Dr. Shima Beigi, Founder of Mindfulness Engineering™️ BSc,MSc,MSc,Ph.D. Resilience Scientist, Author, Yogi and ideaXme Rich Connectedness™️ ambassador interviews Francis Heylighen, Cyberneticist and Research Professor at the Free University of Brussels where he directs the trans-disciplinary research group on “Evolution, Complexity and Cognition” and the Global Brain Institute.
Francis Paul Heylighen is a Belgian cyberneticist investigating the emergence and evolution of intelligent organization. He presently works as a research professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (the Dutch-speaking Free University of Brussels), where he directs the trans-disciplinary research group on “Evolution, Complexity and Cognition” and the Global Brain Institute. He is best known for his work on the Principia Cybernetica Project, his model of the Internet as a global brain, and his contributions to the theories of memetics and self-organization. He is also known, albeit to a lesser extent, for his work on gifted people and their problems.
Dr Shima Beigi comments:
In this new episode of ideaXme Rich Connectedness Podcast series, I, Dr. Shima Beigi, founder of Mindfulness Engineering™️ and ideaXme Rich Connectedness connect with Professor Francis Heylighen, a Belgian cybernéticien and complexity scientist at the Dutch speaking University of Brussels (VUB).
Professor Heylighen
Apart from being my mentor and colleague for the past 6 years, Professor Heylighen’s expansive publications have been a source of inspiration for many complexity scientists around the world.
Due to the ongoing challenge of Covid-19, similar to my other podcasts, I decided to focus this discussion on the subject of complexity and how it can provide a more interdisciplinary approach to the challenge of recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.
Over the past decade, the science of complexity has began to attract the attention of many prominent thinkers, businesses, scientists, and scholars.
The main reason for this keen interest stems from the overwhelming evidence that classical Newtonian view of the world is very limited in its capacity to solve complex and wicked problems. Complex and wicked problems refer to those challenges that the cause and effect are not linear meaning the cause and effect of an event can not be traced back to a single trajectory of event(s). These systems exhibit what’s called nonlinear behaviours.
Nonlinear Behaviours
Nonlinear behaviours make predictions extremely difficult if not impossible. In such a system, long term planning is not possible. This in itself provides another challenge for control and management.
Today, as Covid-19 continues to spread around the world, these unpredictability and uncertainty are even more tangible. But, what if we view these events from the perspective of a complexity scientist and cybernéticien?
In this conversation, Professor Heylighen provides his point of view on our current times, offers his model of buffer challenge landscape which is inspired by the principle of Ashby Law of Requisite Variety.
According to this law, only systems that are capable of abdicating the diverse range of perturbations that enter into their inner boundaries are able to adapt and continue to evolve. I discuss these with Professor Heylighen and explore how we can integrate some of these cybernetic principles into our systems at both individual and collective levels. What makes a system resilient isn’t the planning per se, but its cognitive capacity to expect the unexpected. To join this discussion, make sure you follow our platform on YouTube.
This interview is in British English
To submit your questions or requests for an interview in the Rich Connectedness series, and to watch live interviews please connect with me on my instagram platform @dr.shima.beigi or my Twitter @MindfulnessEngi and subscribe to our platform on YouTube.
Credits: Dr. Shima Beigi interview video, text, and audio.
If you liked this interview, be sure to check out our interview on the value of resilient connections in the time of Coronavirus!
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