I see thinking as part of “being-in-the-world”, in the Heidegger / Dreyfus sense. We can shut ourselves up in our rooms, or we can get out into the world to see what is going on.

In the recent presidential elections, it’s been interesting to see whether the candidates would stay “on message”, or respond to their first-hand observations about the concerns expressed by citizens. It’s a tricky balance, because it’s a fine line between making a judgement based on the the wisdom of crowds and conclusions reached in the blink of an eye.

To me, “being in the world” means being social … even if I’m an introvert. We should always look for ways, as Churchman described, to sweep in new ideas … although we naturally should continue to do so until we find that we’re not learning anything new.

Since I am trained in economics up to the graduate level, I’ll give two opinions.

(1) There’s a lot of bad economics amongst economists. The most simple-minded economists don’t make a differentiation between money and utility. Utility theory is at the foundation of microeconomics, and recognizes that (a) not everything can be monetized, and (b) preferences can be ordered (i.e. as ordinal utility) but not necessarily added up (i.e. cardinal utility).

(2) There are too many economists who look at economics reductively, in the sense that they don’t take interactions with other systems into account. They should understand the influences of political economy and economic sociology. The latter is a much more recent field, where common practices of gift-giving and ritual are included. (Those concepts give economists lots of issues).

That being said, I do like economics (when well done) as a way of understanding tradeoffs. I believe that books like Freakonomics help, where courageous economists can show up lesser thinkers.

On speculation, you’re describing the paradox of value, where value in use (use value) and value in exchange (exchange value) are out of sync with each other. A pure free market economist might argue that markets will return to equilibrium, but Keynes said “In the long run, we are all dead”.

I’ve been influenced by the thinking of Timothy F. H. Allen, who has said (something to the effect that) unlike economists, ecologists recognize that systems sometimes die.

This is a style or working from data to theory (i.e. making observations and then building theory based on that data). It’s in contrast to working from theory to data (i.e. developing hypotheses and either finding (or not finding) support for the theory.

Working from data to theory is inductive. Working from theory to data is deductive.

It’s important to remember that science can be both inductive and deductive. The story about an apple falling onto Newton’s head — which led to a theory about gravity — is, in effect, inductive science.

In either case, defining a boundary for study is necessary. It is important to remember that that boundary as part of the mental model that human beings have to create within our brains. The world isn’t naturally bounded in the same way that we need to draw distinctions in our own minds.

In business and organization studies, I like to make the contrast between systems models and systems metaphors.

Systems models, to me, are associated with systems science. Following the ideals outlined by Greek philosophers, science is a pursuit of truth. It requires phenomenon that are repeatable, observable, and measurable. Models are associated with theories — which are abstractions — and can be replicated and/or reproduced at varying levels of rigour.

System metaphors, on the other hand, are much more how human beings understand the world. Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization certainly follows this spirit. Jay Ogilvy once cited that human beings speak in 5.2 metaphors per minute. Scientific facts are hard to substantiate, and are generally too dry to consume. Motivational speakers apply rhetoric as an art.

In management and organization, we need both systems science and systems metaphors.

Science isn’t the best foundation when we don’t have a complete history of observations, and a decision for action is required. This is reflected in writings of Nassim Taleb (The Black Swan) and Jerome Ravetz (Postnormal Science).

System metaphors can lead us astray because a mental image may not be tangibly possible or practical. Time travel makes great science fiction, but tends to ignore the second law of themodynamics (entropy).

Having both models and metaphors share a common foundation of systems enables a strong foundation of language on which we can have discussions. From business consulting work that I had done in China, I discovered that management concepts based on systems basics (e.g. function, structure, process) were easily translatable and well-understood.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with systems is that they’re so pervasive that it takes some effort to appreciate the patterns of the ordinary and the everyday.