or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending. What - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ABSTRACT ➤ "Mormonism has inherited ways of thinking that are no longer sufficient to understand or address the complexities facing the 21st century Church. ➤ Concepts from cybernetics, systems theory, and complex thought will be presented as alternative lenses with which to view and wrestle with the Church’s increased historical transparency, gender concerns, racial diversity, LGBTQIA issues, and member disaffection. A CRISIS OF PERCEPTION ➤ It will be argued that movement toward a circular epistemology that promotes awareness of interconnections, allows for complexity, and encourages tolerance for ambiguity will infuse more compassion, hope, and inclusion into our communities and inspire more creative approaches to addressing our current challenges." 1 2 CRISIS an unstable or crucial time “ or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending. What we need is…a deep ttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crisis reexamination of our culture, a PERCEPTION rejection of those conceptual models the way you think about or that have outlived their usefulness. understand someone or something the way that you notice or understand something using one of your senses -Fritjof Capra http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perception Capra, F. (1982) The Turning Point, New York, NY. Bantam. 3 4

PARADIGM EPISTEMOLOGY a cognitive framework or concept that ➤ Study of knowledge and ways of knowing helps organize and interpret information ➤ Drawing distinction “enables us to ‘create physical a theory or a group of ideas about boundaries, functional groupings, conceptual distinctions.” how something should be done, made, ➤ ‘…the language embodies that particular culture’s or thought about framework of reality’ -Mary Clark COMPLEXITY the state of having many parts and being difficult to understand or find an answer to http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/complexity Keeney, B. P. (1983). Aesthetics of Change. New York: Guilford Press ➤ http://www.wired.com/2015/06/mapping-the-internet/ 5 6 PROPOSED PARADIGM SHIFTS FOR MODERN MORMONISM Each word creates something else from which is it “ is being distinguished; language is our Inherited Paradigms Proposed Paradigms epistemological knife. It divides up our world Mechanistic Universe Creative Universe into chunks for the purposes of knowing about them. Lineal Epistemology Circular Epistemology Immersed in the flow of language we don’t realize Individual/Static Systems/Process that we create the similarities and differences, and Objectivity Self-Reflexivity we relate to those similarities and differences as if Reduce/Simplify Complexity they were not made by us. Objects, events and issues appear as we name Certainty Ambiguity/Paradox them. -Loyd Fell Fell, L. (2011). Mind and love: the human experience. Biosong. 7 8

WE NEED NEW PARADIGMS & Disturbingly, during times of transition, LANGUAGE TO ADDRESS COMPLEX “ complexity, uncertainty, or faced with ISSUES MODERN MORMONISM potential or actual chaos, there is a tendency to seek out absolute foundations, certainty, ➤ Gender Issues simplicity, and a framework that will make ➤ LGBT Mormons sense of the world and reduce our anxiety. These frameworks are informed by ➤ Racial Diversity/World- reductionistic and dualistic thinking that wide Church drastically reduce the complexity of the ➤ Increased Historical world. Transparency -Alfonso Montouri ➤ Member Disaffection Morin, E. (2008). On Complexity . Cresskill, NY: Hampton. 9 10 EXAMPLES OF OLD PARADIGMS Now there is a paradigm of a creative ➤ Reductionism “ ➤ Applying broad labels - TBM, Intellectuals, Brethren, Feminists, blind sheep, apostate universe, which recognizes the progressive, ➤ Sin as individual issue ➤ Othering - Us vs. Them innovative character of physical processes. ➤ Either/or - “Only True Church” The new paradigm emphasizes the ➤ Lineal epistemology ➤ Judging others collective, cooperative, and organizational ➤ Blame - “The Brethren” for presenting “misleading” information aspects of nature; its perspective is ➤ Mechanistic thinking ➤ Formulaic, obedience = blessings synthetic and holistic rather than analytic ➤ The Church is “perfect”, unchanging and reductionistic. ➤ Certainty “I know The Church is True” ➤ Dualistic thinking ➤ “If you question the LGBT policy you’re not supporting the brethren.” -Paul Davies ➤ Are you a working mom or stay-at-home mom? ➤ “You cant be loyally opposed to the church” blog article Morin, E. (2008). On Complexity , NJ: Hampton. 11 12

SYSTEM A group of interacting, interdependent elements or agents that that form a complex whole and exist in an environment. Montouri, A. (2011). Systems approach. In Encyclopedia of Creativity (2nd. Ed), 2, 441-421. 13 14 SYSTEMS THEORY - KEY CONCEPTS ➤ Paradigm shift offering new language ➤ Transdisciplinary (originated in biology) ➤ Real-wold phenomena as interrelation and interactions, not “things” ➤ Initially focused on order and equilibrium ➤ Self-organization - coordination arises out of the local interactions between smaller component parts of an initially disordered system. ➤ Closed Systems - do not interact with environment in meaningful way ➤ Open System - interacts with environment exchanging information, matter energy 15 16

http://lesswrong.com/lw/mxb/systems_theory_terms/ 17 18 CYBERNETICS Norbert Wiener coined term cybernetics in “ 1954 as "Use the word `cybernetics’… ➤ “control and communication in the because nobody knows what it animal and machine.” means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments." ➤ “To control is to communicate. And vice versa.” -attributed to Claude Shannon in a letter to Norbert Wiener in the 1940's 19 20

WHAT IS CYBERNETICS? CYBERNETICS SUMMERY ➤ Gregory Bateson - “the study of form and pattern ” & ➤ Focus on process , navigation (steering) "a branch of mathematics dealing with problems of ➤ Study of pattern control , recursiveness , and information " ➤ Stafford Beer - "the science of effective organization ” ➤ Science of organization ➤ Heinz Von Foerster - "Should one name one central ➤ Circularity concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be ➤ Interconnectedness of self-organizing circularity ." systems ➤ G. Klaus - “The theory of interconnectedness of possible dynamic self-regulated systems with their ➤ Recursive feedback loops subsystems" Kefalas, A.G. (2011). On systems thinking and the systems approach. World Futures, 67:4-5, 343-371. DOI: http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/definitions.htm 10.1080/02604027.2011.585911 21 22 CYBERNETICS OF CYBERNETICS - 2ND ORDER CYBERNETICS OROUBROS ➤ Movement of studying observed systems to studying observing systems ➤ Role of observer in every inquiry became central ➤ The knower can not be left out of the equation ➤ Any statement tells us more about the speaker than about the event, object, person… ➤ Everything is said by somebody. 23 24

COMPLEX THOUGHT - EDGAR MORIN “ Complex thought refers to a pattern of organizing METAPRINCIPLES knowledge that is circular, recursive, relational, ➤ Dialogic Principle and to hold both the whole and the part of a ➤ conceives the complementarity of antagonisms, such as in the relation system. Complex thought is an attempt to organization–disorganization, order-disorder develop a method (or a path) that does not ➤ Organizational Recursion “mutilate,” fragment, abstract, or reduce but ➤ Society produces the individuals that produce the society. we are at allows for holding uncertainty and ambiguity. A the same time products and producers key element in complex thought is a shift from ➤ Holographic Principle disjunctive, binary oppositions science/art, order/ ➤ Hologram image contains the quasi-totality of information of the disorder, whole/part to “both/and”. represented object -Edgar Morin ➤ DNA - each cell of our organism contains the totality of the genetic information 25 26 COMPLEX THOUGHT What is the Hologram principle ? It’s is ➤ Action is a wager and escapes our intentions “ merely the overstepping of the illusion of retaining ourselves disconnected to the ➤ Program - Sequence of pre-determined actions, no chain of life; the overstepping of the illusion innovation, works in stable environment that we are dominators of objects…Exactly ➤ Strategy - Envision a number of outcomes, and scenarios like in a hologram, where every single part modified by new information experiences the totality of being together , man must never lose sight of the ➤ Complexity Requires Strategy - “Requires organization not awareness of carrying the history of the to obey a program, but to work together with elements entire universe within himself, and must capable of contributing to the elaboration and development of never stop knowing that every I carries a strategy.” WE inside it. -Teresa De Feo http://www.digicult.it/digimag/issue-050/monsieur-morin-for-a-complex-thought-ethic/ 27 28