Category: capra course

Evolution

capra course, bendruomenė, wellbeing

Response to a student forum at Capra Course:

RE health of organisation:

my understanding so far is – we as individuals are constantly interacting with our environment, so individual health influence the health of organisation but also the other way – the health of organisation influence the health of individual. 

I like Metabolism as a feature of health, where the more dynamism, the more adaptation. Balance is a process. This relates to ideas mentioned in this thread about “unlocking obstacles” in organisations, so perhaps health is a process – if obstacles are in the process of being unlocked, health is there. Disease comes when too many obsctales build up and flow is lost. Evolution could be seen as a process of “unlocking challenges” too, keeping the flow going.

Creativity often comes from challenges too! 

Wings

capra course, humanity, systems thinking

Reflections from the student forum at Capra Course:

I love how Fritjof framed Power as essential feature in society.

I feel inspired and so I’d like to share a reflection prompt:

How might we take the power from the living systems that we are and share our authenticity on social networks? Who knows a larger system may shape its course like a butterfly flapping wings changes everything!

Ruta

Randomness

capra course, chaos, systems thinking

Reflections from the student forum at Capra Course:

“When the being’s metabolism is at work, the being changes and learns. In the same way, the environment is changed, by what the being emits towards the environment.”

Pia at Capra course

Today I was thinking along the same lines – how I can be changed by the system or I can take an active role in the system and change it too. Butterfly effects! Simple example on my mind was new working environment, new community, neighbourhood, friends circles, etc. I can just be there and be flushed by the flow of social norms, behaviours, trends or I can participate actively and intervene, shape the flow with a minimum effort. It’s probably obvious, that we all have this power to interact with the environment, to change (not only be changed), but to me this thought today was quite empowering realisation! Interaction as a natural flow of life.

Celebrating randomness today!

Circulations

capra course, chaos, systems thinking, wellbeing

Reflections from the student forum at Capra Course:

Wellbeing as a network of diverse resources & a circulation of resources. Circulation is important part!

RE organisations, I’m thinking lately about organisations as communities, where community is a network of diverse relationships indeed. I also wonder, how this systemic view can be applied in business education, that is, starting with an idea that a business is a community, always changing, fuelled by (diverse) relationships. (This almost goes the opposite to traditional (static) approach of “business strategy”).

In both of these areas, wellbeing of our bodies/minds/spirits and wellbeing of organisations, what seems to be common is circulation of resources, a flow of interactions. When I started learning about systems thinking this year, I observed that the main idea about systems is indeed interactions (links), rather than parts (topics). … Here, valuing conversations, too. Because every interaction disturbs the network in an unexpected way!

Flowers

capra course, learning

Reflections from students forum at Capra Course:

Un-learning is a big part in learning – like composting to make space for fresh flowers! 

How to trigger students to own their learning? I have been thinking about motivation lately. How to help people reconnect with their motivation? In learning and in life. To me, reconnecting with motivation is in fact reconnecting with curiosity which is about activities of exploring, filling oneself with lots of different things. I like some old saying that “personality is someting we partly discover and partly create”. I believe same goes with learning: we partly are motivated from within, and partly motivated by the environmental triggers.

Wholes

biomimicry, capra course, chaos, systems thinking

Spontaneous emergence of new forms of order. When the energy of the flow increases, it may happen that the system as a whole encounters a point of instability, known technically as a “bifurcation point,” where it can branch off, or “bifurcate,” into an entirely new state. (Section 8.2)

Capra course

What conditions are needed for emergence? Any general patterns here?

Memes

biomimicry, capra course, creativity, innovation, systems thinking

Enough Disturbances in an Open System (that we all are) create Break-Throughs (emergence to a new order) instead of Break-Downs.

Capra Course

How might we spark innovative ecosystems?

If all living systems are creative and nature favours novelty … how might we spark this meme in society where popular memes say – being creative is going “against the grain” and “hard work” is praised – while in nature, minimum effort and fluidity takes the lead?

Learning Systems

biomimicry, capra course, learning, question, systems thinking

All living systems are learning systems;

Life as a pattern of relationships; a self-generating network within a boundary of its own making; membrane is always active as a boundary, always opens and closes; life as metabolic networks: flow;

The more fluctuation, the more flexible system is; pattern is stable, structure changes (structural coupling); only disturb people, not direct;

Every interaction with the environment causes structural changes within the system

Capra Course

Hmm..

Can a system have no boundary?

What’s a healthy level of fluctuation?

What exactly happens when a system interacts with the environment? What are these structural changes?

I wonder..

The future of education: learners realising they’re learning systems already, the role of teachers as feedback loops. What disturbances are worthy in learning environments? 

How could a self-directed learning be the future of education? Seeing our bodies+minds as a learning system, where our knowledge graph changes based on interaction with environment, new neurons in the brain grow when we learn.