First International Conference on Anticipation 5-7 November 2015, Trento The Strongness of Weak...
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Transcript of First International Conference on Anticipation 5-7 November 2015, Trento The Strongness of Weak...
First International Conference on Anticipation5-7 November 2015, Trento
The Strongness of Weak Signals: Self-Reference and Paradox in
Anticipatory Systems
Dr. Alberto Cevolini(University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
1. Introduction
• Social sciences are experiencing an anticipatory turn
• "Anticipations are ubiquitous" (Riegler 2001, p. 534)
• Anticipation is a "neglected concept"
2. The Idea of "Weak Signal"
• Weak signals are "the real foundation of the whole society" (Poli 2013, p. 32)
• mid-1970s: "strategic management" or "strategic surprise" (Ansoff 1975)
• In public opinion there is a surfeit of signals referring to social changes
• Stable reality everybody can refer to / signals of a reality that will never stabilize
• Revival in the 1990s
• "Wildcards", "seeds of change", "emerging issues"
• The definition of "weak signal" is now more ambiguous and unclear than before
• Weak / Strong
• Who handles this distinction? Who is the observer?
• Either the observer belongs to the world he is observing, or he is outside the world that is observed
• Observers are always inside,
• although they may observe the world as if they were outside
• Two reflexive uses of the distinction between inside and outside
3. The Strongness of Weak Signals
• Contradiction hidden behind the current debate on weak signals
• To worry about weak signals is reasonable only if you already know that they signalize strong changes
• Retrospective form
• Why nobody understood the strongness of weak signals?
• Weak / strong is used to symbolically bridge the temporal gap between signalized and signal,
• and only seemingly to solve the unsolvable problem of lacking information
• Weak / strong refers to the observer, not to the observed reality,
• it marks the ignorance the observer has to cope with when he tries to get his bearings in the darkness of the time-to-come
• Weak is not the signalized change, but the attention paid to the signal
• Operational closure of social systems
• Society can communicate on the environment, yet not with the environment
• In turn, the environment can not communicate with the system
• Environment behaves as irritation
in disruptive way
• The environment can not beget, nor specify the nature of systemic operations
• Environmental perturbations are never instructive for a system
• Structural coupling refers to any environmental condition which allows systemic self-irritation
• Every irritation is reproduced by the system through its own operations,
• and arises against the background of those structures of expectation which do coincide with the system’s current state
• Irritations are "purely internal constructs" (Luhmann 1992, p. 1432)
• Perturbations, deviations, surprises
• Irritation / indifference
• Distinction: —— 8 meters
• The observer can oscillate between over and under
• Signal is a difference for information processing
• Information is never transmitted by the environment,
• rather it is "generated by observers" (Glanville 1984, p. 658)
• Technology and computer hugely increased the irritability of social systems
• Nowadays they help –if not even substitute– perception in many fields
• Increase of "structural uncertainties"
• "Social signalling"
• While actually living in a safer society, we feel that we live in a society that is much more vulnerable than before
• It is not the signal that informs the system,
• but the system that informs itself through the signal
• Simultaneousness of system and environment / problem of synchronization
• Anticipation is possible just because environment can not be anticipated
4. The Culture of Alertness
• Semantics of "vulnerability"
• Disaster as interruption of organizational routines
• The system doesn’t know that it doesn’t know
• Second-order ignorance, or "superignorance" (Wildavsky 1988, p. 23)
• Why did you not know that you didn't know that you didn't know?
• "Weak signal" symbolically invisibilizes the paradox of (lacking) information about the lack of information
• Blindness of management routines compensated by "routinely suspecting" that organizational expectations are incomplete
• "Chronic fear", "mindfulness"
• "Strong responses to weak signals" (Weick/Sutcliffe 2001)
• "Chronic lack of redundancy"
• In social systems any signal is actually weak, never strong
• this jeopardizes the validity of the difference between weak and strong