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Into the Heart of Systems Change - Ph.D. Dissertation by Dr. Anneloes Smitsman (Dec 2019 final)
Abstract
This Ph.D. dissertation presents my research as an external researcher at the Maastricht Sustainability Institute (formerly ICIS), Maastricht University, the Netherlands, from September 2014 to August 2019.
"Into the Heart of Systems Change" offers a diagnostic integral framework for addressing key systemic conditions of the sustainability crisis. This framework is based on an exploration of the informational dynamics of healthy living systems, and the extent to which this is harmed and decoupled by mechanistic growth archetypes that are not coherent with the evolutionary process of life.
Seven systemic thrivability barriers are diagnosed and explored through the case-study research, and addressed through seven transformation strategies. An essential distinction is made between systemic barriers that emerge from mechanistic growth archetypes that are decoupled from the evolutionary process of life, and systemic boundaries that emerge from the regulation of the interdependencies and evolutionary coherence of living systems.
A life-centric qualitative growth model is offered with 5 Future Archetypes through a narrative of thrivability, instead of mere sustainability. Various methods are combined into an integral approach for systemic transformation, weaving together indigenous wisdom, new paradigm cosmology, informational sciences, quantum physics, evolutionary biology, and complexitiy sciences - grounded in the praxis of inner and outer systems change.
The case-studies explore the sense of entrapment and degeneration many people experience in mechanistic systems and cultures, as well as the conditions for inner and outer transformation. Providing new perspectives and approaches for addressing the root causes of our sustainability crisis.
"Into the Heart of Systems Change" completes with a transition plan for co-creating the conditions for thrivable civilizations. The main research outcomes have since been applied worldwide for the design and governance of new economic and governance systems, such as the EARTHwise Constitution for a Planetary Civilization, the SEEDS Constitution for regenerative economics, and the Hypha DAO. The outcomes also serves as the main inputs for the r3.0 Educational Transformation Blueprint.
For more information visit: https://www.earthwisecentre.org/our-projects/
For a summary overview of the Dissertation visit: https://anneloessmitsman.medium.com/transition-plan-for-a-thrivability-civilisation-116ff754d710
... The doctrine of unlimited economic growth on a finite planet, coupled with zero-sum game and win-lose dynamics, must end -or else it may end us. Mechanistic doctrines form part of the root causes of the sustainability crisis, driving our world toward collapse with untold suffering (Smitsman, 2019). ...
... A new scientific paradigm, based on the premise of the fundamental unity of all existence, is emerging with significant input from fields such as: complexity science, evolutionary biology, biocosmology, quantum physics, informational sciences, nonlinear thermodynamics, cybernetics, and evolutionary systems design (Smitsman, 2019(Smitsman, , 2021(Smitsman, , 2022Cortes et al, 2022;Laszlo, 2018Laszlo, , 2001Laszlo, , 1999Laszlo and Laszlo, 2000, 2003. This new scientific paradigm offers a holistic exploration of the nature of reality and the role of consciousness (Laszlo and Laszlo, 2016;Penrose et al., 2017;Hameroff and Chopra, 2012;Hameroff and Penrose, 2014). ...
... Increasingly, evolutionary biologists propose how evolution is fundamentally a process of collaborative agency, rather than a zero-sum game of competition, and how evolution enables the development of co-creative capabilities for thrivability (Laszlo, 2009;Smitsman, 2019;Sahtouris, 2000;Capra and Luisi, 2014). By thrivability, we mean our innate ability to develop systemic capabilities for actualising our potentials in ways that are generative, life-affirming, possibility increasing, and future creating. ...
... Once fundamental uncertainty is understood as the creative capacity of living systems, whole new opportunities can be explored for attracting (rather than enforcing or regulating) systems change and societal transformation. As explained in part 1 of this series, the existential nature of our universe, and its evolutionary process of life, behaves in a manner that is informationally unified and indivisible (Smitsman, 2019;Currivan, 2019, 2021;Bohm, 1980;Laszlo, 2020aLaszlo, , 2018Laszlo, , 2017. By creating human operational systems that run contrary to the evolutionary process of life, we foster conditions for our own collapse. ...
... Learning how to create conditions for transformative emergence, rather than attempting to police systems change, is a vital systemic competency that in our view is still broadly lacking in the world (Smitsman and Smitsman, 2020). The sustainability crisis of the 21st Century is a direct result of unsustainable mechanistic models and worldviews (Smitsman, 2019). By harming the complexities and interdependencies of life, we undermine not just our own lives, but also the planetary life support systems of Earth as a whole (Steffen et al., 2018). ...
... In a world of affordances, we find ourselves in an ever expanding phase space. Our challenge becomes one of looking into sustainable development programs from this perspective, and hence building suitable policies that work with and for the evolutionary complexity of life, based on its dynamics of fundamental uncertainty and creative emergence (Smitsman, 2019). ...
... The doctrine of unlimited economic growth on a finite planet, coupled with zero-sum game and win-lose dynamics, must end -or else it may end us. Mechanistic doctrines form part of the root causes of the sustainability crisis, driving our world toward collapse with untold suffering (Smitsman, 2019). ...
... A new scientific paradigm, based on the premise of the fundamental unity of all existence, is emerging with significant input from fields such as: complexity science, evolutionary biology, biocosmology, quantum physics, informational sciences, nonlinear thermodynamics, cybernetics, and evolutionary systems design (Smitsman, 2019(Smitsman, , 2021(Smitsman, , 2022Cortes et al, 2022;Laszlo, 2018Laszlo, , 2001Laszlo, , 1999Laszlo and Laszlo, 2000, 2003. This new scientific paradigm offers a holistic exploration of the nature of reality and the role of consciousness (Laszlo and Laszlo, 2016;Penrose et al., 2017;Hameroff and Chopra, 2012;Hameroff and Penrose, 2014). ...
... Increasingly, evolutionary biologists propose how evolution is fundamentally a process of collaborative agency, rather than a zero-sum game of competition, and how evolution enables the development of co-creative capabilities for thrivability (Laszlo, 2009;Smitsman, 2019;Sahtouris, 2000;Capra and Luisi, 2014). By thrivability, we mean our innate ability to develop systemic capabilities for actualising our potentials in ways that are generative, life-affirming, possibility increasing, and future creating. ...
Earth dwellers face global climate change caused by atmospheric warming, environmental degradation and ecosystem collapse resulting from unsustainable production and consumption of goods, food and energy. Cities are central to addressing these challenges, as they are ecosystems conflating mass production and consumption. Cities are also social habitats for more than half of the world’s population. As cities increasingly face sustainability challenges, there is a growing need for more resilient urban communities as an ongoing process of enhancing the adaptability of citizens.
This brief proposes a conceptual framework of education for urban circular development (EUCD) in response to the question: How can urban circular development be integrated into ESD? EUCD adopts teaching/learning approaches (specifically, holistic and action-based approaches) in ESD that contribute to the experimental, just and locally collaborative nature of UCD. It follows Eilam and Trop’s ESD pedagogy which relays four basic iterative principles that build upon each other as steps where each one brings an additional component for reaching the aim of ESD. According to the proposed conceptual framework, this policy brief concludes by making a set of recommendations for creating an approach to learning/teaching urban circular development. The recommendations focus on enhancing ESD content with different forms of sustainable development, as well as employing an action-based (subject-wise and dimensional) collaborative learning process rooted in the multi-perspective approach.
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