PatternDynamics

2006 Audio File on the Foundations of PatternDynamics

timadmin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:36:38 +0000

Click here to listen.

The link above takes you to an audio recording of a talk given by Tim Winton when he was in the early stages of developing PatternDynamics as a discipline. He talks about the influences of permaculture, sustainability and Integral Theory.

Source: The Ever Present Origin

timadmin — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 01:39:08 +0000

First Published by Tim Winton at Metacogs Blog

This blog post is part of my learning journey (and others) within the Metacogs peer learning network. We have come together online to form a self organising learning group that seeks to help each other learn ‘meta-cognative’ (thinking about thinking) tools and understandings. That’s how I understand it. To start with we set up a Facebook group oriented around this purpose. Then we set up this blog and lately some of us in this group have been meeting in online video conference calls via Google+ Hangouts. These have been recorded and you can access them on this blog. We are using and exploring a range of meta-cognative tools, including PatternDynamics, which I have developed as a systems thinking tool for enhancing the enduring health and functionality of human organisations at any scale and of any type. The premise behind PatternDynamics is that sustainability and forming a thriving planetary civilisation is dependent for the most part on people and how we collectively make decisions about how we treat the environment, social capital ect. So PatternDynamics (PD) takes the patterns nature uses for sustainable organisation of its systems and translates them into a set of symbols that we humans can use to understand, communicate and design using the same patterns of organisation. This is proposed as a method for giving us humans the same capacity we find for enduring health and evolution in natural systems…

Read the rest of the post by clicking here.

PatternDynamics Learning Group Video

timadmin — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 12:23:05 +0000

http://metacogs.wordpress.com/process/

Above is a link to a WordPress blog archiving material, including this video recording of a Google+ hangout by members of the MetaCogs Facebook Group. In this video the group is experimenting with online self organising learning processes. PatternDynamics is one of the tools being experimented with and the video demonstrates how a group of people can self organise online to learn systems thinking in service of forming a healthy planetary civilisation. By the end of the video a statement of Source is recorded as the basis for further work by the group.

Radio Lab: Words- the power of language

timadmin — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 06:02:06 +0000

Here is a link to a fascinating internet radio episode on the power of language in shaping what we actually see. In this episode a 27 year old deaf man is taught symbols and given language for the first time. Listen to see how the revelation that “everything has a name” changed his life.

The presenters also follow some interesting science that demonstrates we can’t actually perform even simple tasks unless we have the language to support them.

This program is relevant to PatternDynamics™ because it demonstrates that without a set of symbols that allow us to see ‘systems’ we will be blind to them, and, worse, we will not be able to act on them or within them with any success.

As a language of patterns–or a Pattern Language–PatternDynamics™ gives us a set of symbols for ‘seeing’ whole systems and therefore a new capacity for meeting complex challenges like sustainability and organisational development.

Flows and Stores Example

timadmin — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 07:10:09 +0000

Below is a reply I made to a comment on my Ken, II, MI and the State of My Integral Enterprise article published on Beams and Struts. In it I explain how the Flows and Stores Pattern functions within culture and how it can be balanced and integrated for generative health. The comment referred to below can be seen on Beam and Struts below the original article.

“Thanks for the comments and insights and for taking the time to engage with me on the topic. I think we do need to agree on the truth of a story, in culture generally, and in this case, with regard to Ken and the Integral community. At this point, I could try and convince you that I am correct and then you could retort with the same and we could repeat until we have hammered out some sort of meaning, even if that meaning lays fractured in different interpretations by different individuals and groups. This seems to be a well used method of meaning making, even in the Integral community.

I’d like to take this opportunity to do something different from that. I’d like to try and integrate our perspectives. I think there is truth in both of our assertions: yours, that “Intersubjectivity is a range of play and not a ‘point’ of connection or consensus,” and mine that we need a story that serves as a consolidated ‘point’ of meaning.

My interpretation of what we are exploring here is the interplay of the on going ‘process’ of storying (becoming) and the formation of ‘a’ story (being). In PatternDynamics, this Polarity (www.patterndynamics.com.au/patterns/polarity/) is illustrated by the Flows and Stores Pattern (www.patterndynamics.com.au/patterns/polarity/flowsstores/) Flows and Stores signify the dynamic interplay of flows of process vs stores of ‘things’. In natural systems we see this everywhere. For instance in the flow of water in a river and its store in water bodies like lakes or ponds. Both the flows and the stores of water have different functions within an ecosystem and both are really just two aspects of one thing. What kind of balance and interplay between the polarities engenders health in the system will depend on the context: is it a wet period or a dry one? Is the climate changing ect. With my post I’m pointing out that in the particular circumstance we find ourselves in now, as a greater Integral collective, I think we require a ‘store’ of story rather than just more ongoing flow. We need a story, because I think it is one of those times when it is healthy to slow the flow and take ‘stock’ of where we are and what that means.

Part of what using meta-types (like AQAL ones or PatternDynamics ones) is all about is that it give us a set of principles by which we can test our assertions. You reference Appendix C by Wilber. I’m curious about the basis for the assertion there. I’m referencing hundreds of millions of years of evolution where, as far as I know, there has never been a biological system without flows and stores, without being and becoming. Cultural, psychological and social systems of all kinds, without exception, also display this meta-type. The great mythic stories from Gilgamesh to Godzilla illustrate the importance of a ‘point’ of meaning that is consolidated and sticks around for a while as a storehouse of meaning.

So, your post has given me the opportunity to express that although I’m advocating for a story, I’m not excluding the process of storying–I think they are the same process in fact and that it is really just a matter of where one places the emphasis. I think we need both storying and stories in an intelligently designed interplay that serves the health of the Integral movement in general.

I’m interested in hearing more about your objection to a story and why we definitely don’t need one, in your view. You may be articulating something important here, and of course I could be wrong, but I need to know more about how you are thinking to know more about those two possibilities.

Also, you are correct, my post is only going to be relevant to people with an experience similar to mine within Integral. I don’t think of it as an ‘insider jobber’–I’m hoping it has wider meaning than that. As I stated in the beginning, I’m not totally sure of this, but early feedback supports my case. Time will tell on that account. I’m glad you found it interesting.”

Conscious Leadership for Sustainability

timadmin — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 12:29:52 +0000

In October 2011 Barrett C. Brown commenced the 3 month Conscious Leadership for Sustainability program in The Netherlands. It is subtitled “Advanced Practices in Systemic Change and Self Mastery.”

Faculty included Barrett himself, David Ballard, Ken Wilber, Peter Merry, Searl Vetter, Anouk Brack, Cindy Wigglesworth, and my self, Tim Winton–founder of PatternDynamics™.

I have posted a link here that takes you a video recording of a webinar presentation I gave as part of the course. In it there is a recount of the development of PatternDynamics™, descriptions of the First Order Patterns and the discussion of some real life examples.

Tim ‘thepatternguy’ Winton launches new blog

timadmin — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:20:46 +0000

Tim Winton, creator of PatternDynamics™ launches a new blog at www.thepatternguy.com

In his own words:

“In this blog I’ll be analysing news, current events and other cultural phenomenon as they relate to the susteinability and trhriving fo the human project using PatternDynamics™, an Integral Sustainability Pattern Language, and elements of Integral Theory.

I’ll also post related material I’ve created previously and links to good resources that look at sustainability and complexity from similar perspectives.”