Towards a complexity paradigm

Intractable problems such as climate change, sustainable development and corporate sustainability call into question the viability of underlying assumptions and paradigms that shape the conceptualisation of these problems. The need for a complexity paradigm is

increasingly recognised in sustainability (Capra & Luisi, 2014; Chapman, 2013, 2016; Swilling &

Annecke, 2012; Wells, 2013) and corporate sustainability literatures (Baets & Oldenboom, 2009; Gladwin et al., 1995; Hart, 1995; Shrivastava, 1994; Valente, 2012).

Awareness of assumptions helps to avoid “problem solving abilities being caged by the paradigms within which we operate” (Chapman, 2013). Periods of “revolutionary science”,

frameworks or scientific paradigms underpinning scientific theories. The challenges associated with sustainable development can be seen to be partially a consequence of the ways of

thinking and knowing associated with the Newtonian paradigm (Baets & Oldenboom, 2009;

Chapman, 2016; Meppem & Bourke, 1999; Wells, 2013). A Newtonian paradigm sought to grasp reality through understanding its components. Capra & Luisi (2014, p. 13) propose that the “zeitgeist (‘spirit of the age’) of the early twenty-first century is being shaped by a profound change of paradigms, characterized by a shift of metaphors from the world as a machine to the world as a network” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 13). Morin (2008, p. 97) is less certain: “we are, perhaps, living through a great paradigm shift. Perhaps. It is difficult to determine with any certainty, since a great revolution in the principles of thinking takes a long time. It is, or it will be, a very slow, multiple, and difficult revolution”.

The scientific revolution was extremely successful in advancing human civilisation. The

heliocentric view of Copernicus, developed through Galileo’s focus on material properties that could be quantified and Bacon’s methods of scientific experimentation, shifted the scientific view of nature as organic to viewing it as a machine. Science became preoccupied with the domination and control of nature (Capra & Luisi, 2014). Descartes’s introduction of the analytic method based on radical doubt created the foundations of the modern scientific method but also resulted in dualism and reductionism (Capra, 1983). Reductionism, also known as analysis, sought to understand complex phenomena by reduction to individual components, which resulted in a fundamentally materialist ontology (Heylighen, Cilliers, & Gershenson, 2007).

It was Newton, however, that succeeded in synthesising the works of Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon and Descartes into a mechanistic view of life, where the “machine world” comprised material particles that moved around in absolute space and time, governed by universal laws.

As Capra and Luisi (2014, p. 28) point out, this mechanistic conception of the world was deterministic and underpinned by religious belief:

“In the Newtonian view, God created in the beginning material particles, the forces between them, and the fundamental laws of motion. In this way the whole universe was set in motion, and it has continued to run ever since, like a machine, governed by immutable laws”.

The interdependent and complex challenges of sustainable development in the globalised 21^st century world cannot be achieved within the ontological and epistemological positions out of which the problems emerged (Meppem & Bourke, 1999). The Newtonian ontology is based on matter, absolute space and time, and forces which govern movement in space and time:

“Ontologically, it reduces all phenomena to movements of independent, material particles governed by deterministic laws. Epistemologically, it holds the promise of complete, objective and certain knowledge of past and future” (Heylighen et al., 2007, p. 117).

Whilst there has been a domination of the Newtonian paradigm, the history of western science shows an ongoing tension with pendulum swings between the study of substance (matter) and form (patterns of relationship), a jostling between mechanism and holism (Capra & Luisi, 2014).

This has occurred in various guises, as “debate between materialists and idealists, the

empiricists and rationalists, Kantian philosophers and the logical positivists, and more recently, between positivists and postmodernists” (Chapman, 2013, p. 98).

Newtonian assumptions were brought into question through an interplay of advances in

relativity; systems thinking; quantum mechanics; non-linear dynamics; chaos theory resulting in a shift back towards holism; and a revival of the Romantic philosophies which viewed earth as a living being (Capra & Luisi, 2014; Heylighen et al., 2007). This view, later to emerge as the Gaia theory (Lovelock & Margulis, 1974), provided normative implications for ecology:

“The image of the earth as a living organism and nurturing mother served as a cultural constraint restricting the actions of human beings…As long as the earth was

considered to be alive and sensitive, it could be considered a breach of human ethical behaviour to carry out destructive acts against it” (Merchant as quoted in Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 25).

Holism, which predates complexity theory, was defined by Smuts (1927) as the tendency in nature to dynamically form wholes, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Complexity theory emerged from the interaction between multiple disciplines such as

mathematics, economics, biology, engineering, computer science (Chu et al., 2003) and from systems theory in an attempt to explain systems which have a multiplicity of potentials that can

Kelly, 2003). Complexity theory extends beyond the holism of systems theory. Complexity theorists critique the reductionist tendency in holism (Cilliers, 1998; Morin, 2008), in which

“holism is a partial, one-dimensional, and simplifying vision of the whole” (Morin, 1992, p. 372).

In this way reducing the whole to the characteristics of parts or reducing the characteristics of parts to the whole both simplify reality which can be more usefully characterised as a complex unity (Morin, 2008). This study regards the conceptualisation of a complex “unity in diversity”

as fundamentally important and adopts this perspective. The use of the term “holism” in this dissertation denotes a view of corporate sustainability in which whole and part, and their interactions, are recognised as a complex unity. Understanding sustainability at the level of agent thus relies on an explanation of sustainability at the level of organisation and

environment and vice versa.

The formalising and modelling of complexity, as developed by the Sante Fe Institute, a complexity institute in New Mexico, has been described by Morin (2008) as restricted

complexity. Restricted complexity avoids the paradigmatic implications of complexity, thereby decomplexifying it (Cloete, 2017; Morin, 2006, 2008). Generalised complexity, unlike restricted complexity, abandons the quest for a unified theory of complexity and asserts that “complex phenomena are irreducible” (Woermann, 2011, p. 2). Generalised complexity is concerned with how knowledge is organised, thereby requiring an epistemological and ontological

re-conceptualisation (Chapman, 2016; Heylighen et al., 2007; Morin, 2008).

In a complexity paradigm, external reality is comprised of immaterial interconnections

(Heylighen et al., 2007) with no substantial external reality (Chapman, 2016). Reality appears as a process rather than as things (Chapman, 2016) and appears differently at different scales.

The materiality of atoms and particles is apparent, but at a quantum level reality appears as immaterial patterns (Baets, 2009; Chapman, 2013). Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle suggests that exact values cannot be simultaneously assigned to both the position and momentum of a physical system (Hilgevoord & Uffink, 2014). Non-locality in quantum mechanics has significant implications for an ontological position as it implies interaction beyond a fixed space-time, where there is entanglement between systems. Entanglement of quantum objects challenges common assumptions that ordinary objects are absolutely separate (Radin, 2006). The inseparability of quantum systems is important for the

consideration of an ontological position, where the properties of entangled systems cannot be

Quantum mechanics and complexity theory also have important epistemological implications;

the observer is no longer afforded a privileged and detached “objective” point of view, as observers participate in reality as an interconnected immaterial whole (Chapman, 2016). This means that, other than the subjective past, there is no external reality to be discovered (Chapman, 2016). Instead the observer should strive towards a meta-perspective (Morin, 2008), whilst being cognisant of the system he or she is interacting with, thus maintaining a reflexive stance (Woermann & Cilliers, 2012). Morin (2008) proposes a co-constructivist epistemology based on complexity and quantum theories. Whereas a constructivist epistemology proposes that knowledge is generated through the interaction of ideas and experiences (von Glasersfeld, 1981), the construction of reality is co-determined by the people and the world they inhabit, as well as their socio-cultural and paradigmatic context (Morin, 2008).

Whilst a complexity ontology can be translated into a complexity epistemology in a research context, this distinction is not important from a complexity paradigm:

“If epistemology is about what we know and how we know what we know – what is inside - and ontology is about what there is to know – what is outside – then the most fundamental challenge that complexity makes is that these can no longer be considered as separable” (Allen & Varga, 2007, pp. 19–20).

Similarly, Wilber (2012, p. 50) positions ontology and epistemology as “complementary aspects of the same occasion…(where) the structure of the subject co-creates the nature of the

phenomena perceived”. Allen and Varga (2007) propose circularity between ontology, epistemology and axiology, where values influence intention, which drives epistemological change. Conversely, epistemology is also influenced by experiences, produced as an individual acting within the constraints of ecosystems, translating intention into action. A critical

complexity approach proposes complexity in both an ontological and epistemological sense in which the implications for the nature of reality and how we organise knowledge are reflexively considered (Woermann, 2010). This integration and approach provide a normative function (Woermann & Cilliers, 2012), which is a potentially useful position from which to approach corporate sustainability as a super-wicked problem.

Thus far, the complexity paradigm has been explored with reference to the mainstream

contributed to the sustainability crisis (Chapman, 2013; Meppem & Bourke, 1999). Table 3.1 provides a comprehensive comparison between the Newtonian and complexity paradigms (Chapman, 2016, pp. 128–131).

Newtonian paradigm Complexity paradigm Reality is material and

atomic.

Reality consists of immaterial, dynamic and nested patterns of relationship which form an interconnected whole. Patterns, which are persistent in time and space relative to the observer, appear substantial.

There is an objective reality that is separate from the observer.

Because reality is an interconnected whole, absolute

objectivity is not possible. Entities that appear to be isolated on one scale/dimension are connected at others. Reality is subjective and observer dependent.

The arrow of time is reversible. All processes are deterministic and theoretically reversible.

The arrow of time is irreversible. Open systems spontaneously become irreducibly complex over time, and closed systems become irreversibly disordered.

Most natural systems behave non-linearly because they are coupled through feedback. Small changes can create big effects through positive feedback and sensitivity to initial conditions, and big changes can have little effect due to negative feedback.

Atomic reality reconfigures as the result of cause and effect – change is the result of external disturbance.

Reality is constantly emerging/being created through self- organisation. Change is internal, the result of perpetual self-creation.

Reality is reducible – wholes are equal to the sum of their parts.

Reality is irreducible. Wholes are greater than the sum of their parts. Self-organising systems spontaneously create higher order patterns that are qualitatively different from, and

therefore cannot be explained by, the properties of their parts.

Reality is the product of upward causality; therefore, there can be no true

novelty.

Reality is the product of upward and downward (circular) causality via self-organisation. Through emergence, each moment paradoxically has the capacity for infinite novelty while being simultaneously constrained by its spatial and temporal couplings.

History determines the future. The future is deterministic and predictable.

History constrains rather than determines the future. The future is uncertain, and predictability is probabilistic and scale dependent.

Chaos is equivalent to entropy; it is a measure of systems’ randomness and disorder.

Chaos signals deep, underlying system order that appears as disorder because of the scale of observation. Chaos indicates the system is being observed at the point where it is vacillating between qualitatively different dimensions/logical levels.

Instability/chaos in ordered systems is caused by external disturbances.

Chaos is intrinsically embedded in order and vice versa.

Chaos and order are co-extant and scale dependent.

Space and time are

Space and time are unified in the fourth dimension as

spacetime. Spacetime is not an absolute entity or backdrop to the universe. It is the scope of an emerging, self-organising universe. Laws of the universe are actually large-scale coherent patterns of the universe’s self-creation.

Order, complexity, novelty evolve divergently as the result of natural selection.

Order, complexity and novelty emerge spontaneously through self-organisation, i.e. convergence of systems through

coupling. Natural selection squashes, rather than creates, new order.

External reality is knowable.

It is revealed to our senses and us through objective observation.

Reality is specified through our active participation. The reality we see is not the world, but a world we bring forth with others.

Table 3.1: A comparison between the Newtonian and complexity-based paradigms Source: Chapman (2016, pp. 128–131)

Features of a complexity paradigm provide a useful way of considering the ontological and epistemological foundations of corporate sustainability. Whilst all the features warrant further discussion, this study will focus on emergent spacetime as a fundamental consideration.