hall, w.p. 2006. emergence and growth of knowledge and diversity in hierarchically complex organised...

Personal Research

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OF SPECIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net/

William P. HallNational FellowAustralian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society - University of MelbourneDIS: ICT 5.39 - 8344 1522

Head Office / EngineeringTenix Defence, [email protected]

Visiting Faculty AssociateUniversity of Technology Sydney

Dept Info Sci - 13/10/2006

Emergence and Growth of Knowledge and Diversity in Hierarchically Complex Organised Systems:

Genesis of a theoretical framework

http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net/

Personal Researchhttp://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net/

Some background

My path to organisational KM is unique– physics (3½ years from 1957)– computers (all generations from cog-wheel calculators)– neurophysiology (2+ years as research assistant - signal processing)– comparative ethology, comparative anatomy and ecosystem theory– PhD Evolutionary Biology (Harvard, 1973) - genetic system, systematics– personal KM in the sciences with bibliographic search engines– studied epistemology and scientific revolutions (1977-1979)– I bought my first microcomputer in 1981 and it had to pay for itself– 1980's: computer literacy journalism, software tech writing, and

documenting Hogan banking systems With Tenix Defence since Jan 1990

– full life of the ANZAC Ship Project - On time, on budget, all the time– building content authoring/management systems– now working on cross divisional knowledge management solutions

This gives me some different perspectives!


The work summarised here began ~1977 in response to paradigmatic misunderstandings over my PhD

PhD Evol. Biol. Harvard 1973 University of Melbourne Research Fellow in Genetics 77-78

– Problems with reviewers of papers following my PhD led to studies in epistemology and history and philosophy of science

Worked with computers since 1981; Tenix Defence since Jan 1990 Technical writers' holy wars in 2000 over content oriented vs page

oriented writing & management led to book project– Co-evolution of cognitive tools and human cognition– When I got to KM organisations I found my understanding of

"knowledge" differed from what my peers thought it was– Had to stop writing until I understood the difference

Solution re-formulates org theory and KM on evolutionary principles– Reformulation now well underway with peer-reviewed published papers– I am also reinventing the theory of life itself

• theory of self-organizing hierarchically complex dissipative systems• evolutionary epistemology• autopoiesis


KM is a mess in several other areas as well with too many poorly understood paradigms

Epistemology (theory of knowledge)– personal knowledge (Michael Polanyi)– objective knowledge (Karl Popper)

Organization theory (Donaldson recognises 15 paradigms)– resource view – environment view– autopoietic view

How to analyse knowledge in the organization – individual view – social view – critical view– alternative views

How organizations create knowledge – cognitivist view – connectionist view– autopoietic view

Donaldson, L. 1995. American Anti-Management Theones of Organization, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press – see also McKelvey, B. 1997. Quasi-natural organization science. Organization Science 8:352-380


Foundation Problems in KM:We can’t even define knowledge consistently

A few definitions from the literatureAuthor(s) Data Information KnowledgeWiig (1993) Facts organised to

describe a situation or condition

Truths and beliefs, perspectives and concepts, judgements and expectations, methodologies and know how

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)

A flow of meaningful messages

Commitments and beliefs created from these messages

Spek and Spijkervet (1997) *

Not yet interpreted symbols

Data with meaning The ability to assign meaning

Davenport (1997) Simple observations Data with relevance and purpose

Valuable information from the human mind

Davenport and Prusak (1998)

A set of descrete facts A message meant to change the receiver’s perception

Experiences, values, insights, and contextual information

Quigley and Debons (1999)

Text that does not answer questions to a particular problem

Text that answers the questions who, when, what, or where

Text that answers the questions why and how

Choo et al. (2000) Facts and messages Data vested with meaning

Justified, true beliefs

Stenmark, D. 2002. Information vs. Knowledge: The Role of intranets in Knowledge Management. In Proceedings of HICSS-35, Hawaii, January 7-10, 2002 * * Full text free to the web

http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/FIS/KO/default.html


Conflicting paradigms of knowledge in KM

Michael Polanyi (1958, 1966): personal/tacit knowledge– Focus

• knowing subjects • knowledge of doing, personal skills• belief, faith and intuition final arbiters of "truth"• followers tend to denigrate explicit knowledge to mere "information"

– Popularised in KM and organization theory by Nelson & Winter, Sveiby, Nonaka, von Krogh & Roos

Popper (1972): epistemology without a knowing subject – Knowledge grows through conjecture & refutation, i.e., criticism

against reality– Different kinds of knowledge:

• Subjective or dispositional – as embodied in instantaneous structure• Persistent or objective – in codified form

– Joe Firestone of Macroinnovation Associates one of few KM practitioners using Popperian epistemology


Incommensurability of the paradigms

Search dates: 11/02/2002, (15/08/2002), [14/07/2004]Michael Polanyi "Personal Knowledge"

– Google hits = 1,760 (1,450) [4,040]Karl Popper "Objective Knowledge“

– Google hits = 1,850 (1,570) [3,730]Both together

– Google hits = 64 (55) [88]Only 1.1% of authors citing either book cited both!Conclusion

– Writers concerned with one author's thinking were not interested in or could not cope with discussing the other author's thinking in the same document - even to the extent of listing them in a single bibliography.

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Michael+Polanyi+%22Personal+Knowledge%22&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Karl+Popper+%22Objective+Knowledge%22&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Karl+Popper+%22Objective+Knowledge%22+Michael+Polanyi+%22Personal+Knowledge%22&btnG=Google+Search


Key ideas for answering “What is knowledge?”

Evolutionary biology and evolutionary epistemology– J.D. Watson & Francis Crick (molecular genetics)– Ernst Mayr (was still writing in his 100th year), Steven J. Gould– Donald T. Campbell– Karl Popper’s mature epistemology: 1972 and later –

published in his 70th yearAutopoiesis (auto = ‘self’ + poiesis = ‘production’)

– Humberto Maturana & Francisco Varela• Chilean neurobiologists working in the 1970’s• Defining what it means to be alive

Emergence of complex hierarchical systems– Hebert Simon, Ilya Prigogine, Stuart Kauffman

Biosemiotics– Howard Pattee, Luis M Rocha, Hoffmeyer & Emmeche


What is knowledge?

Karl Popper - a philosopher who studied science– "All life is problem solving"– Knowledge is solutions to problems– Epistemology summary

• Knowledge is fundamentally based on external reality• The ultimate authority for deciding the truth of a claim to

know is its correspondence with external reality - but....• Claims to know are cognitively constructed• Impossible to prove any claim to know is true (or false)

– Any number of favourable tests are logically falsified by a single failure

– Any falsification can be "immunised" by auxiliary hypothesesKnowledge is fallible (Firestone & McElroy 2003)


Popper's three worlds

Polanyi's epistemology of personal knowledge encompassed within Popper's World 2

3.Expressed languageComputer memoryRecorded thoughtLogical artefacts

Heredity

Reproduction/Production

2.Cybernetic

self-regulationConsciousness

Cognition

Drive/Enable

Regulate/Control

Development/Recall

Infe

rred

logic

Descr

ibe/P

redic

t

TestObserve

1.Energy

ThermodynamicsPhysics

ChemistryBiochemistry

Existence/RealityWorld 1

Organismic/PersonalKnowledge exists inWorld 2Emerges from World 1 processes

Objective Knowledgeforms World 3Persistent logical Content produced /evaluated by World 2processes

© William P. Hall


Karl Popper's "tetradic schema" or "general theory of evolution"

Pn a real-world problem faced by an entity

TS a tentative solution or tentative theory

EE a process of error elimination

Pn+1 changed problem as faced from by an entity incorporating a surviving solution

TS1TS2•••••

TSm

Pn Pn+1EETS1TS2•••••

TSm

Pn Pn+1EETS1TS2•••••

TSm

Pn Pn+1EE

TS may be embodied in W2 in the individual entity, or TS may be expressed in words as a hypothesis in W3, subject to

objective criticism Objective expression and criticism lets our theories die in our stead As an iterated cyclic process, solutions can approach reality


John Boyd's OODA Loop process wins conflicts

An organisation's success in a competitive environment depends critically its ability to do a better job of assimilating information, increasing its epistemic quality to generate strategic power, and reducing decision cycle times. See http://www.belisarius.com.

AO

OBSERVE(Results of Test)

OBSERVATIONPARADIGMSEXTERNAL

INFORMATION

CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES

UNFOLDING ENVIRONMENTAL

RESULTS OF ACTIONS

ORIENT

D

DECIDE(Hypothesis)

O

CULTURE PARADIGMS PROCESSES

GENETIC HERITAGE

MEMORY OF HISTORY

INPUT ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS

ACT(Test)

GUIDANCE AND CONTROLPARADIGMS

UNFOLDING INTERACTION

WITH EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT


Some OODA definitions

Observation assembles data about the world in which the adaptive entity exists (including the entity's own effects and those of its competitors on that world). Data is given a context relating to the entity's interactions with the world.

Orientation processes that observations into semantically linked knowledge in the form of a world view comprised of – new information, – memories of prior experience (which may be explicit, implicit or even tacit, – genetic heritage (i.e., "natural talent"), – cultural traditions (i.e., paradigms), and – analysis (destruction) of the existing world view, and synthesis (creation) of a

revised world view including possibilities for action. This generates intelligence (in a military sense).

Decision selects amongst possible actions generated by the orientation, action(s) to try. Choice is governed and informed by – wisdom based on prior experience gained from previous OODA cycles, and– the synthesis (creation) of new possibilities to try.

Action involves putting the decision to test by applying it to the world. The loop begins to repeat as the entity observes the results of its action.


Maturana and Varela: autopoiesis defines life

Autopoiesis (= self + production) is the condition achieved by a bounded and self-regulating autocatalytic set of processes able to maintain its existence as an autonomous entity in the face of environmental perturbations; i.e., that which gives a living entity the property of life.

Recognizing an autopoietic entity (see von Krogh & Roos)– Self-identifiably bounded (membranes, tags)– Individually identifiable components within the boundary

(complex)– Mechanistic (i.e., metabolism/cybernetic processes)– System boundaries internally determined (self reference)– System intrinsically produces own components– Self-produced components are necessary and sufficient to

produce the system (autonomy)


Paradigm of the autopoietic organised system

Maturana and Varela (1980) - Autopoiesis & Cognition – properties of living things– Early 1970s quest to define the property of life– Autonomous entities defined by self regulation and self

productionEmergence

– I. Prigogine - Nobel Laureate• Principles of non-equilibrium thermodynamics

– H. Simon (1962) – Architecture of Complex Systems– H. Morowitz (1968) – Energy Flow in Biology:

• Systems forced through time to evolve increasingly complex cycles to transport energy/matter from sources to sinks

– J.J. Kay (1984) – Self-organization in living systems– S. Salthe (1985, 1993)

• emergence in a scalar hierarchy– S. Kauffman (1993) – Origins of Order:

• "autocatalytic sets" • "organization for free"


Complexity theory: Hierarchically complex dissipative systems and the focal level (complex triad)

HIGH LEVEL SYSTEM / ENVIRONMENT

SYSTEMSYSTEM SYSTEM

SUBSYSTEMS

boundaryconditions,constraints,regulations

FOCAL LEVEL

Possibilities

initiatingconditions

universallaws

"material -causes"

Emergentproperties• Synthesis

cannot predict higher level properties

• Behaviour isuncomputable

• Boundary conditions & constraints select

• Analysis can explain

• Stanley Salthe (1993) Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology


Emergence of knowledge

Cognition is the cybernetics of autopoiesis (Maturana) Emergence = establishment of a complex system at a new level in the hierarchy

between two pre-existing levels of complexity (Salthe) Early autopoietic systems emerge close to thermodynamic equilibrium

between coalescence/disintegration (Kauffman's autocatalytic sets)– Autopoietic systems produce more components that favour autopoiesis– Dis-integrationg systems lose history, but return components to the

environment that have previously worked in autopoietic systems• Knowledge of autopoiesis is inherent in the environment, thus shared promiscuously• Promiscuity impedes specialisation because random components need to work

together– Early reproduction requires only growth and fragmentation - where fragments

would retain some of the parent's history Selection for self-stabilization evolves towards clonal reproduction away from

equilibrium, to preserve structural history that worked Knowledge defines the nature and behaviour of the autopoietic system Meaning = knowledge of solutions to life embodied in dynamic structure Knowledge = heredity = historically accumulated 'information' controlling

autopoietic cybernetics to regulate problem responses


The nature and growth of autopoietic knowledge Turbulent flow from available energy (exergy)

sources to entropy sinks forces conducting systems to become more organised (state of decreased entropy) - Prigogine, Morowitz, Kay and Schneider, Kauffman)

Coalescent systems have no past. Self-regulatory/self-productive (autocatalytic) activities that persist for a time before disintegrating produce components whose individual histories "precondition" them to form autopoietic systems. Each emerged autopoietic system represents a tentative solution to problems of life. Those that dis-integrate lose their histories (heredity/knowledge).

Stable systems are those whose tentative solutions enable them to persist indefinitely. Competition among such systems for resources is inevitable. Survivors thus perpetuate historically successful solutions into their self-produced structure to form dispositional or tacit knowledge (W2). Those that fail to solve new problems dis-integrate and lose their histories.

Replication, transcription and translation. With semantic coding and decoding, knowledge can be preserved and replicated in physiologically inert forms for recall only when relevant to a particular problem of life. Objective knowledge may be shared across space and through time. - Howard Pattee (1965-2000) series of papers; Luis Rocha (1995-) series of papers.

Knowledge: a phenomenon of emergent and evolving autopoiesis

Tentative solutions

Coalescence / Emergence

†

Stable solutionsStabilised autopoiesis

†

Selected solutions

Dispositional autopoiesis

†

Semiotic autopoiesis

Knowledge sharing

Sharedsolutions

†Criticised solutions

Dis-integrationIntegration

TurbulenceEvolutionary Stage


Emergent orders of autopoietic complexity

Presence of autopoietic system self-defines the focal level of a complex triad

1st order triad– Focal level = living cell– Subsystems/components = macromolecules– Supersystem/environment = dynamic medium/ecosystem/multicellular

organisms 2nd order triad

– Focal level = multicellular organism – Subsystems/components = living cells– Supersystem/environment = dynamic ecosystem

3rd order triad– Focal level = society of organisms (ants, bees, termites)– Subsystems/components = multicellular organisms– Supersystems/environment = dynamic ecosystem

3rd order triad– Focal level = human economic organization– Subsystems/components = entities with linguistic capabilities– Supersystems/environment = dynamic economy


Reproduction, sex, and diversification (1)

World 2 knowledge transmitted by the division of pre-existing dynamic structure– inescapable consequence of autopoiesis– entails some loss of computationally irreducible structure– depends on what parts of structure passed on

Emergence of world 3 knowledge depends on evolution of codification systems– Autocatalytic nucleic acid polymers in emergence of first order

autopoiesis.• Nucleic acid polymers may have enzymatic and/or structural fns• Autoreplication of polymer replicates the polymer's functions• RNAs retain structural & enzymatic functions to apply control info• DNAs codified control information into "genes"

– Selective advantages for grouping genes into chromosomes• Accurate replication• Controlled segregation into daughter cells


Reproduction, sex, and diversification (2)

Clonal reproduction in prokaryotes– Clonal evol & differentiation of coadapted snippets in lineages– Advantage: Protected accuracy of existing world 3 knowledge– Disadvantage: Reduced ability to recombine tested knowledge from

different sources in one lineage Sexual recombination totally independent from reproduction

– Transformation (naked DNA absorbed from environment)– Transduction (viral transfer)– Conjugation (transfer of plasmid DNA via cell bridge)– Recognition of related & rejection of unrelated DNA sequences– Pairing & crossing over of homologous DNA

Eukaryote DNA well isolated from external exchanges Choreographed cell & nuclear fusion

– Choreographed recombination and assortment– Specialised knowledge allows emergence of biological speciation and

gene pools as evolutionary entities


Knowledge in higher order autopoiesis (1)

Second order systems (multicellular organisms)– Clonal budding and alternation of generations common in lower orgs– W2 knowledge transmitted via structure of egg cell

• Learning reflected in structural connections of neurones and other aspects of dispositional structure (physiological adaptation)

• Most dispositional (somatic) learning cannot be transferred via sexual reproduction

– Extended parental care can transfer some W2 knowledge via demonstration and copying (i.e., tacit exchange)

– W3 knowledge in DNA• All cells have same DNA • Some DNA is control info for cell differentiation and development• Only evolves via blind variation and selective elimination of carriers

– W3 knowledge in extrasomatic heritage• Evolution of semiotic/linguistic transfers• Encoded objects


Knowledge in higher order autopoiesis (2)

Third order systems (societies, organizations)– Pubs: Hall 2003, 2005, 2006; Else 2004; Hall et al. 2005;

Nousala et al, 2005; Dalmaris et al. 2007– W2 knowledge

• layout and capabilities of plant and machinery• social network structure• tacit organizational routines• tacit personal knowledge• cultural dynamics

– W3 knowledge• part of DNA at level of individual organisms encodes adaptations

for social behaviours• pheromonal trails, published inducements, etc.• records and documents of organizational significance• explicitly defined processes and procedures


The organisation is a complex system in the environment

Processes (which may be complex subsystems that are autopoietic in their own rights) are necessary responses to imperatives:

– Survival– Self-maintenance of the processes themselves

Constraints and boundaries(laws of nature determine what is possible)

ProcessesProcesses

The organisation's imperatives and goals

Energy (exergy)

Recruitment

Materials

IncomeObservations

Entropy/Waste

Products

Departures

ExpensesActions


Organisations (and other living things) are complex dissipative systems emerging from the medium

They consume environmental resources that are limited Resources People Income

Sinks for entropically degraded materials/devaluedenergy Competition limits survival

Some concepts building on autopoiesis theory and Karl Popper's theory of knowledge

WORLD 1 ("everything")

Medium or supersystem

ResourcesPeopleEconomicsInformationConstraints

{Organisation 1 Organisation 3

Organisation 2

Organisation 4


Material RealityWORLD 1

AUTOPOIETICSYSTEM

EmbodiedcyberneticknowledgeWORLD 2

Constrain/Control

Observe/Measure

Recall

ITERATION/SELECTIONTHROUGH TIME

ProduceSymbolically

encodedknowledge/

memoryWORLD 3

Knowledge in an autopoietic entity


.. . .

.. ....

. . .

.. ....

Emergent autopoietic vortexes forming world 2 and world 3 in a flux of exergy to entropy

.....

. . .

.. ....

.. . .

.. ....

Flux along the focal level

Exergysource

Entropysink

Symbolic knowledge

Embodied knowledge

Autonomy

Autocatalytic metabolism

Material

cycles


Cognition (terms are meaningful in relation to autopoietic or artificially intelligent systems)

Observation: Initial change induced within the autopoietic system by a perturbation

Classification (/ decision): Process by which an induced change results in the system settling into one of alternative attractor basins on a landscape of potential gradients

Meaning: The net result in the system due to the initial propagation and classification of an observation

Coombe's Hierarchy (Australian Army Info Mgmt Manual)– Data: The atomic level of meaning– Information (first level of synthesis): Classified observations

assembled into relationship structures– Knowledge (second level of synthesis): Semantically identified and

linked information– Intelligence (third level of synthesis): Tentative theory(ies) about

the world based on knowledge– Wisdom (fourth level of synthesis): Solutions after the elimination

of errors through testing theories against the world– Strategic power (the result): Wisdom applied to control the world


Coombe's hierarchy in the autopoietic entity

Environment

Autopoietic systemCell

Multicellular organismSocial organisation

State

Perturbations

Observations(data)

Classification

Meaning

An "attractor basin"

Related information

Memory of historySemantic processing to form knowledge

Predict, proposeIntelligence


Another view

Decision

Medium/Environment Autopoietic system

World State 1

Perturbation Transduction

Observation MemoryClassification

Evaluation

Synthesis

Processing Paradigm

AssembleResponse

Internal changes

Effect action

Effect

Time

World State 2

Iterate

Conscious OODA Loop in Material Terms

Codified knowledge

Observed internal changes


Paradigm of the autopoietic organization (2)

Nelson & Winter (1982): Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change– Postulated that organizational knowledge transcends

knowledge of individual members to form organizational heredity to maintain the existence and behaviour of the organization (i.e., self-production).

– Assumed this transcendent knowledge was tacit (Polanyi)

• physical layout• routines• contexts• connections

von Krogh and Roos (1995) Organizational Epistemology


Existing users of Autopoiesis neglect World 3

Current paradigm of organizational autopoiesis– Blind spot: Maturana & Varela legitimately did not include

reproduction in their minimal definition of autopoiesis– As stated the concept does not consider persistent heredity

transcending the life of a single entity Nelson & Winter

– Focus on tacit personal & organizational knowledge– Represents late 1970s early 1980s thinking

• As they were writing, world 3 organizational content largely consisted of data, information & transaction records, not knowledge

Roles of persistent knowledge (heredity) to guide growth & maintenance of the living organization

The exception is Hugo Urrestarazu (2004) On Boundaries of Autopoietic Systems– Three domains: phenomenological, "biological", "languaging– Funct. equivalent to Popper's 3 worlds


Organisational knowledge in World 3

Persistent objects of corporate knowledge– Articles of incorporation & employment agreements– Contracts – E-mails & correspondence– Graphics and drawings– Plans, records, process & procedure documents– Enacted workflow systems– Written history– Links & captured contexts– Databases– AV recordings

World 3 comprises the bulk of organizational memory or heredity


END

hall, w.p. 2006. emergence and growth of knowledge and diversity in hierarchically complex organised...

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