Systems Intelligence: A Programmatic Outline (original) (raw)

The Originality of Systems Intelligence

2010

In their groundbreaking essay "Emotional Intelligence" (1990), Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer define their new concept "as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions." (Salovey and Mayer 1990, italics in the original).

Systems intelligence: Discovering a hidden competence in human action and organizational life

2004

Intelligence is a new concept that is highly useful for understanding human behaviour in complex interactive settings, and in concrete efforts to generate change. We suggest that Systems Intelligence is something we apply as humans instinctively. Systems Intelligence combines engineering thinking with human sensitivity and thus serves as a foundation for a down-to-earth pragmatic philosophy of life of optimism and change. number of other forms of holistic thinking and of the human sciences as well as certain forms of therapeutic thinking, positive psychology and situation analysis . A major source of inspiration is also the Socratic tradition in philosophy which emphasises conceptual thinking for the purposes of the good life (Hadot 1987 and 1995. The reader is referred to the related literature to learn the historical roots of each of the ideas. Here we shall give a programmatic sketch of a new approach to understand human intelligence in a systems setting which is built on ideas described below.

Essays on systems intelligence

In their groundbreaking essay "Emotional Intelligence" (1990), Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer define their new concept "as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions." (Salovey and Mayer 1990, italics in the original). The theory of emotional intelligence advances the work of Howard Gardner (1983) in his theory of multiple intelligences and that of Robert Sternberg (1985) in his theory of "triartic" (three part) intelligence. All these approaches draw attention to factors in human performance not captured by previous proposals and, in particular, in traditional IQ tests (Gerrid and Zimbardo 2010). We have proposed that the work on emotional, social and multiple intelligence has missed a key form of human intelligence that we have called "systems intelligence." By "systems intelligence" we mean "intelligent behaviour in the context of complex systems involving interaction and feedback. A subject acting with Systems Intelligence engages successfully and productively with the holistic feedback mechanisms of her environment. She perceives herself as part of the whole, the influence of the whole upon herself as well as her own influence upon the whole. By observing her own interdependence in the feedback intensive environment, she is able to act intelligently" (

Systems intelligence in the process of systems thinking

2009

Abstract In any decision process, some kind of “big picture” is assumed. It encompasses a series of interdependent holistic judgments such as what is the overall purpose of the process, what issues are taken into account, what resources are decided upon, and what sources of information and expertise are used. The process of trying to see this big picture is an important element in the process of systems thinking.

Systems intelligence: Connecting engineering thinking with human sensitivity

Systems intelligence in …, 2007

Intelligence is a new concept that is highly useful for understanding human behaviour in complex interactive settings, and in concrete efforts to generate change. We suggest that Systems Intelligence is something we apply as humans instinctively. Systems Intelligence combines engineering thinking with human sensitivity and thus serves as a foundation for a down-to-earth pragmatic philosophy of life of optimism and change. number of other forms of holistic thinking and of the human sciences as well as certain forms of therapeutic thinking, positive psychology and situation analysis (Bateson 2000;. A major source of inspiration is also the Socratic tradition in philosophy which emphasises conceptual thinking for the purposes of the good life (Hadot 1987 and. The reader is referred to the related literature to learn the historical roots of each of the ideas. Here we shall give a programmatic sketch of a new approach to understand human intelligence in a systems setting which is built on ideas described below.

Chapter 1 Systems Intelligence: Connecting Engineering Thinking with Human Sensitivity

2012

This paper outlines the basic features of Systems Intelligence and discusses some of its fundamentals. Systems Intelligence combines insights of Systems Thinking with a pragmatic orientation and philosophy of life. We argue that Systems Intelligence is a new concept that is highly useful for understanding human behaviour in complex interactive settings, and in concrete efforts to generate change. We suggest that Systems Intelligence is something we apply as humans instinctively. Systems Intelligence combines engineering thinking with human sensitivity and thus serves as a foundation for a down-to-earth pragmatic philosophy of life of optimism and change.