reality is like… the applied scientist is not merely applying the results of pure research; he is applying his Weltanschauung” (as quoted by Checkland, 2011, p. 500) 133 A worldview that is a single entity shared by a collective is what has been called a “grand worldview” (see Worldviews in chapter 2.1.3.a in this dissertation, or Glossary). 193 paradigmatic lens over another, such as functionalism or interpretivism (see Geels, 2010, p. 496–507); (c) ontology, by privileging a singularly subjectivist or objectivist view of reality where individuals are either separate parts or only wholes, or (d) causality, by favoring either a linear or deterministic cause-and-effect analysis of system organization or a stochastic or indeterministic flow of systemic events and their direct antecedents. While they point to significant historical philosophies, the four terms are not intended as summaries but as “trailheads” to larger conversations and questions of relevance based on these preliminary definitions (see Figure 6.2.1.b for a graphical representation). Social innovators need to be mindful of their worldview biases as they enter intervention design processes to limit projections or prejudices driven by such biases. Indeed, Meadows (2008, p. 164) argues worldview or paradigmatic shifts are the number one leverage point to any systemic change, and thus, changemakers can assist in intervention-driven social change by limiting their worldview or ideological influence on the system and instead enabling a transforming human systems intervention (Quinn & Sonenshein, 2008, p. 70). As such, this paper takes a particularly focused view on worldviews and worldview bias.134 Figure 6.2.1.b. A visual representation of the four key “worldview biases,” using a honeycomb graphical representation based on IDEO’s design thinking graphic. Graphic by author. 134 My own worldview bias: I position myself within this research as a participatory collaborator with the privileged position of being a male and North American settler descendent. My research leans toward an interpretivist experientialism through a transformative phenomenology lens (see Bentz & Rehorick, 2009) in a praxis of critical consciousness (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 37). However, I fully embrace complementarism (Flood, 1990) as a thread between all. 194 Design thinking has several worldview biases that can afford to be challenged. Design thinking has roots in the “scientific explanation” of societies (see Lee, 2020, p. 5; Wallas, 1926), especially within the engineering discipline (Brown, 2009; p. 18; McKim, 1980, p. 73; Lee, 2020, p. 5), and it was “born” in the modernist utopic view of technology as the main social good (Stables, 2019, p. 52). While it has offered emergent socio-technical advancements, as exemplified through the internet and solar heating, design thinking has also been responsible for “planned obsolescence” (Woudhuysen, 2011, p. 239), criminally unsafe automobiles that have killed thousands of people per year, and disposable materials that cause air pollution (Papanek, 1971, p. ix). Any negative consequences of engineered designs are due in part to biased worldviews in the design process, perhaps because engineers have been taught “very little about finding and understanding the needs of society” (other than the “needs of the user”; Leifer & Meinel, 2015, p. 1). The goal of design is an outcome of “functioning artifacts,” measured by their quality as determined by “how well [the product] performs in solving a problem or fulfills a function” (Nolte, 2018, p. 1). However, claiming that design is a sole means to “solving problems” can be a dangerous over-simplification. If social systems are seen by designers as the interaction of “actors” that are fulfilling functions through a structural-functional analysis (Parsons, 1951/1991, p. 12), then the resulting designs will promote functionalism (Jackson, 1991, p. 45), which sees systems through a linear causality in a way that simplistically links needs to goals (Geels, 2010, p. 500; Woudhuysen, 2011, p. 238). Operating from this view, design thinking may presuppose that something is broken and needs fixing. This perpetuates a subject–object split where the “calculating machine” (Levin, 2018, p. 1)135 of the designer’s mind situates an objectivistic view of people as “parts” of a mechanism instead of being in subject–subject relations of an interconnected human network, which interpretivism and relationism embrace. Although a functionalist paradigm, a linear causality, and an objectivist worldview bias can be suited to the design of cars and other technological products, humans are not machines; rather, we are agents who create intersubjective meaning, have semiotic cognition, and can be critically conscious (Meyran & Benasayag, 2018; Fetzer, 2001).136 135 Based on the (in)famous Turing Test: “Can machines think?” (Levin, 2018, p. 1). 136 Fetzer (2001) uses a computational model to argue people are not computers and instead semiotic systems. While I do not totally align with Fetzer’s argument, he clearly claims that humans are not machines which paradigmatically in cognitive science has dominated 20th century theories of mind. 195 Although it is founded upon engineering principles, design thinking more recently addresses worldview bias to some degree in its “human-centered design” focus (Brown, 2009, p. 10; Brenner, 2016, p. 153) by emphasizing empathy for the client and others. Other systems-change theories and practices such as “deep equity” (Petty & Leach, 2020)137 and “equity-centered community design” (Carroll et al., 2018), promote important individual-to-systemic change processes that challenge inequities of discrimination and privilege. Yet, in many ways, design thinking considers equity and empathy as methodological “add-ons” in the global scramble to challenge dominant racist, sexist, and colonial norms that grapple with important issues raised by the #MeToo Movement and Black Lives Matter. Equity is imperative to combat inequity worldview bias. However, that the decades-old design thinking added equity just recently as part of its model implies a fundamental structural failure of not having a critical lens at its origination and thus the move seems to garner equity as a peripheral move to cosmetically repair systemic issues.138 Also, such equity add-ons only account for one of the four worldview biases described herein (see Worldview Bias in chapter 2.1.3.a), and insufficiently challenge other important biases in system design. Here, I build a social intervention method that is specifically constructed to gently shift implicit worldview biases to reduce the potential for ideological projections on the subjects of system intervention. To do so, I start with a foundational method, soft systems methodology (SSM), which was created in the 1970s with worldviews as part of its makeup (Checkland, 2011, p. 503). SSM was designed in support of the notion that all system situations comprise several different worldviews, whether these worldviews are individual, partially shared, or common to the group (Checkland, 2011, p. 502). SSM fundamentally acknowledges and challenges mental models, which tend to be based on static worldviews, and this approach can transform the impact of fixed mental models on social interventions (see Manuscript #1; Buckley, 1967, p. 58).139 SSM focuses on a “learning cycle” of never-ending learning-to-action processes to guide the intervention team through into group learning (p. 193) so that any iterative process could begin 137 Deep Equity is also a controversial educational tool by the American company Corwin; however, I am not referring to the corporate professional development tool here. 138 Design thinking is claimed to be “inspiration, ideation, and implementation” (Brown, 2010, p. 33). 139 Checkland (2011) argues that worldviews are not static forever and ultimately will change based on internal or external pressures (p. 502). 196 again after the “formal” intervention has completed what it was set out to do. The result offers an ontological critique of social “reality” and critical approach to systemic social change. Checkland states that SSM offers “a way of continuously managing any ongoing human situation” (p. 193), which seems to emphasise the managing of social system dynamics rather than innovating within them. His updated learning cycle process (called SSMA; Checkland, 2011, p. S21; Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 192) expands on SSM and offers four main activities: (a) Finding out about a problematical situation and the disposition of power within the overall situation, (b) Formulating some models of purposeful activity, each made to encapsulate a declared worldview, (c) Debating the situation, using the models to facilitate changes that would improve the situation and make accommodations between conflicting interests, and (d) Taking action in the situation to bring about improvement. The four activities do not have clear prototyping or novelty generation processes built into them. While Checkland does comment that creativity can find its source in clashing worldviews (which is partially true, per honing theory; Gabora, 2017, p.10), and further, that the process can be iterated (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 193), I will particularly build from the sections that aid in revealing the deep implications of worldview bias, leaving the traditional model of “hard” systems thinking behind (2010, p. 198). While soft systems methodologies have an innovative process of worldview intervention, they are not without their critics. They have been critiqued for being selective in their system design, one-sided or mono-paradigmatic, inapplicable, and not useful in supporting systems innovation (Jackson, 1991, p. 162–172). For instance, some authors argue that they lack transparency in their selectivity (Ulrich, 2012, p. 1307), produce social hierarchies (Garcia-Martinez, 2010, p. 3), and favour powerful social enablers (Jackson, 1991). Others suggest soft systems methodologies favour consensus in communities of similar interests, which does not accurately reflect human social reality (Jackson, 1991, p. 163). Particularly, SSM has been critiqued for being more of a “management” process rather than a “problem-solving” or innovation-inspiring process of change (p. 167). I argue that soft systems methodologies are underdeveloped in their iterative design process and lack a deeper understanding of the changes that come from social systems innovation processes. To complement the soft systems methodology with a systems dynamics focus on purposive action, iteration, prototyping, and innovation, and with the intention of using the 197 following methods as support for the method I propose below, I will now investigate the intervention method called social labs (also called “change labs,” “living labs,” or “innovation labs”). Rooted in group psychology, organizational development (Bion, 1961; Trist et al., 1963; NTL, 2021; Westley, et al., 2012, p. 4), systems dynamics (Forrester, 1961), and human systems intervention theory (Bennis, Benne & Chin, 1961), social labs emerged in the 1990s as a social engagement platform that works with diverse stakeholders to address complex social challenges through innovatively prototyping processes of social change. While they represent emergent processes of co-creation that lead to new wide-scaled social innovations (Baran, 2019, p. 14), social labs do not incorporate a nonlinear dynamical understanding of complex systems that specifically focus on novelty generation in systems change, and generally have not incorporated ideas from Checkland’s deeper insights on worldviews and their biases in the power structures of social dynamics. The social lab process is rooted in hard systems methodologies such as the engineering-based and action-orientation of systems dynamics with a human-centred design add-on (Brown & Wyatt, 2010, p. 34; Weinlick & Velji, 2017, p. 4) and was built by trial and error, empirical research, and industry practice. Hassan (2014, p. 125) proposes seven how-to steps, to develop a social lab from the ground up: (1) clarify intention, by approaching complex social challenges with purpose; (2) broadcast an invitation, by rallying collaborators or investors; (3) work your networks, both direct and indirect, to start with a conversation about the process; (4) recruit willing people, for the social lab team; (5) set direction, strategically in multiple actions within an action space to create; (6) design in stacks, as layers of activities for design such as the U Process for innovation and problem solving; and (7) find cadence, by moving at a pace that is sustainable and a velocity that is stable: as one of Hassan’s advisors suggested: “make haste slowly” (2014, p. 138). Still, these steps lack guidance for innovators to check their worldviews, or instruct innovators to look for systemic processes of social innovation or change. Along the same lines, I argue that the soft system approach lacks a dynamic understanding of creativity processes in complex systems and a true understanding of potentially generative approaches to social change, thereby making soft systems methodologies and social labs less efficient than they could be in enabling beneficial social systems innovations. In the rest of this article, I will address these issues by offering a critical consciousness and complex systems approach to social intervention. The framework offered here offers a type of 198 soft systems “innovation” methodology that, while it is based on SSM (and its variants), incorporates a nonlinear dynamical understanding of creativity in a novelty-generating context as the foundational driver of complex systems innovation.140 I also choose to advance SSM by incorporating a “complementarist” approach to the methodology in order to acknowledge and incorporate the complementary strengths of different paradigms and ontologies to reduce siloed positions that perpetuate dualistic or fragmented worldviews (Flood, 1990, pp. 27, 203). A complementarist path allows for multisystemic correlativity so that variant paradigms may be considered with beneficial features. It also critically analyzes normative assumptions and hidden presuppositions of the theoretical relations to reduce logical contradictions (Flood 1990 p. 143; Ulrich, 1983, p. 64). To add critical theory to the discussion, I also suggest a heterarchical approach to social structures (see Fig. 6.2.1.3) that are horizontal, vertical, and transversal (i.e., intersectional). A heterarchical approach assists in weakening power flows and increases equitable social dynamics (Crumley, 1995, p. 2; Haynes, 2018, p. 16; Kortopoulos, 1993, p. 209; Walby, 2007, p. 460). A heterarchical understanding of systems acknowledges traditionally hierarchical views of emergence in complex systems, but it also acknowledges and troubles hierarchies in social dynamics and thus situates equity as an intrinsic possibility in a system. Figure 6.2.1.c. A graphical view of a “system,” from both a hierarchical view (left), and a re-interpretation from a heterarchical view (right). Graphic by the author, based on Geels (2005, p. 82). 140 I use the term “innovation” to describe the process of applying creativity in a social system (Mumford, 2002, p. 253), “emergence” to describe the arising of new structures in complex systems (Goldstein 1999, p. 49), and “creativity” to identify the force or driver of individual and systemic transformational change (see the Framework in chapter 2.2. Because novelty is common to all three terms, I will mostly be speaking of the “novelty generation” part of innovation, which is precisely how new elements are generated. 199 I will start by outlining the methodological framework to offer a foundational background to the method, specifically from a complex systems perspective; then, I will outline the SIIM method and its principles, after which I will present a process or method description so that innovators may incorporate the methodological principles into action. 6.2.2 A Creative and Critical Approach to Complex Systems “Creativity” by definition means to free one’s self of old assumptions, to discern previously unseen patterns and dare. (Einstein, 1980, August 11) When devising social interventions, social innovators need to understand the creative forces of complex social systems in order to work with the behaviour and structure of a system’s unpredictability, plurality, and nonlinearity (Cilliers, 2000, p. 24).141 Creativity is a foundational and transformational “force” that drives complex systems’ behaviour and structure (see Framework; Bergson, 1911/1944, p. 259; Prigogine, 1980, p. 109; Schrödinger, 1944/1991, p. 71). All living organisms slowly decay and move toward disorder (entropy); however, they also fight the disorder of cellular death and move toward order (negentropy) by eating, drinking, and breathing (Schrödinger, 1944/1991, p. 70). The creative “negentropic” response to decay and disorder also happens in psychological and social systems (Gabora, 2017, p. 10; Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 191). A system’s transitional force of creativity is primarily a restructive (i.e., restructured and constructive) rather than a destructive creation process, while being inclusive of both aspects. In social systems, this process can be seen after a shock to the economy. For example, after the Great Depression, a shift toward high-impact innovation occurred despite the crisis, centralizing entrepreneurial innovation in successful companies (Babina, 2020, p. 1). Technological leaps also occur, catapulting certain innovations in short periods of time, such as the novel upsurge of digital technology during the invention of the internet (Tjörnbo, 2017, p. 116). When they understand creativity’s role in complex social system dynamics, social innovators can understand how complex social “problems” might also be a potential solution space for systems change. 141 The Me Too movement offers an example of complex social behaviour because it has had no official leader or initiator, was not precisely predictable, and was not a simple case of cause-and-effect (Carty & Barron, 2019, p. 383). 200 “Problems” are really discrepancies between the current system state as it is and as it is desired to be (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 165). To understand the difference requires reflexivity of normative assumptions, cultural understandings of social system relations, and the ability to predict or envision desired future states. Because discrepancies are dependent on the reflexive, cultural, and future-envisioning abilities of the social innovator, examining a “‘world view’ is the strongest determining factor in explaining a discrepancy and, therefore, in resolving a wicked problem” (p. 166; emphasis added). Collective conceptual systems based on worldviews not only perpetuate discrepancies and problematical situations but also are the source of creative possibilities for improving them. Situated in between “what is” and “what is desired to be” is the opportunity for individual or collective social innovation. This is because the “in-between” space is an entry point for a future possibility to arise in the present actuality. The possibility arises through the flow of time as the causal “breakthrough” of normality in a system state, where novelty generation occurs (see Manuscript #2). Understanding the “in-between” is important when working in a methodology about complex social challenges because, by understanding in-between spaces social innovators may understand complex systems, the perturbations that challenge them, and the novel solution spaces that arise from worldviews. A critical systems thinking approach to social intervention design is of the utmost importance so that social innovators can identify how worldviews create bias and how such biases can form part of a system intervention. I suggest both a creative critical consciousness approach (Manuscript #1; see also Freire 1970/2000; Yu, 2018, p. 1)142 and a critical systems thinking approach (Ulrich, 2012; Flood, 1995), to incorporate a reflexivity of worldviews and their biases, and a systems thinking approach to systemic innovation and change. Creative critical consciousness acknowledges the systemic transformative states of creative consciousness from a Freirean critical consciousness lens. Although he only briefly mentioned it in his work, Freire (1974/2005) considered critical consciousness a creative process of “becoming” (p. 84) as a person transitions from inhibiting worldviews within controlling social structures to a 142 Critical consciousness, coined by pedagogic philosopher Paulo Freire in 1972, describes an individual’s awakening to how their social, political, and economic oppressions have shaped their worldviews so they may take “action against the oppressive elements of reality” (1970/2000, p. 36; Yu, 2018, pp. 6–8). Through conscientization (Freire’s “conscientização”; 1970/2000, p. 35) people can rehumanize themselves and the world (Halman, 2017, p. 13; Freire, 1974/2005, p. 56) in a transformative dialogical process of both reflection and action that liberates oneself and the world in a praxis of social change (p. 51). 201 transformative “creative power” (pp. 81–84). Here, I focus on the creativity in critical consciousness, which incorporates critical systems thinking—“thinking which perceives reality as a process, as transformation, rather than as a static entity” (p. 92; see also Flood & Jackson, 1991b). Creative critical consciousness can enable social innovators to critically examine their systemic worldviews and consider how their biased preferences might leverage power in favour of some social groups over others through the critical heuristic of assessing boundary judgements (see Ulrich, 1987, p. 278; Midgley, 2011, p. 65).143 Typically, groups whose members are underrepresented at the decision-making table are the most impacted by “expert” observers’ mindless boundary judgements and are rarely co-creators in system boundary definitions (Ulrich, 1987, p. 281). For this reason, as Ulrich advises, it is important for social innovators to critically question their relation to other constituents in the community (p. 279) and highlight their hidden presuppositions before defining boundaries within systems. To address social innovators’ worldview biases and hidden presuppositions in practice, I propose a creative critical mindfulness praxis, which builds off of creative critical consciousness (Manuscript #1). It is the mindful practice of noticing “novel distinctions”144 between their socially constructed worldviews and the social innovator’s direct creative experience of social system dynamics. The praxis emphasises being consciously aware of the distinct creative experiences that rehumanize social structures toward transformative social action, being conscientious of human interconnectedness and the worldviews that limit themselves and others. Social innovators can use critical creative mindfulness to improve individual and collective agency and work in codetermination with social system stakeholders to undergo self-identification through self-referential boundaries.145 Innovators become aware of how their own worldview bias might unknowingly influence or perpetuate the injustices they seek to change. 143 Boundary judgements are the basis for describing a social system by defining the boundary of the system in question, asking who and what is included (and therefore who and what is not), and who is a decision-maker and who is not (Ulrich, 1987, p. 278). 144 “Novel distinctions” is a definition of the practice of mindfulness, according to American researcher Ellen Langer (2000, p.2). 145 The debate about the term identity is strong within psychology and sociology, with several proponents claiming that it is too ambiguous to be even used (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000, p. 2; Malešević, 2006). Luhmann (1984/1995) also claims that the term identity is problematized due to its lack of stability (i.e., permanence), and therefore may better be considered a system that is self-referential in its boundary maintenance (p. 17). Several authors (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000; Jenkins, 1996/2008) instead favour “identification” due to its orientation to process, or even “self-understandings,” due the practicality of human inner relation to knowledge. 202 A creative critical mindfulness praxis is important to limit worldview bias. Collective worldviews are shaped and affirmed by group identities (Brown et al., 2008, p. 81; de Witt, 2016). As a result, for a person who identifies with a certain collective or grand worldview, perceived threats to that worldview can trigger reactions about their individual identity or even their physical wellbeing (Brown et al., 2008, p. 81; de Witt, 2016). In this context, a person who believes they are an “environmentalist,” for example, may feel personally threatened or even ill when a forest is being cut down. Worldviews make up our reality, which, from a soft systems approach, suggests reality is not “out there” in an objective physicalized form, but rather is a subjective conceptual structure experienced through an identified worldview (Checkland & Poulter, 2010). Thus, a soft approach to critical systems thinking does not describe systems in the “real world” but rather the systems within the individual or collective worldviews of the group designing the intervention. Worldviews are dynamic, changing over time. They clash constantly and one individual can have multiple and even conflicting identifications in complex and even contradictory relationships with their own worldview. Research on mindfulness has shown, however, that when people are less invested in their personal or social identity and thus their worldviews, they are less defensive and are more likely to be open to experiencing threatening situations (Brown et al., 2008, p. 82). SIIM supports a creative critical mindfulness approach, asking participants to (i) observe novel distinctions in the world around them, (ii) totally engage in creative acts or processes to elicit a mindful presence, and (iii) be critical of an overinvestment in the identity of a particular worldview and the static and limiting beliefs that may accompany it (see Manuscript #1). The SIIM method does not describe the problematical social situation itself, but instead it pertains to the participants’ collective worldview. Thus, a critical creative mindfulness praxis of how worldviews influence social system design processes is necessary in any social intervention method. 6.2.3 Toward a Social Innovation Intervention Methodology (SIIM) This method offers social innovators the ability to ask critical questions with a creative mindfulness framework, while understanding the multisystemic process of creativity, when preparing to design social innovation interventions. The method outlined here is a prospective 203 praxis based on the empirical studies and practice of SSM (Checkland, 2000). Its purpose is to address systemic social dynamics for intervention and considers broad-scaled social innovations such as economic revitalization (see Westley et al, 2016), rather than localized or micro-scaled niche-oriented systems dynamics and social innovations (e.g., social enterprises such as an eco-brewery). Since broad-scaled interventions require a deep consideration of their impact on stakeholders and can be large multiphase processes, I will focus on the “front end” of a broad-scaled social system intervention process and less on the last two method phases of “iteration” and “implementation,” as those processes are well described in other places in the literature (Brown, 2009; Hassan, 2014; Westley et al., 2015). The front end is where innovators define and locate the problem space, address worldview bias, and come to understand the foundational systems innovation processes. I will still consider several important social innovation methodological features common in systems design methods like social labs, including ideation, iteration or “prototyping,” design processes, and maximizing the testing phase before social intervention. Critical systems thinking (Flood & Jackson, 1991b) and social innovation methodological approaches to the front end will contribute to a more robust method in order to create a solid foundation for interventions. Below is a brief overview of the four phases of the proposed social innovation intervention methodology (SIIM; see Fig. 6.2.3.a for a graphical representation). While it is based on SSM’s four “activities,” this method implements features of social labs and systemic design (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 207), especially highlighting the creation phase of innovative design. The method begins with the creation of potential, where possibility arises and moves into the ideation of a “creative world” where curiosity is encouraged. The creative world is the world of design ideation and is not in the community where experiments are run without examining and testing them first. Afterwards, the method transitions to the “real world,” at which point the newly created model is tested in the community or with the clients, and is actualized through a prototyping process, and implemented. 204 Figure 6.2.3.a. The four processes in a graphical form, showing the phases as they increase the risk of creation in the “design world” (ideations and potentialities) but then by iterating it into the “real world” (implementations and actualities). SSM represents a social planning perspective with critical social theory attributes (Checkland, 2006). Social labs represent an in-practice method for social innovation (Westley, 2015; Hassan, 2014), and SIIM a practice-oriented method of social innovation with critical social theory attributes, an ontological perspective, and a complex systems science foundation. Graphic by the author. 1. Inquiring (Finding out) about the problematic situation with a diverse team of participants in a participatory process that creates the project’s vision and worldview, clarifies the system’s boundaries and “problem,” and analyzes the social context and power dynamics. 2. Creating (Formulating models) a system space to innovate. The team defines the preconditions of innovation and the points of leverage, and then creates the system’s innovation model. 3. Iterating (Debating the situation) the innovation model in order to see the problematic situation from multiple perspectives, while testing it in “micro-environments” in the “real world” as a way to scale impact and mitigate damage. 4. Implementing (Taking action) the project through creative observation and conscious engagement with the original stakeholders using egalitarian decision-making models to decide which final iteration to implement. The method’s process will be described in detail in the sub-section below. In order to understand the method’s implications, I have created a comparison table of SSM, social labs, and 205 SIIM, including their ontological, epistemological, and methodological attributes (Table 6.2.3.1). I will first introduce some theoretical principles to clarify the philosophical foundations, to give innovators a worldview foundation to either align with or compare to for further personal or group reflexivity. a. Seven Principles SIIM’s principles are for social innovators to consider when beginning an intervention. The practitioner can contextualize them to the situation as needed.146 1. Social “problems” and our understanding of what constitutes a system are constructed from worldviews. Problems are discrepancies in between what is and what is desired, such that they create possibilities and opportunities in the realm of social innovation. 2. Worldviews are conditioned through socialization; they categorize and divide experience, and, when normative or hierarchical models are added, worldviews can cloud the experience of interconnectivity. SIIM suggests a critical creative mindfulness view of worldviews based on heterarchical structures, which allows a team to see their own worldview limitations. 3. Systems are interrelations in action, and as such, diverse participatory engagement is important for the discussion and debate of innovators, activators, and stakeholders in the intervention process. 4. Social systems self-organize toward purposive action. This can be enhanced through collectively agreeing on a representational identity of a common worldview (i.e., “I am an actor from the Jana Sanskriti theatre troupe!” or “we are a group for the empowerment of women,” or “we are a town whose economy is focused on heritage tourism”). 5. When they do so, social systems self-organize through creativity (systems naturally move from disorder to order), and thus, the ways in which social systems act in innovative ways can be leveraged for an innovative outcome. 6. By noticing novel distinctions between what is and what is desired, those who choose curious and mindful reflexivity of creative critical mindfulness may improve a situation, minimizing worldview bias and imbalances of power. 7. When we think we “know,” we move away from creative change toward worldview stasis and stop learning. SIIM is a never-ending process of learning which has no solid end goal. Rather, it is a systemic and dynamic processual transformation toward problem-reduction in a situation (which could be the beginning of another problematical situation). 146 Based on the seven principles outlined in SSM (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 234) and total systems intervention methodology (Flood & Jackson, 1991a, p. 201). 206 Table 6.2.3.1. A comparison of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), Social Labs, and the Social Innovation Intervention Methodology (SIIM) as described here, highlighting their ontology, epistemology, and methodology. After Rodriguez-Ulloa & Paucar-Caceres (2005, p. 314.) Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) Social Innovation Labs Social Innovation Intervention (SIIM) Ontology Epistemology Methodological Stages Worldviews define our thinking Systems are not assumed to exist in the real world; the social world attributes meaning Usually interpretivist, phenomenological and (possible) hermeneutical claims; mostly a subjectivist view Separation of design world to real world Designed from theory and practice Based on purposeful action of human activity Does not focus on innovation / creative processes, or on complex systems Built with a worldview focus Specific method or process; iterative of learning cycles It finishes with new learning process Although separate, we can delve into the reality of others (Westley; Lab Guide p. 34) Systems are assumed to exist in the real world Often functionalist, rooted in mechanistic views. Mostly an objectivist claim Labs are meant to describe the real world Mostly practice-driven Based on whole systems processes Uses creative processes to seek innovative outcomes; grounded in complex systems or design thinking (depends) Was not built with a worldview focus Specific methodology (based in design thinking and whole systems processes); very iterative due to prototyping It finishes with a proposed “solution” Worldviews are our conceptual system of identification, and when static can limit it Systems are not “out there” as objectively real, but are constructed by conceptual systems and worldview identifications Interpretivist, transformational phenomenology, and complementarist of both subjectivist and objectivist views Separation of design world to real world Designed from theory but practice based Based on dynamistic creativity of complex systems in social relations Seeks systems innovation using critical creative mindfulness practice, and foundationally a complex systems approach Built with a worldview bias focus Multi-methodology, follows main method with sections of methodological “choice.” Iterative learning cycles & prototyping It finishes with a new discrepancy-space 207 These seven principles drive SIIM’s four phases. The seventh principle proposes an interactive and thus reflexive component of the method, which implies a fifth phase in the method after “Implementing (Taking Action)” as a reflecting phase about the process itself in a “meta-process” of reviewing what has been learned during the intervention (as suggested by Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 193). The third principle means that co-creation of the innovation process is necessary and should include multiple and diverse stakeholders of the team designers, participants of the process, community members, and/or those impacted by the intervention. This diversity, despite perhaps creating instability through tension, can increase the innovation within the process team and thus boost the innovation output of possibility. While it needs to be carefully navigated, this tension is a critical element of this process, as described below. These seven principles are important guideposts for any social innovator when undergoing a social innovation intervention and are thus a critical precondition for the proposed method. b. The Process: Overview The SIIM method is meant to describe interactive and iterative processes that are contextualized for each team and stakeholder. The four processes are not temporally bound in stages; rather, they may happen concurrently and recursively in an overlap of creative “space” (as shown in Figure 6.2.3.b; Mingers & Brocklesby, 1997, p. 495). They are not a set of chronological or mechanical steps in time. Rather, the steps constitute a recursive, flexible, and nonlinear process including considerations for improved action. Figure 6.2.3.b. The four phases of the SIIM method occurring concurrently and recursively. Graphic by the author (based on Mingers & Brocklesby, 1997, p. 495). 208 The process described below is meant to be an organized way of thinking to reduce the limitations of our worldviews and take action toward improvement. All the phases are based on complex systems ideas that enable innovators to harness the natural creative power of a social system (Checkland 2010, p. 200). It is a cycle of inquiring, creating, iterating, and implementing that brings experiential learning to those involved in order to create improvement for the stakeholders. c. The Process #1: Inquiring The “inquiring” phase is the most important part of the process because it entails questioning rather than stating and opening rather than closing. Being open to change and curious about the process is not only an action but a mindset, a willingness to allow one’s self and one’s worldview to change along with the system in question. Inquiring is vital because it requires each member to question their worldviews to find oversights, misconceptions, and hidden presuppositions about themselves and the social system they will work with. If members are closed to this personal kind of change, the social system in question will also be closed. Projects that use this method will generally be composed of members fitting within four main roles: facilitator(s) (or guides), members (and/or member organizations), client(s) (and/or funders), and stakeholders (or those impacted). The core members (collectively, the “team”) are individuals working directly on the project undergoing the process, and the group may be a mixture of facilitators, members, organizations, clients, funders, and stakeholders. Some core members may be new to the project goals, while others may have already been doing the work (for personal or other reasons) before being brought into the project. Participants are individuals or organizations that are part of the team. Co-participants are individuals or organizations who are working at arm’s length. The term “constituents” will be used to describe the clients, facilitators, members or member organizations, stakeholders, team members, artifacts, processes, social structures, rules, processes, issues, events, and objects. The process described herein is meant for core members. As I will show, there are four ways of “inquiring” that will lead the team through critical questions during the creativity process phase. 209 i. The Call Social innovation intervention projects come together following an individual or group’s “call” for support to address a problematical situation and seek positive change. As a fictitious example of a real-world situation, a local fishery (member organization) in Bonavista, Newfoundland seeks a partnership with the government (clients) to initiate a project to increase its economic resources to support its small town (stakeholders) impacted by the cod moratorium. The fishery hires a firm or company of “experts” (facilitators) who design a social innovation intervention project that will impact the entire community (stakeholders).147 The call is the incentive to bring people together for the project. SIIM is a diverse, participatory process. Stakeholders need to be on the team alongside willing individuals from both inside and outside the social “system” in question. For example, the Bhavishya Lab, a former social lab that aimed to reduce child malnutrition in India, was initiated in 2003 by Western white men and brought together stakeholders from 50 organizations as members on the project with almost half of the individuals participating against their will (Hassan, 2014, p. 74). A Western worldview of organizing people was projected on the Indian stakeholders and members without understanding cultural difference, and it included assumptions about participation.148 The project’s initiators should not facilitate the project and funders or financial contributions should not sway the project’s direction. The core members need to have general autonomy to make the right decisions for the situation. The team’s diversity is key: individuals working on it should ideally be multisectoral (government, business, non-profit, civilians; Hassan, 2014, p. 114), multidisciplinary (artists, scientists, social workers, entrepreneurs), and multirepresentational of different and intersectional social identities (gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, etc.). If the project is small and the client is singular (e.g., the regional authority is looking to increase climate action in member communities), then it can be extremely helpful (if not imperative) to have an “external” member who is not a client or funder or benefactor as part of the team—that is, someone who reduces the chance of in-group bias, 147 Bonavista did have a project help the town’s revitalization process, through the Toronto-based company ERA in their project “small” (ERA, 2017). 148 It should be noted that while the Lab operated for only three months, the associated Bhavishya Alliance went on for another six years and created other innovative initiatives with greater awareness of the impact of Western worldviews (Hassan, 2014, p. 75). 210 offers diversity of background and opinion, and brings a different worldview to the “table.” While there may be limitations as to who will make up the team due to clients’ wishes and the project’s feasibility, diversity should not be understated because diversity is a constitutive part of community, both in the team and in the social system it is serving. It is also at the heart of creativity, in that diversity generates novelty in social innovation (see also the Four Preconditions of Novelty in chapter 2.1.4.c). Another major consideration is how the stakeholders are involved in the project. While representatives of the community that will be impacted by the intervention must be on the team, other stakeholders need to be engaged in meaningful ways through participatory processes, forums, questionnaires, and online surveys. Doing so will ensure the reduction and flattening of power structures and boundary judgements by including stakeholders in boundary definitions and thus reducing exclusivity or bias projection on the social system in question. Decision-making is critical in all project environments. Individual worldviews need to be respected, and a shared common purpose will direct the flow of decisions. There are a number of available decision-making models,149 and while consensus is often sought, it can be unviable to rely on unanimity. Instead, SSM proposes a more “subtle idea” called accommodation in which the participants “find a version of the situation which they can all live with” (Hassan, 2014, p. 229). Accommodation allows for a suspended disbelief in individualistic worldviews and, while respecting each individual voice emphasises the shared common purpose. The Call is about inclusive and diverse participatory processes. ii. The Engagement The Engagement process occurs when core members, having been convened, begin their work of inquiring into the project ahead of them. It should be noted that the work may already be in process as different members or organizations may already be engaged in systemic change. There are several subprocesses. First, the core members illuminate the vision. Clarifying vision and setting the team’s intention is akin to defining the goal for the group’s purposeful action. For instance, the team 149 Such as voting by majority, negative minority, unanimity, plurality, quadratic voting, dotmocracy, Delphi method, decision engineering, etc. (see Maria-Rosanas, 2013). 211 asks, “What is this project’s vision?” Vision statements are broad-scaled future-oriented goals for the project’s success, such as “Bonavista is a global tourist destination due to its unique heritage and cultural vibrancy.” This should be done first before roles are determined within the team to ensure an even and balanced vision. Next, the team should clarify roles. Identifying roles for each person for the project’s duration will assist the team as it makes decisions. While core members may fill different roles, the team will benefit from avoiding a hierarchical structure and replacing it with a heterarchical one to balance power dynamics. To do this, the team may consider designing a heterarchical structure map that shows how each team member is connected in horizontal, intersectional, or vertical ways. The last step requires the team to acknowledge and inquire into their individual and shared worldview through articulating a worldview inquiry. This is possibly the most important stage of SIIM because, from a soft systems perspective, the social system of intervention is composed of worldviews. There is no “system” that is “out there,” per se, but only the observation of patterns of relations moving toward an attractor or purpose as perceived by the observer(s). When the team is trying to generate change in the system, it is trying to generate change in the shared worldview as well as in each of the core members’ own worldviews. This is critical to understand: it is through the team’s own transformation of their worldviews that it is able to implement a transformation in the perceived system. The mind is not only a complex “system” but also a “unit” of cultural evolution (Gabora, 2017, p. 8; Gabora, 2004, 2008, 2013), and creativity is the process by which culture evolves (2017, p. 2), doing so when worldviews mend themselves like a body does when injured (p. 42). Thus, by intervening in the self-organizing process of a complex system of worldviews, the team can stimulate the creative processes of worldview self-mending of the system. When each core member’s mind is open to transformation, it is open to the dynamic creativity that drives worldview transformation and thus the cultural evolution or “change” of the social system. When the team is dynamically aligned with transformation, the system transforms. 212 SSM states that the social system being intervened in is composed of a shared worldview that can be “declared” by answering what, how, and why a system does what it does.150 Declaring the worldview, Checkland argues, will define a purposeful “activity system” (p. 5). I further Checkland’s process by suggesting to include the declaration of who the social system identifies as. In other words, the team must also ask, “What is our group identity?” While scholars have often studied the terms “worldview” (Gabora, 2019a; Aerts, 1994; Kant, 1790/2017; Naugle, 2002; Wolters, 1989) and “identity” (Mead, 1934/2015; Turner & Reynolds, 2010; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Calhoun, 1994; Hogg et al., 2005; Stets & Burke, 2000; Brubaker & Cooper, 2000), few have linked the two to understand group behaviour (Brown et al., 2008, p. 81; Lauer, 2013, p. 19). The planned behaviour of social group’s moves, I surmise, toward a collective or group identity based on similarities or overlapping ideologies of their worldviews.151 When it is self-referential or autonomously constituted, a social system’s “group identity” becomes a core driver for social system creation through the group’s meaning constitution,152 and it co-generates intentional worldview identifications rather than ones limited by unconscious presuppositions of socialized norms. When the team inquires into their collective worldviews, they complete their worldview inquiry. To do so, the team should start with creative critical mindfulness that acknowledges the pluralism of individual identities while emphasising the intersubjectivity of their relations. The team is invited to inquire into their individual and collective worldviews by asking the following questions. The questions will reveal individual and collective worldview bias in a way that can be discussed and reflected upon: 150 Checkland’s (2010) example of “A householder-owned and staffed system to paint the garden fence, by hand-painting, in keeping with the overall decoration scheme of the property in order to enhance the appearance of the property” (p. 5) reveals a “householder worldview” and believes in a “do-it-yourself” approach to improving the system in question. 151 Several studies of the relationship of social identity and behaviour have concluded that while the relationship of identity to behaviour is indirect (Smith & Szathmáry, 1995, p. 274), behaviour roles and the perceived group norm were related to people’s motivation toward group behaviour (Terry et al., 1999 pp. 239–240). While the general literature concludes that identification does not determine behaviour (Jenkins, 1996/2008, p. 13), a meta-analysis concluded that “self-identity is a vital predictor of intentions and behaviour and should be incorporated into the dominant model of attitude-behaviour relations; that is, the theory of planned behaviour (Rise et al., 2010, p. 1100). I use the term “identity” to mean a static object/attractor for purposeful behaviour based on shared worldviews (or the “sameness” of shared beliefs and attitudes), not as the lived experience of an individual or group in their dynamic self-identifications and understandings over time which most authors refer to in the literature. 152 This is because, according to Luhmann (1984/1995, p. 65), meaning is the novel shaping of potentiality into actuality, which, as I argue in Unrau (Manuscript #2), is the causal dynamic of creativity. 213 i) Do all the people or organizations in the system deserve fair and equitable treatment? If not, why? ii) Do the people or organizations concerned create their own circumstances? If so, are there any other contributors (factors, elements, possibilities)? iii) Do the people, organizations, or groups in the system need to be fixed? If so, how? If not, why not? iv) Do the people or organizations deserve to protect themselves or immediate relations at the expense of others? If so, why? v) What would be an identity statement of the group or system, at the present moment? (e.g., “Bonavista is a diverse group of engaged citizens committed to revitalizing the town’s economy by highlighting its unique culture”). The core members should then ask reflexively, “What worldview biases do we bring to the table when analysing this system?” By reflexively acknowledging individual and group worldview biases, the team is able to reveal or be transparent about their own shared and individual biases and thus any hidden presuppositions and identities. When undergoing a process of meaning constitution by developing an overall worldview “identity” of the system, the team’s reflexive transparency will be heightened. The process will challenge the team’s collective values and how it will discuss the project with partners or stakeholders (after Hassan, 2014). A similar process will also occur below when the team addresses the social system’s “problem.” Inquiring into the team’s worldviews helps direct and course-correct the team before and while it undertakes the project. These three engagement processes will help clarify the team’s vision, roles, and worldviews to reveal hidden assumptions and biases, supporting a collectively engaged creative critical conscious perspective. The process will also “test” the micro-system within the project’s team before it undergoes a similar process within the social system of intervention. Such clarity will serve an immeasurable purpose by aligning shared values and relating individual views to an intersubjective purpose that will lead the team away from divisive fragmentation and furthering a critically conscious endeavour toward social innovation. 214 iii. The Research Picture The research picture process involves information gathering, as well as creating a greater understanding of the complexity of the observed patterns of interrelations forming the project’s vision. This phase does not involve defining the “system” or the “problem.” Rather, it involves learning from constituents what makes up a “picture” of the dynamic system relations the team will work on. SSM calls this phase making a rich picture (Checkland, 2010, p. 209). I call it a research picture because the emphasis is on researching and inquiring rather than drawing conclusions or connections. The collection of research comes together in a drawing or visual that represents the constituents without determined causal decisions about their relations or impacts. A picture is created to represent any people, places, institutions, processes, social structures, rules, issues, events, or objects that might be involved. One key aspect of the research process is to discover the stakeholders’ and other project constituents’ worldviews and identities. Ultimately, this phase offers the team a chance to visualize the bigger picture of the issue of concern. iv. The Project Description After collecting its research findings, the team will further describe the project ahead through descriptions and analyses. The description below is unique to SIIM but follows the general sense of SSM. First, the team describes the system’s boundary. Team members co-create the system’s boundary judgements along with stakeholders (who are not on the team) to determine who or what is included, and thus, who will make decisions during and after the intervention. When determining the boundary, the team can use Ulrich’s (1987, p. 279) 12-question checklist as an excellent way to know whether the project is unknowingly playing into the very oppressive dynamics it aims to dissolve. The team (as a system in its own right) must be included within the project system’s boundaries and must not be relegated to the periphery or seen as observers outside the boundaries, because their intervention will influence the system as part of system dynamics. The team must be willing to be changed and transformed by the very behaviours and structures that it suggests for the system in question. These remarks include the facilitators or guides. Doing so will contribute to the project’s heterarchy, that is, a reduction of the hierarchical levels of power toward cross-sectional, intersectional, and horizontal relationship-making. 215 Second, the team will draw on its research to try to understand the “problem” from the stakeholders’ perspective. In order to understand the problem or discrepancy, the core members should ask stakeholders, “what is going on right now?” and “what do you want?” At this point, the team should try not include its personal or collective perspective or let it influence the process. Stakeholders might identify more than one “problem.” To help practitioners as they search within the general space of the system to identify a plurality of issues, they may try a hyper-heuristic (Ferreira, 2013, p. 876), which is a process of addressing “classes of problems” rather than just one. Third, the team must conduct multiple analyses of the observed systemic patterns, including an account of how resources flow.153 There are multiple available techniques and methods to accomplish this task. I suggest using the 5Rs” as a foundation to describe the resources, roles, relationships, rules, and results in a system (USAID, 2016).154 I propose an amendment to the 5R model by suggestion that “Relationships” be known instead as “Relationships (of Power or Transformation),” thus including relations between system constituents as well as what Checkland calls “commodities of power” as in the dynamical relationships where people of power influence the system. It is also about the transformational process that shifts a system’s dynamics from one state to another. Most commodities of power gain their position through information. Having access to “important information, or being able to prevent others from having access to certain information, is a much-used commodity of power in most organizations” (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 218).155 I also suggest adding a sixth “R”: “Representations,” or, the mental models that the patterns imply. The “6Rs” will help practitioners understand the inputs such as funding or human power (resources), formal and informal social positions between members in a group (roles), the expected behaviours of those 153 The original approach in SSM is to analyze roles/norms/values (as proposed by Checkland, 2010, p. 215), and this process helps practitioners understand the formal and informal social positions between members in a group (roles), the expected behaviours of those roles (norms), and the standards or criteria by which the behaviours of those roles are judged (values). 154 Another analysis method is the six conditions found in the “water of systems change” (Kania et al., 2018): policy, practices, resource flows, relationships, power dynamics, and mental models. Another example might be SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; Panagiotou, 2003). 155 Others include “personal charisma; membership of various committees in organizations; having regular access to powerful role holders; in knowledge-based settings, having intellectual authority and reputation; having authority to prepare the minutes of meetings—a chore, perhaps, but it gives you some power!” (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 218). 216 roles (relationships), the standards or criteria by which the behaviours of those roles are judged (rules, or values), the results that the system is moving toward (the attractors or end goals), and the internal mental models (representations) through which the participants, clients and practitioners are seeing themselves and their environment. Looking through the 6Rs lens helps practitioners understand the “local culture” as well as their worldviews. The information is then filed as data for the next phases. Ultimately, it is crucial to have multiple analyses of the system to understand intrinsic social dynamics that often represent hidden patterns and flows of resources and power. Lastly, the team needs to create a checklist to see if the group has critically considered a conscious view of their own worldview bias. I suggest using the five-point transsystemic metric (See Transsystemic Research in chapter 2.1.2.c) to reflexively engage in a critical-theory-based approach that considers a pluralistic, cosmopolitan, and dialogic interactive approach to complex systems.156 This metric can assist in balancing out any worldview biases that are overly objectivist or subjectivist, causally linear, or dualistic in maintaining a subject–object divide. By using this basic metric, the team can determine whether its vision and identity considers the hidden presuppositions of knowledge-constitutive interests when looking at complex adaptive systems, which the team’s worldviews depend upon. d. The Process #2: Creating The creating phase of SIIM is the heart of social innovation because it actively invites the dynamic transformation process of innovation into core members’ internal process as well as within the external project design. Creativity is the novel, ceaseless change of universal processes, a force that drives not only social systems but also the “unrolling of inner life” (Bergson, 1946, p. 106) in each individual. Each individual must be open to an inner as well as 156 The metric asks five questions: (1) Does the research search for an interconnected understanding of how multiple systems work? Is the research dialogically interactive with diverse communities or sources? (2) Is the research open to creative change in a cross-fertilization of ideas? (3) Does it allow undergoing a critical analysis of normative assumptions to find similarities in situations without inducing theoretical contradictions? (4) Does the research acknowledge that systems are observable patterns rather than concrete realities; as such, that systems are socially constructed? and (5) Does the research check for hidden presuppositions in their worldviews, and in each case, acknowledge the “knowledge-constitutive interests on which the validity and meaning of ‘facts’ depend”? (Ulrich, 1983, p. 64). 217 outer innovation: “[t]o lead profound change is to shift the inner place from which a system operates” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 377). This phase is an inner investigation of the team’s ideas and potentialities as well as a deepening into a “creative world” of the social challenge at hand. The creating phase defines the “problem” of the social system and discovers the solution space of its possibilities. The phase constitutes setting up the space to create, looking for the preconditions of novelty, and following a creative method. i. Creating in a Systemic Space157 A “space” is neither a thing nor a product. It encompasses a mental, social, and physical experience within a set of relations and their interconnections with action (Lefebvre, 2003, p. 73; Fuchs, 2019, p. 135). A creative systemic space is one where diversity thrives, the instability of uncertainty is welcomed, conflict is a source of passionate inquiry, and tension is the power of transformation.158 It could be called a “laboratory” in which to ask big questions, prototype experiments, and allow failures to be springboards for possibility. While these sentiments are hopeful, the non-realization of such a space is usually found in the divisionary assertion that one person’s (world)view is more accurate than another’s. From a critical conscious view, no single view is the right one. However, while a creative systemic space is where all “truths” are explored (Hassan, 2014, p. 7), carefully considered, challenged, and tested for application, the space must constitute a reduction in barriers such as worldview biases so that a true improvement to the problematical situation is possible. ii. Preconditions of Innovation Creating in the SIIM method involves generating relevant innovations for the social system’s context and also deeply investigating broad multisystem change processes that are already naturally occurring so that societal creative forces for improvement can be accessed and harnessed. The team will find the preconditions of innovation, analyze them, and use that information to discover the system’s key behaviours as it moves toward innovation and determine how to intervene in a system’s critical areas where innovation may happen. If preconditions are 157 This section was inspired by Hassan’s (2014) third requirement for a social lab: “actively creative systemic spaces” (p. 121). 158 See The Four Preconditions of Novelty, in chapter 2.1.4.c, or Manuscript #2, further details. 218 present and the system (or parts of it) are behaving in ways that further the preconditional states, consequently moving toward a critical point of innovation, the team may focus on these elements to determine whether it should follow a certain path of the system that is trending toward novelty to leverage that part of the system in a direction that might accentuate a novel or innovative outcome. For example, after the cod moratorium in 1992, Bonavista sought an innovative transition to turn its economy around. In doing so, it discovered that heritage carpentry was a resource that could be leveraged to add to a developing tourism industry.159 This phase’s subsection is an information review because the team will benefit from understanding the process of innovation before making an innovation model in the method’s next phase. Below is a shorter version of the preconditions of novelty (see The Four Preconditions of Novelty in chapter 2.1.4.c for a detailed account), which I have cast language that is suitable for a social innovation intervention team. (i) Tension (of opposites). A disturbance or disruption may occur in a system, increasing tension and moving it toward disorder. In the Bonavista case, the cod moratorium was implemented. Disturbances trigger novel responses and are great points to seek the possibility of innovation. Perturbations can occur as macrosystemic tensions between broad-scaled groups and cultures or micro-, niche-level tensions between people and businesses. Tensions arise greatly when oppositions are at their greatest between constituents. (ii) Competition. When multiple individuals or groups seek similar resources, competition increases, escalating fluctuations in the system. This is balanced by cooperation amongst the agents. (iii) Instability (feedback). As tension, disturbance, or competition increases, the social system becomes increasingly unstable and “feedback” occurs. For example, with fewer employed people, fewer economic transactions occur, and thus greater economic instability happens with fewer resources for everyone (Meadows offers a great example of interest rates, 2009, p. 156). Instability often occurs due to uncertainty. (iv) Diversity. I use the term to describe a diversity of possible opportunities or outcomes as well as the diversity of constituents. Whether in broad-scaled system landscapes, such as the town of Bonavista, or in niche-level interactions between organizations or businesses, the four preconditions above can be searched for to determine whether innovation is possible. They are multisystemic in that they occur across 159 See Appendix B; Cooney, 2012; Norman, n.d. 219 economic, social, and psychological systems (see Framework). Once it recognizes these preconditions, the team can identify other possibilities of innovation in multiple system locations. To confidently determine if novelty-generation or the systemic innovation processes are actually occurring, core members can consult the “novelty assessment heuristic” in Manuscript #2. There are places in a system’s behaviour that may cause it to shift toward a problematical (destructive) or innovative (creative) state. These transition points indicate where and when a system might transition from trending toward disorder to trending toward order.160 Typically, shifts that occur at transition points are most noticeable when they reach a critical point (a crisis point or bifurcation point). Here, the system increases in fluctuations until it makes a “choice” to shift into a repetitive and thus similar or novel and uncharted path (i.e., a path of low-recurrence; Manuscript #2). Different system analysts use different language to describe such points: scale breaks, discontinuities, gaps (Allen & Holling, 2010, para. 16), exogenous shocks (Salamonsen, 2015, p. 1790), punctuated equilibria (Eldredge & Gould, 1972); leverage points (Meadows, 1997, p. 1–19). A social system trending toward a critical point like a crisis, conflict, or breakdown indicates that the probability of innovation will likely occur soon (see Figure 6.2.3.d). The trending of two social systems toward “conflict” is another indication of the probability of innovation because it is the broaching of two systems’ boundaries.161 The fisheries economy in Bonavista was heading for crisis when the cod moratorium was put into place. The social system’s critical points (i.e., the “problem”) also hold the possibility for generating a possible solution that will creatively address the original problematical situation. As such, tourism in Bonavista was soon after considered a potential economic opportunity due to its heritage as one of Canada’s oldest towns. Problems should not be taken lightly and, while many of us want them 160 There are no real “points” in a system, as the space is constantly in flux and change; however, at the moment of this phase of the method, it may be advantageous to look for general “points” within attractor basins where innovation might occur. The term “point” also insinuates specificity; while some transitions occur abruptly (exogenous shocks), some may be gradualist (Eldredge & Gould, 1972), and thus, the term should be used in the context of a flexible space and time. 161 In ecology, “bumping zones” (or ecotones) between two systems can be rich in diversity when the two meeting boundaries are stable (Kark & Van Rensburg, 2006; OED, 2021, April). In social systems, the bumping zones (or systones) between two social systems are also indicators of where to look for innovation. For example, the Me Too Movement saw two social systems collide: the entertainment industry and the effort to reduce sexual violence against women. Such diverse social regions are rich in challenge and thus possibility, and thus can be the indication of the probability of innovation. 220 to disappear, they offer important instigations for innovations to shift the system toward improvable change and stability. Figure 6.2.3.d. A time-scale graphic of a system moving toward a critical point, entering chaos and through dissipation transforming into either (i) a recurrent state of high repetition of “business-as-usual,” or (ii) a low-recurrence state of innovation (see Manuscript #2). The process is generalizable in the sense that it could apply to physical process or societal change. Graphic by author. Allen and Holling (2010, para. 8) have suggested that scale breaks between cycles of transformation in social and ecological systems are places where novelty can occur. Such cycles of transformation are called “adaptive cycles” (see Fig. 6.2.3.d2), which shows how social and ecological systems move through different phases of destruction and restruction. Whether the transition points represent shifts toward “problematical situations” or “social innovations” depends on a number of factors. First, it depends on how the team labels the point based on qualitative and normative presuppositions stemming from the collective worldview at that point in time. Next, it depends on the preconditions of innovation, which will determine the path the system is trending toward. Then, it depends on whether there is a high degree of repetition in the system’s behaviour or whether there is a low degree of repetition (or low recurrence; see Manuscript #2). Lastly, it relies upon how that point may be addressed, or to use the language of Meadows (2008), which way it was “pushed,” to determine whether it will continue or further the problem or transition to an innovation. 221 Figure 6.2.3.d2. An adaptive cycle, adapted to also indicate an entropic–negentropic relationship. A, B, C, and D can be considered “transition points” of this system; however, point A is a key point to look for as it indicates imminent change. Graphic by author, after Burkhard et al. (2011, p. 2880), which in turn is based on Holling’s classic adaptive cycle graphic (Holling & Gunderson, pp. 33–44). A transition point may be pushed by a social innovation project’s design to change the system’s behavioural outcome. Another way to describe transition points are leverage points (for a descriptive list of where to find them and which ones have the most impact, see Meadows, 2008, pp. 145–146). For instance, Meadows suggests that “growth” represents a leverage point for the world model to find out how major world-system “problems,” such as poverty and environmental degradation, might be solved. In the case of Bonavista, a leverage point might be the transition point where the town can choose how to direct new resources. If the town chooses unwisely, the point may be pushed in a certain way such that some will experience greater wealth and others will be “pushed” into poverty. Thus, transition points may be exploited in unintended or undesirable directions. Finding transition points is tricky and not intuitive because one point depends on another point that influences another (2008, p. 146). While a social system holds different transitional “points” that can be potentially pushed, the most impactful one is the A B C D 222 identification of the collective worldview (Meadows describes this process as “transcending paradigms”; 2008, p. 164). When a single person, group, or culture within the social system lessens its identification with a static worldview that holds the problematical situation in place or switches to a more dynamic worldview without less bias, the system can make an impactful transition that may even last for decades or millennia (Meadows, 2008, p. 174).162 The project team does not need to attempt to change the worldviews of their stakeholders or constituents (i.e., the “system” that the project is attempting to address). Rather, the project team begins the transformation of the system (or the collective worldview) by transforming its own collective worldviews and opening itself to change. In sum, leveraging transition points is important because, when the team comes across a transition point in the project, it will be closer to knowing how to maximize its novelty and effectiveness to engender an improvement in the system. iii. An Innovation Model of the System At the heart of this method is the creative learning process actualized in the form of creating an innovation model (Rizzo et al., 2017, p. 128). The model visually represents the team’s understanding of how the system works innovatively, thereby revealing how to find transition points and push them. In knowing how to push a transition point, the team can determine which social innovation to build and how to build it to direct its impact on the system and shift it to a novel and improved path. The innovation model is a current description of the system rather than a description of how the team envisions the system in the future (that possibility will be described in the next section, “Iteration”). Keeping the model in the present will avoid presupposing the innovation and will instead let the innovative possibility reveal itself from the transition points through the process. Creating the possibility for discovering an innovation rather than projecting one onto a system without seeing how it works first will limit the possibility of imposing an innovation that does not respond to what is actually happening in the system. 162 Meadows mentioned the Christ or Buddha as individual representations of a result of a shift in a leverage point. Others might be Martin Luther King, Malala Yousafzai, Mother Theresa, or Gandhi. “Object” examples might be the internet or the creation of the first horse “carriage” (which was the precursor of the train and car). 223 The modelling process described below is influenced by Checkland’s purposeful activity model (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 218), although it differs in its focus on the preconditions of innovation and the multisystemic processes of creativity.163 The innovation model process begins by defining the system’s elements and then graphically modelling it. Whereas earlier phases focused on information gathering (inquiry phase) and research (research picture), this phase takes the research findings and defines the system’s elements to model it and reveal deeper system innovation dynamics and places for intervention. Below, I outline three main definition steps to be completed before modelling the system. 1. Core Discrepancy.164 This process is similar to, and builds from, the worldview inquiry activity completed earlier by the team. In this section, the team takes the group or system’s identity statement described previously and alters it to include new learnings. Then, the team creates a future identity statement that describes what the system is striving for. The two statements will create a present definition of the system (as it is) and a future definition (as it is desired to be), so that a clear discrepancy can be articulated. The discrepancy is the transformational process from one system state (what is) to another (what it is desired to be). Creativity is that dynamical transformation. By learning of the discrepancy and thus the transformation, the team will see where in the problem there is an opportunity for change. The process of creativity or change is the process of worldview iteration by honing the collective worldview until new possibilities arise (Gabora, 2017 p. 7). While a social system’s behaviour is weakly linked to a social identity and shared worldview, the system’s planned behaviour and collective intention is purposefully active in trying to reach an ideal social identity based on the team’s shared worldviews (Rise et al., 2010, p. 1100; Brown et al., 2008). The core discrepancy is not an exact representation of the system’s perceived “objective reality” but is instead a heuristic that represents the team’s understanding of the trend of the system’s transformation. The team can 163 Some teams may choose to complement the Innovation Model with other effective methods, such as morphological analysis or synectics (Gupta & Trusko, 2014, pp. 186–188), to generate new ideas in the modelling process. 164 The core definition is similar to Checkland’s “root definition”; however, there are distinct differences. The core definition is specifically meant to define the transformational drive of the system, which, as proposed here, hinges on an “identification” of the system, while a root definition is the metaphoric “root meaning” that best describes the system. A simplistic example would be “A system to paint the garden fence” (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 219). 224 create a core discrepancy by answering the what, how, why,165 and who of the system. The team can (and should) create multiple core discrepancies that describe the observed collective identities which, based on the variable elements of the system, the innovation the system is trending toward.166 2. Defining the Elements. This stage defines the system’s elements or “variables” (Checkland use the mnemonic CATWOE; 167 Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 221). Defining these elements will enable the team to identify which parts are trending, where they are trending, and how they influence other elements. I will use the 6Rs described earlier as system element descriptors to describe the general constituents of a social system dynamic. All are considered “objects” of the system because they do not represent actual people, ideas, or processes; rather, they represent the team’s understanding of them. • Resources: funding, assets, natural regions, etc. • Roles: the people or organizations in the system, including stakeholders or general people, activators or the people or groups conducting activities that aid or detract from the transformational process, powers-that-be or the power holders who drive or slow the process, the project team and funders or clients, etc. • Relationships (of power or transformation): the relating patterns, behaviours, or flows, between elements that exhibit “exchange” within and outside of the system that either encourage power dynamics or dilute them, or the driving activity (activities) that stakeholders are engaged in. It shows a transition or movement from one state to another. • Rules: the system’s environmental conditions, structures, long-range requirements, or factors of time. • Results: the end goal or attractor that drives the system toward creation or destruction. • Representations: the inner mental models that describe static worldview biases or dynamic or liberatory worldviews of individuals or groups or the entire system. 165 Checkland calls this the PQR formula (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 219). 166 While used as a simplified heuristic, its purpose is as an end goal or attractor to which the system is seen to be trending toward. While a single end goal of a social identity and shared worldview is unrealistic due to the complexities of contradictory beliefs and priorities for a whole community (Lauer, 2013, p. 26), the purpose here will be to generate a general and agreeable collective heuristic. 167 In Checkland’s version, C = customers, A = activities, T = transformation process, W = worldview, O = owners of the change (stakeholders), and E = constraints of the environment. 225 The term “exchange” represents dissipative processes within a system that are actively displacing information or materials in and out of the system. This exchange is the heart of “novelty generation” in social systems where energy, constituents, or information enters the system in new ways to dissipate the energy, constituents, or information no longer needed or of a disordering or destructive nature. 3. Measures of Performance. As the team creates the model, they may find it useful to measure each variable’s performance by assessing the variables against Checkland’s five criteria of purposeful activity (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 222).168 4. Innovation Modelling. This process involves modelling the elements above in a visual graphic to describe the patterns of relations in the system’s transformation. It can be done in a room with a large table or whiteboard where markers of different colours are used to group concepts together. The team should start by assembling the 6R definitions and writing them on the side of the model on sticky notes. Then, the team will divide the definitions into three groups of transformation: (a) the constituents which get transformed, (b) constituents or processes which do the transforming, (c) any behaviours that describe the transformed constituent (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 223). Once all definitions are on the model, the team should start by placing the sticky notes on the model at representative distances from one another. The further apart they are, the less relevant they will be to each other. The team will then draw lines or arrows from one constituent to another. The arrows will represent the force of the relationships of power or transformation, with each force being a carrier of information, materials, or people in processes of exchange in and out of the system. For the constituents conducting the transforming, the team should review the preconditions of innovation to determine whether descriptors like tension, competition, instability, or diversity in the system are relevant. This could be represented putting a little “t” or “c” along the Relationship arrow. Some definitions might also be circled with a dashed line and an “i” for instability (i.e., feedback or fluctuations, and finally some definitions 168 Checkland includes the following: “Efficacy is whether the Transformation is working, in the sense of producing its intended outcome; efficiency describes whether the Transformation is being achieved with a minimum use of resources; effectiveness is whether this Transformation is helping achieve some higher-level or longer-term aim” (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 222). Elegance is whether the Transformation has an artistic quality of beauty to how it works; and ethicality is whether the Transformation was critically conscious of ethical concerns. 226 may be circled with a dashed line with a “d” in it for diversity). The Relationships arrows and dashed circles will help the team assess the locations of preconditions for innovation. To illustrate this stage, see the innovation model for the town of Bonavista (Figure 6.2.3.d3). The core discrepancy will be: “The loss of business opportunities from the moratorium (what) may force the town of Bonavista to invest in its heritage (how), in order to help achieve economic resilience (why), so that it may become the recognizable face of Newfoundland’s tourism (who).” The resources are the fish, the cultural and natural artefacts, the history, and the whales and icebergs. Roles are held by the townspeople (stakeholders), young people (Activators), and the mayor and council (powers-that-be). The representation is a “fishing town” or “skill-based workers” or “possible tourist destination.” The relationships are the power dynamics of the big fishing industry and provincial government “tension” of trust/mistrust, as well as “competition” of jobs and “instability” of the market. The transformation is the labour force shifting to the attractor of a social enterprise, with drivers of diversity of possible outcomes as driving forces. Rules are the limited initial customers, lack of investors, and limitations of distance to airports, other outports or major trade centres. After the model has been created, check it against the guidelines, determine whether all the links in the model support the core discrepancy, and if so, the model will guide the team toward a greater understanding and exposure to weakness (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, p. 224). Figure 6.2.3.d3. An Innovation model example. This example is extremely simplistic to offer a cursory view of what is possible. Graphic by author. 227 5. Pushing the Model. Next, the team creates a sticky note that has a circle with a TP (“transition point”) in it and an arrow coming out of it. The direction of the arrow will be placed on the model to determine possible places to “push” the transition point. Use as many sticky notes as there seem to be transition point possibilities. Each transition point will be placed in a different part of the system and each point will offer insights as to which innovation may be appropriate for that point. The team can generate different social innovations and determine whether they are applicable for intervention. The social innovations could be government resources like skill training for carpentry, small business initiatives for tourism, or social support groups for how to market bed and breakfasts. The model now has practical possibilities of innovations for the social system to use that will improve the system within the given constraints. Once the innovation model is complete and a list of possible social innovations has been created, the team may prepare to test the model in the “real-world” context. e. The Process #3: Iterating The process of iteration uses the innovation model to determine whether other core discrepancies need to be explored further and whether other group identities need to be expressed. Like examining different paths up the same mountain, creating more core discrepancies and models enables the team to explore different possibilities for analysis and to determine which model to follow to the next stage. Of course, the iterating phase may have already started before the modelling was finished; perhaps it has occurred over several years during which multiple models have been tested and failed or altered to adapt to new situational elements arising. There are two phases below that may be used to deepen or test the earlier phases of creating. 1. Future Model. Once a solid innovation model is complete, the team is invited to deepen the model by creating a new future model that specifically proposes a possible future. Until now, the previous work involved describing the system in the present; the future model involves describing a potential future (Scharmer, 2009, p. 416). The team can compare the future model with the innovation model to identify possible transition points for the system. Moreover, by using a theoretical comparative analysis, the team can compare the (present) innovation model 228 and the future model to determine which type of transition (punctuated, gradualistic, radical, micro/meso/macro, phases, etc.) might be at play in the innovative drive from the present state toward the future state. Such an analysis can also identify or clarify end-goal drivers or attractors. The future model is never implemented. However, such information will be very useful in determining whether or not the innovation model can be implemented with efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness. If not, the team might once again iterate or refine the core discrepancy to remake the innovation model prior to implementation. 2. Test Prototype. When they believe that one of the innovation models is ready to be implemented, core members should test it in a “real-world” scenario first so that they may “fail early to learn quickly” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 418). The innovation model is prototyped in a micro-environment where it is applied at a limited scale with stakeholders. Implementing a model into a social system entails working with real people’s lives. For this reason, the team must be prepared to fast-cycle through adaptations and iterations of the model as they emerge to anticipate and mitigate possible damage (Westley, 2015, pp. 10, 66; Hassan, 2014, p. 117). Computer simulations may also be used to test data and user-designed scenarios in the safety of virtual reality, which can be done successively or rapidly. Because there are multiple authors who have described prototyping in social change methods as they derive from design theory (Baran, 2019; Rizzo et al., 2017; Scharmer, 2009; Vilarinho et al., 2018; Westley, 2015), I will not elaborate upon this topic here. The prototyping process not only tests innovation models but also lets go of previous group identities, creating the potential for new ones to emerge (Scharmer, 2009, p. 418). This is particularly important for stakeholders who have either experienced privilege or have been underrepresented because a test may create a critical conscious space for new emerging identities to arise in the micro-environment in response to the test. By shifting old ways of purposeful action toward ideal identities and then toward new identities that enable less divisiveness, it may be possible to “self-mend” or self-organize (i.e., heal) the social group’s problematical challenges toward positive and innovative change. A prototype will also aid in realizing the intersubjective experience of creativity in the project team and in the group or community through the worldview alterations and adaptations in their natural collective drive toward creative possibility and solution-making. 229 Prototyping will reveal iterative possibilities for replica improvements to a model. In social systems innovations, resilient broad-scale change is required. Achieving broad durability and scale is dynamical. It needs intentional connection between: (a) seizing the opportunity of emergent features in a system (such as described above when defining transition points in the system), and (b) deliberate agency to reach beyond the unconscious presuppositions that bind the participants and stakeholders to their worldviews (Westley & Antadze, 2010, p. 5).169 Ultimately, the team will need to clearly understand the creative vision in order to define where to work, how to scale, and how to enable and adopt strategies early toward systemic (Vilarinho et al., 2018, p. 10–11). f. The Process #4: Implementing When implementing the final innovation model, the team must reflexively consider the devised methodology and models to determine whether the project’s original vision, structure, and transformation of the “problematical situation” into spaces for solutions should be transitioned into detailed propositions for actual change (Flood & Jackson, 1991a, p 204). The team should ask: can these models adequately translate from the systems thinking project into the “real” world of society where the outcomes may be scaled and implemented for broad impact? To answer this question, the team must seriously reconsider the “wicked problem” at hand, the core discrepancy, the vision statement, and any worldview biases which the project revealed. While the model is not meant to be perfectly chronological, implementing is described here as a final phase only for simplicity in description. In order to decide which iteration or prototyped model to implement, the team will need to consciously engage with the team participants, co-participants, and stakeholders to present the 169 One perspective that describes ways to scale a social innovation model is through Moore, Riddell & Lee’s scaling deep, out, and up (2015, p. 69). The three scales describe how innovative transitions occur, including “deepening (described as learning about culture, norms, values), broadening (repeating an experiment in different niche contexts), and scaling up (embedding a transition experiment into dominant thinking within a niche or regime)” (in reference to van den Bosch & Rotmans, 2008, p. 438; Moore et al., 2015, p. 70). “Scaling deep” is a novel contribution that points to durable change in values and cultural practices, quality of relationships, and the transformation of people’s hearts and minds (Moore et al., 2015, p. 74), and it implies a collective intersubjective personal innovation as a social innovation. Westley and Antadze (2010) offer a particularly good resource for understanding the prototyping of social innovation for broad and durable systemic change. Scaling out, up, and deep might also include the paradigmatic shift of worldview transformation that Meadows talks about as her number-one leverage point of transformational change. 230 model and gain participatory feedback and input. This stage is crucial to ensuring that people who are impacted by the project are represented in the decision-making process. This may be done via direct participation or other participatory engagement processes. The implementing phase has its own challenges, growth opportunities, and innovations, and while this paper’s focus is front-ended and thus more about the inquiring and creating phases, I encourage any of the core members to seek resources to support their implementation. After the implementation occurs, a meta-reflection should occur to evaluate the process and consider the team’s thinking and worldview orientation (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, pp. 235, 237). Has the social system improved? Has the team changed and grown? The SIIM process itself is one of emergence, so team members should reflect upon their own processes of emergence. 6.2.4 Conclusion This paper offers a methodological framework and practical tool for social innovators to engage in a critical investigation of intervention worldview bias through mindful creative change and novelty generation in social system innovation processes. By amending soft systems methodology to include theoretical and methodological backgrounds of other process-oriented methods like social labs, the paper combines salient features of creative critical consciousness and collective worldview bias examination with systemic creative processes of system innovation (through novelty assessment and its preconditions) to provide a new methodology and practical tool for social innovators and changemakers to work toward social systems intervention and design. Methodological frameworks are challenged by what Freire (1970/2000) calls “activism” or “action for action’s sake” without reflection, as well as “verbalism” or empty words of change (p. 87). The method presented here is a prospective approach and is deeply rooted in a time-tested empirically practiced method (SSM). As mentioned earlier, the SIIM methodology and practical method offers social innovators an exploration to integrate two critically important approaches to innovation and change, critical theory, and novelty generation. It encourages a stronger theoretical foundation for a deeper investigation of social innovation intervention methodologies that bridge the gap between functionalist action research design methods and interpretivist social 231 planning methods to find complementarist methodologies that specifically focus on innovation as systemic-dynamic creativity across multiple social systems. Ultimately, the framework offered in this article is complementarist, multimethodological, and pluralistic, and it makes an important contribution to the literature in social change and social system interventions. 232 7. CONCLUSION [W]e arrive at the notion that our general world view is itself an overall movement of thought, which has to be viable in the sense that the totality of activities that flow out of it are generally in harmony, both in themselves and with regard to the whole of existence. Such harmony is seen to be possible only if the world view itself takes part in an unending process of development, evolution, and unfoldment, which fits as part of the universal process that is the ground of all existence. (Bohm, 1980/2005, p. xvi) 7.1.1 Background and Research Overview Complex social challenges are present in most social systems, whether at the local, regional, or global level, and such challenges have commonly been approached through worldview biases that are unexamined for hidden presuppositions. Worldview biases can produce inequitable assumptions, unchecked norms that favour a single paradigm, a type of causal thinking that sees either randomness or deterministic outcomes, or overly objectivist or subjectivist dichotomies in how humans relate to one another. It can influence social intervention design or limit the understanding of complex social system dynamics when addressing complex social change. With growing scepticism of overly simplistic solutions to complex challenges such as dowry death or the impact of climate change, it is easy to doubt that single-paradigm and incentive-driven strategies work. For example, readers may have seen newspaper article titles such as “India ‘Dowry Deaths’ Still Rising Despite Modernization” (Williams, 2013), or “Here’s Why Capitalism Can’t Fix Climate Change” (Cox, 2018), or “Money Rarely Solves Complex Social Problems” (Stewart, 2016). As I have argued, complex social challenges need to be addressed with equally complex strategies that adequately account for novel processes of change and are conducted from a critical consciousness perspective. These strategies must also include a systemic theoretical framework that highlights the complex unity across multiple systems and disciplines, along with a critical but novelty generating methodology. In this manuscript-style dissertation, I have addressed this issue through the preceding four manuscripts (Manuscript chapters #1 through #4), as well as proposing a foundational theoretical framework that describes creativity as a nonlinear dynamical transformation “driver” of systemic change. My research has 233 taken both an internal and external approach to systemic social change and investigated social innovation through a transdisciplinary, multiparadigmatic, and complementarist lens. A brief chronological summary of this dissertation and its arc will offer a general overview of my theoretical and methodological approach to research and application: • Life is complex. We experience our internal and external relationship with the world through observed patterns of relations. We can call these patterns “systems” that are seen through an interrelated web of understandings called an individual worldview (Gabora, 2019a, paras. 3–4) or a society’s collective worldview (Unrau & Gabora, 2021, p. 190). • “Social systems” and “collective worldviews” are related, and as such, the use of the term “system” no longer refers to something in the world but instead it describes how we see the world (Checkland & Poulter, 2010, 192, 198). Thus, systems do not exist “out there” but rather collectively in our minds. It is imperative to understand that our worldviews make up the system we see, and are also the unit of cultural evolution (Gabora, 2017, p. 8), that is, the creativity that drives social systems. To change the system, we need to be deeply aware of our worldview biases (described as limited notions of equity, paradigms, causality, and ontology; per Worldview Bias in chapter 2.1.3.a). • Social systems encounter disturbances; however, these “problems” are discrepancies between what the situations actually are and what they are desired to be (Rittel & Weber, 1973, p. 165). Social “problems” are problematic because there are discrepancies in our worldview between what is and what we desire for the future. When worldviews are static and people are identified with their worldview, they may become influenced by the socialized and conditioned structures that were “deposited” through familial relations and cultural influences (see Freire, 1970/2000, p. 79). Dynamic worldviews, on the other hand, are open, flexile, complementarist, and more aligned with naturally occurring creative processes of change. • A creative consciousness approach to collective worldviews facilitates the dynamic experience of creative drivers in multiple systems of interconnection. Critical consciousness facilitates a processual approach to creative action that includes reflexivity in view of the oppressive nature of power dynamics (Freire, 1974/2005, p. 48). Creative critical mindfulness offers a praxis of social change rooted in observing “novel distinctions” (Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000, p. 1) for creative categorization of observed reality. Social innovators can choose to mindfully observe their own worldviews, to see a complex unity as part of a critical conscious choice, and to avoid identifying with worldview bias (Meadows, 1997, para. 93). • Our experience of the world is one of ceaseless change, and the “force” behind this change is creativity. Creativity is the dynamic transformation from disordering (entropy) toward the regenerative response of ordering (negentropy) through low-recurrence self-organization of dissipative processes (novelty generation as innovation). This is a nonlinear dynamical way of explaining that “creative destruction” occurs in all social 234 systems. However, “creative restruction” is the driving of the system back to order through self-recurrent self-organization. • There are no linear deterministic “causes” for social innovation. Rather, innovation occurs out of an unpredictable “excess” of causal normality (see Manuscript #2). Social innovators can observe complex causal processes and become co-creators in driving a social system toward a particular attractor or direction (Geels, 2004). Thus, the purpose of social innovation interventions is to create actions that improve patterns of relations in society. • Novelty in social systems have four preconditions: tension, competition, instability, and diversity. If these preconditions are found, social innovators can identify creative potential in the system to choose an innovative path for intervention. This can be done by consciously using “transition points” to leverage the system toward creative change. • Social systems innovation methodology (SSIM) is a critical process-oriented way to address problematical social situations and understand how creativity arises in complex systems to generate social innovations. It is rooted in a systemic-dynamic framework of systems innovations and promotes a critical conscious understanding of social relations. The dissertation “arc” leads the reader through the theoretical framework and four Manuscript chapters toward a deeper understanding of systemic processes of creative change and how a practical methodology can address social innovation interventions. Such a journey will help changemakers in an era when much of the social innovation intervention literature still lies outside academia (i.e., in the so-called “grey literature”). In the rest of this conclusion, I will discuss each manuscript’s findings and contributions to current scholarship, describe the limitations of the present research, offer theoretical implications about the research, and suggest some possible future directions for this work. 7.1.2 Research Findings and Contributions to Research When a crisis is at its deepest, it can offer a huge opportunity. When things fall apart, we can redesign, recast, and rebuild. Every human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of himself or herself, but also to contribute to the well-being of the world as a whole. (Yunus & Weber, 2010, p. xiii) The four manuscripts of this dissertation provide answers to four research questions. In this subsection I will summarize the theoretical framework and discuss the findings of each manuscript and their importance to the literature. 235 First, I will situate the dissertations’ findings in relation to complex social “problems,” to contextualize how such challenges may be seen differently compared to how the Introduction presented them. Complex problems are only made problematic through a worldview bias, which, when transformed through a new lens, become discrepancies between the situation’s actuality and the desired possibility (Rittel & Weber, 1973, p. 165). As Rittel and Webber (1973) state, “[t]he analyst’s ‘world view’ is the strongest determining factor in explaining a discrepancy and, therefore, in resolving a wicked problem” (p. 166). Meadows appears to agree when she states that her number one leverage point is the ability for a changemaker to aid the system in “transcending paradigms” by helping them cease to identify with a worldview, in the sense of no longer believing any worldview is necessarily “true” (Meadows, 2008, p. 164). Worldview bias is then, according to these leaders in the field, the eminent challenge to systems thinking change. What I have articulated in this dissertation is an alternative way of complex thinking that is not rooted in a “problem” mindset.170 By examining the challenges social innovators are trying to address, the overlapping unknown aspects of the problem, and the unknown elements of a changemaker’s worldview bias, social innovators may come closer to seeing the unknown unknowns (i.e., the things we do not know that we do not know). Figure 7.1.2.a depicts the issue of a social innovator with an unperceived worldview bias attempting to address the unknown elements of systemic challenge. When using a complex systems thinking and heuristic approach that sees discrepancies between states of a transformation instead of problems, changemakers who approach a social challenge may look at the creative way in which the problem has become a problem and the way the system may be trending as it transitions. A new perspective of the discrepancy might assist in generating a solution whereby the original complex problem may be seen as part of very same self-organizing processes of innovation that created the “problem” in the first place. If both “problem” and “solution” are part of the same self-organizing processes of innovation, then, the very problem of a complex social system can be the source of creative possibility toward a solution (see also Yunus & Weber, 2010, p. xiii). 170 There is a popular maxim attributed to Einstein that says, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them,” which is likely a variant of something he did say: “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels” (Einstein & The New York Times, 1946, May 25). 236 To address the complexity of unperceived worldview biases, this dissertation produced transsystemic and worldview bias metrics (see the subsection called Transsystemic Research in chapter 2.1.2.c and Worldview Bias in chapter 2.1.3.a) as a checklist of assumptions that might be made during complex system research when social innovators plan a social intervention. Such metrics, checklists, and methodologies are important because, although it is starting to include equity and empathy as inclusive approaches to complex social systems research, the grey literature of social innovation research still lacks a unified and consistent way of implementing a critical, creative, and nonlinear complex systems approach toward systemic change. Figure 7.1.2.a. A social innovator addressing a complex social problem, each with unperceived elements. A complex challenge is difficult to map let alone detect. A social innovator also has unknown or unperceived metnal models and worldviews that leave biases undetected. Thus, when a changemaker attempts to address a problem, they do so with layers of unknown elements. Graphic by author. 237 In the Theoretical Framework chapter, my research offered two key findings to address the lack of a multidisciplinary framework that considers the driving force of novel change across multiple systems. First, the proposed transsystemic metric offers a checklist for innovators to determine if the ways in which they are approaching complex systems research lack a multisystemic or interconnected view of systems relations across, between, and beyond such systems. It also offers a means to engage in a critical understanding of those systems from a cosmopolitan, dialogical approach inclusive of the multiplicity of sources to delink normative assumptions and hidden presuppositions when analysing structures of reality. A transsystemic metric is an important contribution to the literature because it assists typical systems research methods and frameworks that lack an adequate acknowledgement of worldview bias and the challenges of the socially constructed categorization or levels of perceived power (Crenshaw, 1991, pp. 1296–1298). I was challenged daily when conducting this research to be mindful of my own worldview biases, and quickly became aware of how easy it is to identify with ingrained mental models and the biases of their constructed realities. This research has transformed significantly from earlier drafts that lacked the worldview bias lens to being a core part of the thesis objectives. The second key finding was an emerging concept of creativity that does not neatly fit within the “standard definition” (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 92). This discussion positions creativity as inclusive but beyond the discipline of psychology. It also suggests creativity occurs within psychological systems but has shared traits across multiple systems, including physical and social systems. Creativity is the dynamic transformation between two systemic features, states, phases, scales, scopes, or levels. Through a systemic-dynamic creativity framework, I offered a view of creativity as a dynamic transformation that occurs because of a general tension of oppositional features of a system (particularly between the disordering and ordering of a system), and begins when a causal excess of possibility in actuality spontaneously arises as a transitional process from state to state. A negentropic self-organizational process of low-recurrence drives the system toward balance or equilibrium. A systemic-dynamic creativity framework reminds social innovators that creativity is systemic in its application and therefore can position their work in multiple systems and dynamic perspectives of systems change—whether through gradualist or punctuated means. This Framework is a transdisciplinary approach to dynamic transformation 238 that contributes to the social innovation literature by demonstrating how systems generate transition points of innovation so that innovators may intervene through leveraging these points. I address my four research questions through the Manuscript chapters. In Manuscript #1, I ask how the systemic-dynamic theoretical framework of creativity can aid social innovators using Freirean critical consciousness to enact beneficial social change that includes a view of creativity as a fundamental driver of transformational systemic processes. The result was a re-imagined view of “creative consciousness,” which is a non-linear dynamical informed view of creativity as it arises within consciousness a priori of reflective experience. The chapter also resulted in a creative critical mindfulness approach to noticing “novel distinctions” in conscious awareness as a method to pay particular attention to any creative or innovative possibilities that arise. This type of mindfulness allows for an awareness of the ever-present processes of creativity so that a social innovator may see the static worldviews of social, political, and economic conditioning as they arise. It facilitates a clear and direct application of a Freirean critical consciousness, which challenges the assumed ontological reality of the world as something other than a static or Platonic given reality. From this perspective, a mindfulness approach to critical consciousness enables innovators to become conscious of how they unknowingly participate in and perpetuate the very structures they are trying to change, and it assists them with a practical method to mindfully question their worldview bias. This is an important contribution to the literature because it links creativity and mindfulness not only as a mindful tool for greater creativity but also as a creative tool for greater mindfulness. Creative critical consciousness becomes a way to gain awareness of the static identities of self through thought, belief, ideology, and worldview. Social innovators may delve into the complexities of “societal dynamics as this awareness grows and one experiences a sense of interconnectedness and compassion for the world. As this sense of interconnectedness grows, mindful practitioners begin to see how their lives may influence and perpetuate injustice” (Hick & Furlotte, 2009, p. 13). Creative critical consciousness, and creative critical mindfulness become a useful lens and practice when implementing social interventions for complex social challenges. In Manuscript #2, my research asks how creativity arises across multiple systems. Here I sought to develop a generalizable nonlinear dynamical approach to novelty generation and assessment that is applicable across multiple disciplines. By investigating the shared roots of 239 multisystemic novelty generation, I focused on the “birth” of creativity through a “breach” of causal normality as the excess of possibility transforming into actuality. This “breakthrough” approach to novelty in systems relations, whether incremental or punctuated, is the driving element of systemic transition and transformation. It is therefore the driving force of processual change of any system and the progression of asymmetric “time.” This is an important contribution to the literature because until now there have been several causal and nonlinear arguments for novelty generation, but there has been no theoretical proposition that links the two and supports other diverse understandings of novelty across multiple systems. While a nonlinear understanding of self-organization as the source of novelty generation has also been proposed in other theoretical contexts (i.e., Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 60), none have articulated clearly what makes novelty “new” in relation to low-recurrence and nonlinear dynamics and links it to a subjective and objective perspective of the observer. Because it collates often disparate backgrounds to the arising of creativity in a complex systems view—that is, time, subjectivity, objectivity, causality, self-organization, nonlinearity, low-recurrence, , and assessment—the contribution of this manuscript places diverse understandings of novelty generation into a single multisystemic perspective. When social innovators use the preconditions of novelty in alignment with the novelty assessment provided in this manuscript, they can assess if the trends they are finding in social system transitions are indeed novel—that is, if they inspire social innovation. Through this assessment process, innovators can be more confident in how social systems transition when predicting social crises or looking for socially beneficial change. In Manuscript #3, I asked how creativity drives a broad-scaled social system innovation using a nonlinear dynamical framework. This published chapter challenges social system innovation theories by including an entropic–negentropic perspective of creativity, suggesting that creativity arises in social systems the same way as in psychological systems. Gabora (2017, p. 10) proposed that creativity arises out of psychological entropy or arousal-inducing challenges where a worldview is transformed: in such a situation, an individual will recursively consider ideas in an attempt to solve the challenging situation and reduce the arousal. In a collective worldview, I propose a similar process occurs where entropic disordering stimulates general societal “shifts” toward negentropic ordering to reduce the perturbing elements of the system. This complex systems and nonlinear dynamical approach to social system innovation furthers the 240 social innovation literature by linking creative destruction to the entropy–negentropy dynamic and the broad-scaled systemic processes of worldview transformation and change. This knowledge will provide social innovators or changemakers a broad-scaled systems understanding of social system innovation as being part of our collective worldviews and the very processes of cultural evolution and change. It affirms a complex systems perspective of the notion that to create the change they desire, social innovators must look for transition points in their own worldviews to access the cultural transformation of the collective, instead of thinking that the system needing innovation is “out there.” In Manuscript #4, I asked whether a systemic-dynamic creativity can be merged with a soft systems thinking method for social innovators to reduce worldview bias and tap into multisystemic process of innovation. Based on soft systems methodology (Checkland & Poulter, 2010), I proposed an alternative methodological framework (which I called the social system innovation method, or SSIM) that addresses complex social challenges by proposing a complementarist view of the traditional “design thinking” methods based on systems dynamics (Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Forrester, 2016), and rooted in a critical consciousness approach to systemic change (Checkland & Poulter, 2010; Flood, 1990; Ulrich, 2012). This approach to social intervention challenges those previous literatures for several reasons. First, design thinking, while slowly adding important cultural and equitable considerations in recent years (i.e., equity or empathy” as part of systems design processes; Brown, 2009, p. 39), is still a based on functionalist ideals, and it lacks an interpretivist view of social relations. While it includes the deeply important equitable consideration of working with participants in systems design, equity (and thus empathy) is only one area of worldview bias consideration. Instead, this manuscript furthers a critical consciousness approach to complex systems design and intervention and ensures that it is more considerate of other biases and is structurally designed to address them (see Worldview Bias in chapter 2.1.3.a). Next, this paper offers a complex systems understanding of broad-scaled social system novelty generation (and thus social innovation) that is yet to be fully integrated into a social innovation methodology as part of the creation or iteration process. It then outlines a descriptive method for social intervention, which follows four main processes: (1) inquiring; (2) creating; (3) iterating; and (4) implementing. These processes take the social innovator(s) from potentializing to actualizing and start in a “creative world” of design and 241 research before intervening in the “real world” of citizenry and their communities. While the method is prospective, it is rooted in the empirically tested and practiced soft systems methodology (Checkland & Poulter, 2010). The SIIM methodology and practical method offers social innovators an opportunity to integrate two critically important approaches to innovation and change: critical consciousness and novelty-generation. Both of these new components are important for the literature, as they allow social innovators to see the “problem” from an interconnected and critically conscious perspective to find the novelty-generating opportunities in the “transition points” of social system dynamics as they seek to face and intervene in the world. 7.1.3 Limitations of Research Since my goal has been to synthesize and analyze an internal critical consciousness approach to creativity and an external nonlinear dynamical systems view of creativity to generate a framework of how creativity works through social innovation across multiple disciplines and paradigms, my research has fallen in between standard models of research and disciplinary foci. The scholarship and practice of social innovation does not sit neatly in any one discipline, and often, it is found in environmental studies or business management. Thus, this dissertation is truly an interdisciplinary project with transdisciplinary outcomes. However, there are over-arching limitations to my findings, as well as delimitations to the research, which I will express here. The most important limitation of this work is my positionality as a white, heterosexual, cisgender settler. I am interested in challenging worldview biases and discriminatory categorizations (stemming from socially constructed identities rooted in race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and age) because of their inherent negative normative presuppositions and because of my own disability. Still, my worldview has been constructed via social privileges that instil as-of-yet unexplored biases and inequitably favour certain experiences. Such worldviews, furthermore, have granted me the time and opportunity to study this topic in a doctorate degree. I started my doctoral degree with strong interpretivist and subjectivist worldviews, which disfavoured scientism and the separation between mind and matter in academic literature. A major transformation for me was reading about intersectionality, critical systems theory, soft systems theory, and complementarism (Checkland & Poulter, 2006; Crenshaw, 1991; Flood, 242 1990; Jackson, 2019; Ulrich, 1983), which offered me a critical examination of systems thinking but one that can find balance between functionalism and interpretivism as well as objectivism and subjectivism. This has offered me more space in my thinking and dialogue to generate open conversations with people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Another revelation for me was reading about how creativity can be seen as a process across multiple systems (Whitehead (1929/1960), and that while worldviews may impede innovation, they are also the “unit” for creative systems change (Gabora, 2017, p. 8). As my worldviews transitioned, so did my writing. I began filtering my research though a transsystemic metric (see Transsystemic Research in chapter 2.1.2.c) and the worldview bias metric (see Worldview Bias in chapter 2.1.3.a). I also drew upon my relationship with a Blackfoot elder from the Kainai Nation / Blood Tribe (Calgary, AB), and my Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta background (i.e. practical living in several Buddhist monasteries and Hindu spiritual centres in Thailand, India, and Canada). Finally, I offered footnotes to point to other diverse academic and cultural perspectives to broaden my scope. My own critical worldview inquiry has been an on-going process of realization and an important one for me as a researcher. A delimitation of this research is its broad scope, which aimed to go between, across, and beyond multiple disciplines, paradigms, systems, and methodologies. This necessarily deprived the final output of detailed explanations or in-depth understandings of each specific theory or claim in its historical, practical, theoretical, ontological, epistemological, and axiological context because I used a complementarist and cross-boundary perspective. While such a transdisciplinary mode of research may imply a cursory or even grand unifying approach to research design (Hauk, 2014, p. 106), I argue that such “in-betweenness,” hybridity, and boundary crossing, though subject to these risks, is appropriate and specifically the direction that institutionalized interdisciplinary research needs to carefully venture toward. Doing so will shed light upon possible untapped discoveries within the ecotones (i.e., systones or “bumping zones”) between the traditionally siloed departmentalization of academia (Ross, 2017, p. 215). As an example of deeper or more specific research, important links could have been made to empirical studies on the psychology of creative personalities, institutional theory and practice, and resiliency theory. I gently delimited my research to the originating literature and founding authors of each theoretical 243 investigation, but consequently, I included fewer contemporary critical analyses of such topics.171 I also indicated where further research should be undertaken and the rationale for reviewing specific scholarly texts. As such, my use of the methodological conceptual-theoretical analysis heuristic that I mention in the Introduction and links constructive conceptual analysis (Kosterec, 2016) and theoretical analysis (Jasso, 1988), was not as thoroughly articulated as would have been possible with hundreds more hours in research clearly linking new theoretical relations to derived predictions and finally verifying logical necessary relationships through an empirical study. Another important delimitation was the choice to work in a theoretical research space without empirically supporting my proposition sets. I originally designed the arc of this dissertation to follow an empirically backed research project supported by a Mitacs funding opportunity to work with an industry partner over a two-year period and apply my social innovation theoretical perspectives into practice. Unfortunately, at the onset of my project, I was a passenger in a severe car accident that totalled the vehicle and left me with a concussion and damaged pelvis. Due to the necessary healing time of the injuries, I had to release the funding, and in consultation with my supervisors, I decided to follow a speculative theoretical approach which would allow me more flexibility. A physical and academic challenge at the time, I also see the accident as part of my scholar–practitioner narrative and one that supports the iterative notion that perturbations in a system (such as the accident) can be seen beyond their immediate problematical context even if they drastically alter the system’s direction. I see such instances as open opportunities for new avenues of lifeworld experience and theoretical ideation toward individual and social transformation. Speculative theoretical research, however, provides a rich area of study, even if it is critiqued by academic communities with the demand of empirical focus. Any deterrent away from the “not-yetness” of novel but inherently risky emerging thinking (Ross, 2017, p. 214) can limit new harbingers of innovation even if they born off the backs of speculative assumption-making. The cost of producing empirical-only outcomes can limit researchers to a concrete 171 For example, I delimited my research of critical systems theory to Flood (1990), Jackson (1991a), and Ulrich (1983), and soft systems methodology to Checkland (2000). I generally restricted my research on critical consciousness to Freire (1970/2000), and while much contemporary research has occurred on dissipative structures, my research was generally delimited to Prigogine and his peers (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977). 244 predetermined goal, when assumptions are supposed to be experimental in understanding unobservable reality.172 While the ambition was large, this dissertation is done in the spirit of innovative research to develop new ventures toward theoretical perspectives or heuristics that might spark further research on the topic of social innovation. Therefore, this dissertation offers an important venture into theorizing based on previous theory and current empirical study, as a starting point to further investigation and study. Below are a few other limitations or delimitations that should be included for consideration: i) While the cursory examination of “worldview bias” sufficiently satisfies a foundation of understanding, greater detailed explication would further support the argument. ii) The theoretical framework of this dissertation (i.e., the systemic-dynamic creativity framework) is needed in a full journal-ready form to ground the four manuscripts in a suitably argued academic study. iii) “Creative consciousness” implies an unscientific approach to consciousness studies, which needs further explication to merge a complex systems scientific approach to creative change within the experience of consciousness. iv) Use of terms: “transsystemic research” needs further exploration, and possibly a full journal-ready paper. The terms “entropy” and “negentropy” should be correlated to “disorder” and “order” only with exhaustive research in the literature, due to the subjective qualities of the terms. Using the physics term “fundamental force” in conjunction with “creative force” is complicated; however, the qualitative usages are important for lay readers as well as scientists in showing that general principles do exist between fundamental forces (in physics) and a force for creativity (with an understanding that creativity is a driver of systems change) and are beneficial for a heuristic understanding. v) A causal examination for novelty generation has been examined throughout the ages and thus needs a deeper exploration to cover all suppositional claims as presented in Manuscript #2. vi) A full example of the social systems innovation methodology (SSIM) would be beneficial to land the method in a pragmatic understanding of its application. A better route would be a full empirical study using the method. 172 Jasso (1988) points out three famous examples: “‘How does an angel move through space?’ and ‘How does love grow?’ and ‘How would the world look if I were riding at the edge of a light beam?’-suggest the rich product of the thought-experiment” (p. 9). 245 While the above limitations need to be noted, I found this research journey deeply important in my own growth and transformation, and beneficial to the enrichment of my academic learning. Thus, I will continue to advance the investigation of these topics through continued research and empirical studies as my academic career develops. 7.1.4 Theoretical Implications I began this dissertation with the purpose of investigating and offering a theoretical framework and practical methodology as a means to create a complex unity of creativity in a systemic-dynamic transformation that drives social systems interventions through a critical view of worldview bias when addressing complex social challenges. The resulting Theoretical Framework and SSIM methodology offer possible conclusions that extend beyond the context of this dissertation. In this subsection, I expand upon two main implications: (i) a transsystemic approach to research that is inclusive of a worldview bias; and (ii) a “breakthrough theory” of novelty, as part of a transdisciplinary understanding of creativity. a. Transsystemic Research and Worldview Bias Transsystemic learning and its associated educational models (MacDonald & MacLean, 2005; Jukier, 2017) have found merit at McGill University since the 1990s, and acknowledge the multiplicity of systemic sources and the associated normativity to the essential tenets of such sources. Transsystemic Research, which I propose in chapter 2.1.2.c, builds on McGill’s usage by proposing a research process that bridges between, across, and beyond systems. The two branches of the process, a multi-systemic and interconnected lens to complex systems, and a critical systems approach to systems research, have considerable implications to research in systems science. First, transsystemic research implies that through a closer investigation of multiple systems, their constituents, boundaries, and environments, new interrelations may be found in between and across previous notions of the system. Second, it implies that such interrelations may behave or interact beyond traditional notions of systemic dynamics with new or other emergent features. Such features are not necessarily defined by conceptual frameworks of emergence alone, but also by subjective frameworks or understandings about them. For example, in the Bonavista 246 situation, when the ecological systems that collapsed the cod numbers in the early 1990s and the human economic systems defined by unemployment, outmigration, as well as economic and mental instability came to a crisis, transsystemic research would investigate emergent features of interconnectivity between both systems such as a new economic identity (i.e., a town that is a centre for tourism) as emerging from the interconnected systemic relations. Subjective features beyond traditional systems theory may also apply: a negentropic self-organizing response to the economic “shock” could lead to a collective reflexivity of personal and collective resilience in a new communal identity of what it means to thrive in times of difficulty. In this context, perhaps the previous mental health instability just after the moratorium is changed through the eyes of research from a problem to an individual and communal success story. Such transsystemic research may correlate ecological–economic systems transformation to psychological systems transformation. In this case, static worldviews that may have biased communal politics in the lead up to the economic shock are the transitioning points that can change individual and collective worldviews through social innovation into evolving cultural transformation. The implications of this dissertation’s investigation of worldviews and their biases suggest that worldviews are not only sources of systemic challenge (such as discrimination, domestic violence, and the impacts of climate change), but also of creative possibility and social innovation. Worldviews are units of the creativity that drives cultural evolution (Gabora, 2017, p. 8). Therefore, if researchers use the transsystemic and worldview bias metrics to check assumptions and hidden presuppositions, the metrics may also assist in transforming their worldview biases toward the dynamic and creative possibilities of personal innovation that drives cultural change. Such a potential shift represents a psychological–to–social systems change process of “the problem can be the source of creative possible solution” (per the Research Findings subsection above). In this case, the metrics become the transition points by which systems may be leveraged toward possible beneficial change. While transsystemic research, worldview bias, and the theoretical implications of research are speculative, theoretical tests would need to be formulated to examine the propositions for logical consistency before moving to any kind of empirical research study. Still, the theoretical implications are exciting, and offer a path to continue to push the frontiers of systems thinking and research. 247 b. Toward a “Breakthrough” Theory of Novelty & Transdisciplinary Creativity As described above and in Manuscript #2, the “birth” of creativity across multiple systems arises in a breach or “breakthrough” of causal normality because of an excess of possibilities over-and-above the chain of actualities. A bifurcation in the system path (i.e., crisis, shock, transition point, or, tipping point) offers a breakthrough of possibility such that low-recurrence or non-recurrence are potential system-path novel behaviour. A breakthrough approach to novelty describes the force or process of creativity as it arises in novel form due to nonlinear and dynamical self-organization across multiple systems. This approach to novelty generation offers a hypothesis toward a theory that I call a “breakthrough theory of novelty.” This has significant implications for systems research and social innovation interventions. First, a linear or deterministic causal view of a social system leads to cause-and-effect thinking that can bias researchers into subtle or hidden suppositions about what will happen next in the world. In a causal “excess” or breakthrough model of systemic possibility in systems dynamics, as the saying goes, anything is possible. Whether through a gradualistic or punctuated and spontaneous breach, possibility is in excess of actuality. As such, excess possibility may breakthrough system normality when a system becomes static or stuck and builds up excess tension. Like a continental plate becoming static against a dynamically moving plate and the increasing tension released in an earthquake, the preconditions of creativity potential builds up as dynamic transformation creates tension against static forces in actuality. Dynamic worldviews in their movement come into tension with static worldviews that are in resistance. The outcome may be released as punctuated “shocks” to the system, but the result will be a creative destruction of creative restruction. This is important for researchers to understand during system analysis. Creativity is an essential “force” in nature that drives systemic change and is birthed in the transition from passing-away to coming-to-be. It arises as novelty through negentropic self-organization of systems when dissipating entropic disorder. In systems science, a breakthrough theory of novelty furthers research on low-recurrence paths of dissipation post-bifurcation in nonlinear dynamical self-organization. A low-recurrence understanding of novelty allows researchers to look beyond abnormal distributions of supposed “outliers” in data, and includes contextual or subjective reference to earlier forms of data that can be given the same threshold. 248 In psychological systems, creativity is found in the negentropic process of overcoming psychological entropy, according to honing theory (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). It is an essential force in driving cultural evolution through which an individual worldview is a “unit” (Gabora, 2017, p. 8). A similar process occurs in social systems, as I argued in Manuscript #3, where creativity builds up in static collective worldview paradigms that need to transition into dynamic forms through creative destruction and restruction. This alludes to a subjective and objective novelty generation and thus reminds us why worldview bias is so important even in data analysis and systems design. By placing less emphasis on creativeness and more on analysing the driving forces of creativity, creativity research might advance in its predictive ability as well as application in multiple disciplines or systems of research. A systemic-dynamic creativity framework is inclusive of multiple disciplines in its understanding of creativity. A transdisciplinary approach to creativity pulls creativity research out of any single department to make it applicable to many. Since it is a driver of multiple systems, as argued in Manuscript #2, creativity should be considered in multiple research domains and fields in a complex unity across theory or practice—whether in philosophy, physics, systems science, psychology, sociology, or management. In philosophy, for example, creativity arises from the tension of opposites between passing-away and coming-to-be (per Aristotle; Shorey, 1922, p. 338). From a physics perspective, creativity arises in the self-organization of entropy to low-recurrence negentropy (see Manuscript #2). In systems theory, creativity arises as the transformation between a systemic trend of disordering to ordering. In psychology, creativity arises when there is psychological entropy experienced as arousal due to a disturbance that leads the mind to self-mend or self-organize toward worldview continuity (Gabora, 2017, p. 10). In social systems research, creativity arises when there is a social perturbation such as economic destruction and the system transitions into self-organized creation (Geels & Schot, 2010, p. 9; Schumpeter, 1943/2003, p. 81), which is expressed in social systems innovation. In management research, creativity arises in social innovation or novel entrepreneurial efforts in technology or society. A transdisciplinary understanding of creativity covers basic principles from how the universe operates to the practical implementation of ideas into real-world scenarios as innovations. A graphical representation of a transdisciplinary approach to creativity (see Figure 7.1.4.b) will offer social innovators a visual to understand the broad scope of creativity as it is 249 contextualized by specific disciplines that currently use terms to describe processes or forces similar to creativity as discussed herein (a discussion of terms occurs in the subsection “Creativity: A Contextual Review” in chapter 2.1.4.b, and also in the Glossary). Figure 7.1.4.b. A graphical representation of a transdisciplinary creativity, as per the systemic-dynamic creativity framework. The horizontal arrows moving from left to right in the graphic is not meant to be linear or deterministic: the arrows suggest that creativity arises when passing-away transitions to coming-to-be. Creativity expresses itself into form in the creativeness of people’s ideas and products, and manifests itself in the world as an implementation of creative acts into society. Graphic by author. This transdisciplinary framework of creativity is a heuristic to help mono-disciplinarians as well as multi- or transdisciplinarians to contextualize novelty, emergence, creativeness, and innovation as part of a main driving force of systems change (e.g., in philosophy, physics, systems science, psychology, sociology, and management). It can help social innovators see the interconnection of foundational forces in nature and how it relates to emergent processes between, across, or beyond multiple systems, including an internal psychological experience of creativity as well as in the external broad-scaled innovations of social systems. Through an interconnected perspective, changemakers may address complex social challenges from an innovative view as it relates to foundational creativity processes in society. They can also look for the variables that feed social innovation, address those constituents, allocate resources to them, and thus shift the epistemic understanding of the interveners when seeking creative social solutions. Doing so will remind researchers to look for novelty in systems or disciplinary areas that might have previously been overlooked. 250 7.1.5 Future Research Direction Considering the contributions, limitations, theoretical implications, and practical applications of this dissertation, there are many possible future directions for this research. First, I plan to extend my research to a deeper investigation of the systemic-dynamic creativity framework to develop it further as a broad and systems-wide approach to the dynamic transformation of systems as a driver of systemic change. While creativity is not a new concept, creativity studies have not yet developed an extensive and coherent complex-systems study of creativity as a driver of systemic change that is applicable across multiple disciplines and systems. This is an exciting endeavour to expand the novel and explanatory framework for what the “force” of creativity is and how it transforms. Next, I believe an important area of future research is the notion of a transsystemic research approach to scientific study. The concept of transsystemic research is based on an emergent field drawn from law studies and education frameworks (see Transsystemic Research in chapter 2.1.2.c; Jukier, 2017). However, as a research tool working across multiple disciplines and systems, transsystemic research deserves its own field of research as a framework that can direct researchers crossing boundaries between traditional systemic silos and understandings. Importantly, it acknowledges the pluralistic autonomy of individual constituents. It moves beyond the dysfunctions of general systems theory and toward a complementarist approach that considers a cosmopolitan and dialogic interactive research ethic to reduce hidden presuppositions and thus efface the power dynamics traditionally embedded in a hierarchical systems views in science. By expanding this research concept, traditional systems science could move beyond functionalist- and positivist-only assumptions through a critical lens that acknowledges a pluralistic view of unobservable phenomena such as those described by the “hard problem of consciousness” (Chalmers, 1995, p.3). The next important area for future research is the concept of worldview bias, which, based on the extensive psychological studies of biases (Delgado-Rodríguez & Llorca, 2004, p. 635), could be expanded in terms of how worldviews function as an overall network of understandings that influence other worldviews. This is, I believe, an incredibly important area of study to be extended and expanded upon so that systems analysts, designers, or interveners may be conscious of the way they see the world and how that impacts the world. As Easwaran (2007) tells us, 251 “when we change ourselves, we have already begun to change the world” (p. 91). As such, through critical creative mindfulness, worldview biases may be lessened or altered to reduce any harm. As another future direction, I would very much like to extend the manuscript on novelty generation to include a section on the emerging mathematical understanding of nonlinearity, self-organization, and low-recurrence paths of novel change. While preliminary research has occurred (Goldstein, 2001; Sabelli, 2001), novelty generation occurring in the dissipative processes of low-recurrence self-organization through mathematically supported heuristics is an important research area that needs further investigation so that it may be applicable in probability scenarios of novelty. It would need to be carefully articulated in accordance with subjective/qualifiable perspectives of novelty assessment. However, such a study represents a solid direction forward in applicability of the sciences. Fields such as innovation technologies could use novelty prediction as well as social innovation processes to determine the general likelihood of a system trending toward novelty. Further research in this area could prove very fruitful in complex systems science as well. Finally, an important future research direction is the development, testing, and advancement of the SSIM methodological framework, which could be useful in planning social interventions. Further research could offer a practical and usable approach to generate new social systems innovation dynamics amongst constituents for broad-scale change. Empirical testing is needed for the model, specific to its integration of the complex systems view of novelty generation (i.e., a breakthrough theory of novelty) as predictive support for finding variables of a system trending toward innovative change. Much research is needed to expand upon and verify its effectiveness and efficiency when working on social innovation projects, including the applicability of SSIM through further workshopping or testing within a hypothetical context as well as real-world application or empirical study. Research is a living process, and no word can define the fluidity of knowledge that continues to grow, emerge, or change. Thus, a paradoxical nature of research unfolds: its goal is to find and discover, but answers cannot truly be found (Unrau, 2008, p. 135). Instead, more questions surface through the act of finding. As a result, several new questions arose for me in the process of writing this dissertation: 252 • What is the somatic experience of creativity in the moment of creating? Is it intersubjective? • Do systems in all cases transform through a systemic-dynamic creativity? • Is the identification to worldviews inherent? If not, can one be free of worldview bias? • Is there an experience a priori to reflective thought and also before the experience of subjectivity–objectivity? The research in this dissertation contributes new practical perspectives toward a nonlinear dynamical understanding of creativity as a systemic driver in social innovation research and toward a methodological tool for use in complex social interventions. The end result is that policies driven by collective worldviews may be addressed with creative critical consciousness methods that gently challenge worldview normative dominance and offer strategies and capacities for social innovators in complex systems to increase novelty generation in complex social systems. The research will further demonstrate the importance of a social innovation approach to developing organizational strategies and policies that aim to create a complex, adaptive, and conscious approach to individual and social wellbeing. By answering the four research questions of the Introduction, this dissertation demonstrates that the multimethodology of constructive conceptual and theoretical analysis fosters a cohesive complex unity within multiple systems and disciplines such as psychology, physics, systems science, sociology, and philosophy. Such a transdisciplinary understanding of how creativity arises across multiple systems and will advance the literature on social innovation and in other fields such as nonlinear dynamical science, management, and creativity studies. Social innovation is relatively a new field of academic and practical study, emerging over the last several decades with exciting results and novel practices in social entrepreneurship and systems design. This dissertation not only addresses nonlinear dynamical complexity in social systems but also offers social innovators a mindful process by which to shift inherent perceptions found in worldviews that limit productive action. It is necessary to foster a creative critical consciousness approach to our own worldview biases and seek a deeper understanding of complex systems approach to change. Problematic situations can reveal critical “transition points” in the system that suggest they can be leveraged toward a solution. Problems have within them the solutions. The key to addressing the complexity of 253 multiple crises that we face in contemporary life—and therefore the future of humanity—lies in how we collectively tap into an internal–external synthesis of the creative dynamics inherently found in natural processes as well as the intrinsic creative consciousness that arises in individual and collective experience (Scharmer, 2009, p. xi). In other words, accessing our individual and collective creativity is the most important task in human achievement that can allow us to address the most complex crises of our time. 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, F. D. (1995). 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That every human is biased is not a problem; however, that every human is unaware that they are biased the way they are presents a challenge to humanities and sciences research. As Tolstoï (1899/1907, p. 124) wrote: That most men – not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever, and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic problems – can very seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty – conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives. Benson (2016), as well as Delgado-Rodriguez and Llorca (2004, p. 635), write about many known biases and summarize them in a range of broad categories, including the stage at which biases are introduced. Some of the common categories they point to include: (a) research bias (or its close cousin, information bias) is a tendency to process and perceive statistical quantitative or qualitative data through unconsidered lenses giving skewed results. It occurs when some information is misclassified due to misleading conclusions; (b) cognitive bias, which are cognitive distortions caused by normatively limited short-cuts and assumptions of certain thoughts favoured over others. Cognitive biases occur when the topic of study fails to represent the topic one planned on studying; (c), self-bias (situations are favoured when an imbalanced outcome for one individual/group is preferred; (d) and finally prejudice, or implicit biases that are preconceived judgements of an event, individual or group. Here are some examples of actual biases that may be useful when thinking about thinking: 315 • Confirmation bias, subjective validation effect, or, the illusory truth effect, which bias us to favour information as more “truthful” simply because it confirms our existing theories and/or beliefs. • Naïve Realism bias, which states that we believe the external world is objectively real, and any contention must be in err. • Confabulation, and bandwagon effect, describe biases in which an individual fabricates memories unconsciously, or where people join others in an opinion for personal or social positioning rather than due to its truthfulness. • Illusion of asymmetric insight, is a bias in which a person or group assumes their knowledge or another person/group is more accurate than that person’s/group’s knowledge of themselves. • Fundamental attribution error and false consensus bias, are when an individual or group assumes that what another individual or group does is who they really are, and that their opinions, beliefs, and habits are representative of the consensus, when such a consensus is not shown true. • Novelty bias, which states that when something new or original is presented, it is seen as having a greater effect rather than that which is current or old, even if not proven. • Reactance, and belief bias, describes the resistance to pressure which is felt as a threat to freedom of choice and the tendency to judge an outcome based on a predetermined belief. Occam’s Razor is a 13th century hypothesis that when explaining an outcome, only the necessary assumptions should be made. Splitting is the tendency to position ideas into black & white binary positions. Biases add multiple colours to the lenses through which we see the world, whereby probabilities can be unexpectedly imprecise, estimates about the complex phenomena we study are bound to be fraught with errors, and what is considered “evidence” just may be the result of wishful thinking (Bland, 2018, p. 489). All this said, bias should not reduce our attempts to explain or analyze what we observe due to a mistrust of the senses. Instead, such cognitive misconceptions can trigger within us a conscious reflexivity where we may become more aware of our thinking to reduce the impositions we may unintentionally place on the subject of study we seek to understand, limiting resulting harms as an outcome. 316 Appendix B. Applied Example In an effort to apply the theory to practice, the below subsection is an application of Manuscript #2 and The Four Preconditions of Novelty (see chapter 2.1.4.c) to a real-world example. I generate a sample “report” that is backed by research and analysis, as if created by a social innovation consulting team for a local government. The example reveals how social innovators might understand the complexity of a community they are observing and use the preconditions of novelty and a “breach” approach to causal normality in a framework, to search for areas in the system that are trending toward innovation. I do this by analysing real-world data and offering recommendations for a (hypothetical) town council so that they may intervene in the community and leverage the “transition points” toward beneficial community change. This will exemplify how, although rooted in a set of propositions, the theoretical examination of novelty generation has practical value. In the below context, I use the real example of the outport town of Bonavista, Newfoundland, creating a hypothetical social innovation intervention team that has come to offer consultation and recommendations to the town council about possible next steps toward social innovation so that their community may thrive. I choose Bonavista because the social system is relatively easy to define: the town is fairly isolated but still open to exchange with other communities and external traders. The perturbation is clear, succinct, and based on real events: the community is a single-industry resource town dependent primarily on cod fishing, and a federal moratorium occurs which stops the fishing industry in mid-1992 (Murray et al, 2005, p. 7). The town is devastated by the economic shock. In the fictional situation below, the date of the report is February 22, 1997, and includes a list of recommendations for the town council, which has requested calls for a proposal on how to leverage its resources toward community-wide revitalization and economic diversification following the moratorium five years prior. The end result is the following report, which follows Manuscript #2 by summarizing a complex systems framework to offer indicators on how to leverage social innovation. It is designed to assist the town council in how to deal with the complex economic challenges after the moratorium. While academically focused for the sake of this dissertation, the report offers a practical possible solution path: there are indeed distinct transition points for the council to consider and base 317 decisions upon that are likely to offer success. The town could switch its economic focus toward tourism. *Note: in the context of the report below, italics represent the voice of this dissertations’ author, while standard non-italic text represents the voice of the reports’ fictional authors. a. The Report: Indicators for Social Innovation 1. Background & Executive Summary This report was created by the social innovation consultancy company, MSU Consulting for the benefit of the Bonavista, NL, town council.173 It is February 22, 1997. While the cause is disputed, the northern Atlantic cod fishery saw a gradual decline and eventual collapse in the early 1990s likely due to a combination of increased fishing, climate change, and habitat damage (Oremus, 2019; Perry & Ommer, 2003; Ward, 2011). On July 2, 1992, Minister of Fisheries John Crosbie implemented a cod fishing moratorium (Murray et al., 2005) in what was called the “largest industrial layoff in Canadian history” (Sider, 2003), which resulted in the immediate loss of approximately 19,0000 jobs. Theoretically speaking, regardless of a shock’s level of devastation to a system, whether it be sudden or gradual, destruction forces social systems to self-organize in innovative ways (see Manuscript #2; Nicolis & Prigogine, 1997). Such “creative destruction” (Schumpeter, 1943/2003; Unrau & Gabora, 2021) of self-organizing social systems can be analyzed to identify “preconditions of novelty” as indicators of where social planners or policy makers can make decisions to prompt novel change. This report introduces a theoretical context for the council to consider, proposes a strategy for Bonavista’s future, analyzes the current data to offer indicators of change, finds transition indicators appropriate for future action, and offers outcomes and recommendations for positive economic development. After analyzing the data and finding four potential economic directions (an investment in the crab and shrimp industry, healthcare, odd jobs and services, and tourism), the report concludes that tourism is the optimal economic direction for the town of Bonavista. Tourism has low tension, low competition, moderate instability, and high diversity, which are generally ideal confidence levels (see below). Tourism may offer a future diversified social network that encourages social bonding, community economic development, and stable employment. Two main recommendations for tourism will be to rebrand Bonavista as a tourism destination with a new marketing strategy for national and international audiences, and generate a rigorous funding campaign to gain provincial and federal support for the recommended economic development implementation. 173 A fictional social innovation company is offered for practical context set in a historical setting (1997). 318 2. Theoretical Context (a summary) Innovation is a key feature of complex systems across different disciplines and can be applied to complex situations like the economic crisis in Bonavista. Complex systems, by their very nature, are open, uncertain, and nonlinear, and they exhibit self-organizing and emergent properties (Cilliers, 2000, p. 23). The evolving increase of complexity and organization in a system can be said to result from innovation (or as described below, novelty), after a previous steady state is driven toward the instability of chaos (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977, p. 462). The self-organizing response to crisis is to create order in the system and thus to reduce entropy (Ne’eman, 2003, p. 389). While entropy has been considered the general “disorder” of a system and is well researched, the notion of a system’s “negative” entropy or disorder moving toward order is less understood (Ho, 1994; Mahulikar & Herwig, 2009; Schrödinger, 1944/1991). When a general entropic disorder moves toward order the novelty-generating processes of self-organization through dissipative structures can bring innovation across multiple systems. Economic disruptions like the cod moratorium are considered endogenous “shocks” or perturbations in complex systems theory. Novelty generation potential, or the areas in a system that are indicators for social innovation, may be found through “preconditions of novelty” (tension, competition, instability, and diversity), which act as a practical framework to determine innovation in a system (see Manuscript #2). The preconditions of novelty reveal what I call “transition points” or places in a system that describe how the system may transition or transform, and each such point indicates an opportunity for innovation. Transition points are similar to Meadows’ “leverage points” (Meadows, 2008); however, the key difference is that transition points are the system’s locations that reveal how it is already trending toward a transition, focusing on the natural changes of transformation rather than on locations in the system that may be manipulated for organizational interest. The preconditions of novelty and the associated transition points represent a framework for social innovation, resiliency, and social cohesion of complex social challenges, and they offer distinct dynamics of social contexts that may be leveraged for positive change. 3. Strategy (Preconditions for Novelty) In order to recommend policy change to shift Bonavista’s programming toward beneficial outcomes of such a complex situation, I propose a strategic analysis of the local preconditions to identify transition point indicators of innovation. The economic shock of Bonavista occurred as a sizable perturbation in two main waves. The first occurred on July 2, 1992, when the moratorium was first announced. The second occurred in early 1994 when the townspeople learned the moratorium was not temporary and would continue indefinitely. I have identified four transition points, both theoretically and practically, as indicators of potential systems transition that might offer innovation solutions. Here they are, as of today, February 22, 1997. Tension: The tension of this system occurred gradually until it went into acute shock. In Bonavista, there had been commercial practices that had overfished the region until a 319 collapse occurred warranting a fishing moratorium. Immediately afterwards, unemployment increased suddenly, with townspeople leaving to find alternative income sources. Novel solutions increase under tension. Competition: Competition between constituents for resources has intensified after the moratorium, and as the tension of the system moved toward the far-from-equilibrium critical boundary of economic collapse. People have started to compete with each other for work, specifically deciding whether to continue fishing a different species (i.e., crab and shrimp stock) or do so in a different location. Competition increases options as the obvious “business-as-usual” options dissipate. Instability: The system is in a “noisy” state of instability. The town’s challenges are increasing rapidly, the citizen’s financial stability and mental health is decreasing, and alcohol consumption is increasing at the expense of financial resources. Instability increases the community’s need for dynamic solutions. Diversity: A diversity of outcomes helps the system “choose” a low-recurrence or innovative path. The townspeople might return to fishing or they might break their normal pattern and choose a new possible solution: come together as a community and generate a new source of sustainable economic income. 4. Indicators The below indicators offer measurement opportunities through the collection of data to create a descriptive statistic profile of Bonavista before and after the moratorium. See below for a summary of the data, which is analyzed using grounded theory (Glasser & Strauss, 1967; Sbaraini, Carter, Evans, & Blinkhorn, 2011). Each indicator offers coding and concluding statements for possible change. Tension Indicators: Unemployment rate (41.6%), out-migration rate (-11.2%) at its height. Competition Indicators: Employment growth/decline by industry (37.2% of possible jobs decreased). Instability Indicators: Alcohol consumption (19.1% reduction of quantity of drinks/week due to unavailable funds, from before the government support and after), mental health (64.3% of women stated they were “worse off than before”), economic instability (46.4% loss of income in the farm & fishing industry). Diversity Indicators: Development of possible new industries (a further fishing industry [crabs and shrimp], health care services, odd jobs, and tourism [history, geography/nature, whales/icebergs]). 320 5. Outcomes At this time, a research analysis has concluded that there are four main possible industries with observed growing trends toward employability based on qualitative interviewing (Cooney, 2012): (1) the crab and shrimp industry; (2) health care sector for an increasing aging population requiring care, especially following the outmigration of youth; 3) odd jobs or other services because Bonavista is home to transient positions that are less stable but sizable; (4) tourism, with an emphasis on the local history, the area’s unique geography and natural features, sight-seeing of whales and icebergs, and the local indigenous culture and programs, could provide important revitalization of the town and diversification of the economy. A theoretical coding of the possible industries can be analyzed against the four indicators in terms of “low,” “moderate,” and “high” confidence intervals (Friedman & Zeckhauser, 2018). Coding and conclusions were developed based on a grounded theory analysis of data. The ideal interval is indicated with an asterisk (*). Industries Tension (*low) Competition (*low) Instability (*low) Diversity (*high) Crab and Shrimp Industry Moderate – will new industry survive? High – few jobs with many people unemployed Moderate – will there be another moratorium? Low – single resource for economic success Health Care Low – is this a desired field? High – few jobs with many unemployed Moderate – stable number of elderly people Low – single resource for economic success Odd Jobs and Other Services High – may lead people to work abroad, or unfocused on Bonavista Low – many possibilities, but less defined High – they are transient, unpredictable Moderate – lots of opportunity, but undefined Tourism Low – specifically designed to “attract” people Low – many possibilities, but few tourists at start Moderate – community effort, bonding over single purpose, unknown industry High – lots of opportunity Table A.B.1. A summary of the four main possible industries the town council may want to support. The terms “low,” “moderate,” and “high” are “confidence intervals” based on the strength of analyzed statistical data, per the Defence Intelligence Agency Guidelines for analytic certainty (Friedman & Zeckhauser, 2018). The Guidelines describe confidence with “respect to quality and quantity of available information, potential for deception, gaps in knowledge, and strength of relevant inferences” (2018, p. 4). For example, a low confidence interval represents a low likelihood of probability (0%–40% unlikely, improbable, and doubtful); a moderate confidence interval indicates 40%–60% likelihood (might/maybe, unknown, unable to assess); a high interval indicates 60%–100% likelihood, probable and of little doubt (from the 2017 National Intelligence Council Guidelines on estimative language; Friedman & Zeckhauser, 2018). The outcomes indicate that tourism has low tension, low competition, moderate instability, and high diversity (i.e. all are at ideal confidence levels with the exception of instability at “moderate” versus “low” levels). Thus, tourism fits the optimal preconditions of innovation in the complex situation of Bonavista. It will offer a future diversified network that promotes social bonding, community economic development, and also stable employment. The below recommendations 321 will suggest how to “leverage” the system toward the optimal outcomes of tourism as economic development. 6. Recommendations The strategies below are recommended to support, and ultimately achieve, the framework goals (i.e., the preconditions of novelty), of community-wide revitalization as well as a diversified economy for Bonavista. Policy change across systems is an important strategy for advancing the framework. The recommendations will offer Bonavista an increase in economic diversity, social bonding for mental health, and a growing resilient community. Through communal multistakeholder meetings, promotional campaigns, targeted issue advocacy, community economic development, and research influence, beneficial change can occur with dedicated effort. 1. Rebrand Bonavista as a tourism destination with a new marketing strategy for national and international audiences. Provide engagement, learning, and training opportunities for staff and citizens to be involved in the redevelopment of Bonavista via these recommendations. 2. Develop a community-consulted and integrated tourism master plan that is driven by and for the community. Collaborate with the Bonavista Historical Society. 3. While supporting the fishing industry and health care services, develop or alter policy to support and develop the hotel and restaurant industry. 4. Establish a heritage policy to protect local historical value (via provincial and federal initiatives), alter policies to increase conserving natural resources, and inject heritage and tourism perspectives in current policies and procedures. 5. Generate a rigorous funding campaign to apply for provincial and federal granting support for a new community economic development implementation. 6. Create a youth-focused immigration campaign to invigorate new life into Bonavista. 7. Increase budgetary expenditures in addiction and mental health services as well as increase social services of the arts and sports through community centre budgetary support. 8. Develop tourism-oriented infrastructure: build a new golf course at Cape Bonavista, build a heritage information centre, refurbish the Lighthouse, and redevelop the Ryan Premises (a local heritage attraction). Procure funding to do so. 9. Strategize and plan with the College of the North Atlantic to develop an Institute for Cultural Tourism. 10. Change policy and build educational and financial support for the town to celebrate, include, and program events that highlight local Indigenous peoples, their history, and their knowledge. Include Indigenous leaders in key decision-making processes during the tourism rebrand campaign. 322 The recommendations above were created by the author of this dissertation to generally replicate real initiatives and events that actually occurred both during and after the time period of this report to increase tourism in Bonavista. One initiative that Bonavista actually developed, that the author of this dissertation does not include as a recommendation, was the nation-wide 500 year celebration of John Cabot’s landing in North America on June 24, 1997. Different levels of government decided Cabot had landed in or near Bonavista in 1497. Cabot’s landing on North American soil was considered the first European contact since the Norse explorations of the 11th century. Promoting Cabot’s landing became a local, provincial, and federal event, which was celebrated with considerable fanfare and included a visit by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and supported by millions of dollars of economic development (McCabe, 2017). Many people believe the celebration was a pivotal moment in the economic shift that Newfoundland has since experienced (McCabe, 2017). However, the event essentially celebrates the dawn of colonialism in Canada along with the suffering it has brought Indigenous communities since. It is possible that in 2021, the year of this writing, the celebration may not have been chosen as a signature event for the town to promote. As such, the author of this dissertation has decided to not include Cabot’s landing as a recommendation, and instead has incorporated a recommendation to support local Indigenous voices instead. While not in the vein of history, it aligns with the proposition of this text to check worldview bias and generate equitable responses for social innovators to engage in. 7. Data & AnalysisThe data below is provided for a comparative analysis before the cod moratorium (July 1992) and after the cod moratorium (i.e., 1990–1992, and after it was extended indefinitely in 1994 or after funding ran out). (Some of the data was retrieved for dates past the fictional proposal date of 1997 due to the limitation of available data and its structure. This is noted below in the citations.) Secondary data was collected through archival government documents, Statistics Canada, previously published peer-reviewed journal articles, and multiple first-hand studies published through academic institutions. The majority of data consists of descriptive statistics, including measures of central tendency, standard deviations, and percentages, to offer a descriptive profile for each studied indicator. An exploratory approach of the descriptive statistics gave a qualitative analysis of the quantitative data using grounded theory to allow for inductive reasoning and hypothetical support for furthering recommendations (Sbaraini, Carter, Evans, & Blinkhorn, 2011). Research question: Based on the four indicators (tension, competition, instability, and diversity), what will drive Bonavista’s transition toward innovative economic change? Tension Indicator. After the moratorium, 19,000–39,000 rural Newfoundlanders were suddenly without work in a region with minimal economic opportunity (Sinclair, 2003). The major plant in Bonavista, which had employed up to 1,000 people at different times, was shut down. 323 a. Un/Employment, Before and After:i. The unemployment rate in 1991 in Bonavista was 48.7%174 and in 1996 it was41.6% (Sinclair, 2003); that is, the unemployment rate decreased by 7.1% over afive-year period from before to after the moratorium. This decrease was likely dueto the fact that fewer jobs were available (Murray, 2000).b. Outmigration i. In Bonavista, the population growth from 1991–1996 was -1.5%; however, afterthe realization set in that the moratorium was indefinite, the growth from 1996–2001 was -11.2%. This was largely a result of outmigration, with Alberta being aprime destination for oil sands jobs (Statistics Canada 1996; 2001;Sveinbjornsdottir, 2001; Cooney, 2012).ii. The youth (15–29 years old) were the first and quickest to leave. In early 1990,7,750 youth in Newfoundland left, and in 1992, 5,800 left. Thus, in general, whenthe moratorium occurred, fewer youth left; however, in 1996, 8,200 youth left,which likely indicates that they realized sustainable jobs were no longer viable.That is a 1.5% loss of population in the province (Dept. of Human Resources,2007).Coding: With a high unemployment rate and considerable youth outmigration, the moratorium created tension in the system, which increased over time (even if the unemployment decreased due to a smaller population base or due to a shift in employment industry). Conclusion: Novelty generation has the highest potential in the youth unemployment/outmigration sectors of community development. Competition Indicator. Competition between jobs is harder to analyze in this case due to the availability of reliable statistics. After the moratorium, jobs were scarce, but certain industries held more promise. The data below are based on 1995–2000 (absolute; N=3,185; HR, 2007). c. Employment Growth / Decline by Industry.i. Manufacturing. The number of manufacturing jobs increased by 1,020.ii. Fishing and trapping increased by 575 jobs mostly due to the change in catch tocrabs and shrimp.iii. Health services increased by 125 jobs.174 In 1991, the unemployment rate for men was 52.6% and women was 44.7%. In 1996 it was men 43.5% and women 39.7%. 324 iv. However, construction lost 390 jobs over this time as more buildings were being abandoned and fewer buildings were built. v. Education and other government positions also incurred a loss of 75 and 240 jobs, respectively. vi. Hotel and restaurants also experienced a loss of 15 jobs. Coding: With high unemployment but new job increases, different possible industries where employment growth may occur after the moratorium indicates competition in the labour force; 37.2% of jobs increased in competition due to scarcity. Conclusion: Novelty generation is greatest in new industries compared to old (business-as-usual) industries. Thus, health services is an indication of a novel possibility with moderate competition. Instability Indicator. The community’s stability was indicated by economic and individual mental health. d. Alcohol Consumption - “Alcohol consumption among drinkers was higher during the initial years of the cod moratorium, when drinkers and study participants reportedly were experiencing higher levels of stress” (Hemeon, 2007). i. Change in quantity of consumed alcohol among self-perceived stressed drinkers between time periods before government assisted support (mean quantity of 4.7 drinks/week) and after the moratorium support (3.8 drinks/week; Hemeon, 2007). That is a 19.1% reduction in drinks per week due to inaccessible finances. e. Mental health. Due to correlations between mental health and unemployment (Murray, 2000), research showed that “unemployed women reported significantly poorer mental well-being in the year prior to data collection as compared to their employed counterparts” (p. ii). i. In 1995, unemployed women were significantly more uncertain about their own future (p = .000) and reported a higher incidence of poor mental health (p < .05) compared to the year prior. The majority (64.3%, p = .001) of unemployed women stated that they were worse off than before the moratorium (Murray, 2000). f. Economic instability. Economic stability is traditionally measured in GDP; however, reliable and accessible data of GDP in Bonavista during this reports’ time period was unavailable. The following data reports on other varied indicators instead. i. The total tax payable in Newfoundland and Labrador from farm and fishing income over the years was $45,377,000 in 1985, $67,287,000 in 1986, $111,875,000 in 1987, $74,486,000 in 1988, $60,578,000 in 1989, and $59,944,000 in 1990 indicating a rise and then decline in the farm and fishing industries (Newfoundland Statistics Agency, 1994). ii. In the province, the gross current and capital expenditures for Tourism & Culture in Newfoundland in 1993 was $35,456,000 and in 1994 it was $41,554,000, 325 indicating a considerable increase in expenses for tourism just after the moratorium. However, in fisheries, the total for expenses was $27,106,000 in 1993 and $25,025,000 (indicating a decrease) in 1994 (Newfoundland Statistics Agency, 1994). iii. The labour force refers to the number of people who are working or looking for work and able to work. In 1991, there were 16,740 tax filers with employment income in the Bonavista region. However, in 1996 there were only 14,690 (Dept. of Human Resources, 2007), that is, a 12.2% loss of employed people over a five-year span. iv. The average income in the Bonavista region in 1990 was $14,155, and in 1992 it was about $12,000, indicating an income loss of 15.2%. Provincially, the Newfoundland average in 1990 was $18,307, and in 1992 it was $16,500 (Dept. of Human Resources, 2007). v. From 1990 to 1995, employment grew by 51.4% (365 workers) in the health industries while it remained steady in the business services industries (Dept. of Human Resources, 2007). vi. Bonavista is geographically isolated, being over 100 kilometres away from main transportation routes and other regional centres (Cooney, 2012). Coding: Economic instability increased as income decreased in the business-as-usual industry of fishing. With mental health decreasing and alcohol consumption increasing, the indicators suggest social bonding as a potential stabilizer to increase social capital and community economic development. Conclusion: An industry that is supportive of social bonding and communally engaged economic development rather than siloed or solo industries is required. Diversity Indicator. Possible industries, following the observation of growing trends and qualitative interviews, were defined by Cooney (2012). These are the leading possible industries in a future community-wide revitalization and diversification of the economy. i. Crabs and shrimp industry. An analysis of the fishery indicates crab offloads with employment of 220–240 people per season to ease the stress of unemployment (not enough jobs, but some new ones). Manufacturing in the crab processing sector offers 340 new jobs. ii. Health care sector. Elderly patients require care from formal and informal caregivers; 170 new jobs are created in this field. iii. Odd jobs or other services. Bonavista has transient positions, immigrant business services, and educational and financial services that are less stable but sizable enough to offer employment opportunities in the town. iv. Tourism (history, geography/nature, whales/icebergs). The tourism industry, while always there, has increased potential through the refurbishing of local resources. 326 Coding: The crabs and shrimp industry is still a fishing industry, thereby producing a low-diversity economy. The health care sector is promising, but it also is dependent on an aging population and is thus of low diversity. Other services are diverse but unstable. Conclusion: Tourism might be the best novelty generating possibility for a future diversified network that promotes social bonding, community-based economic development, and thus stable community-wide revitalization. Tourism has a “low, low, moderate, and high” confidence level of strength in determining whether it could be recommended for strategic development toward an innovation solution. Conclusion: Tourism has the greatest potential to fit the optimal preconditions of novelty generation in a complex system. It will offer a future diversified network that promotes social bonding, community-based economic development, and also stable employment. The example above—while it is fictional and reports are already conclusive in terms of the historical direction the town actually took in 1997 and after—offers an applied report of recommendations in how a framework on the four preconditions of novelty, in a simplistic form, can aid in social innovation interventions in the context of community economic development of a small town after a significant perturbation event.
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Interdisciplinary Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Mathur, Ashok, 1961-
Garrard, Greg
The creativity of social innovation : a complex systems framework for social systems intervention
Text