Scale-free abstractions are a specific type of
Shorthand
Abstractions: highly general concepts taken from our best current
thinking about evolution, cognition, and
the
world as a hierarchy of systems. They can be used to describe
systems on all scales or levels of
Causal
Emergence, which helps us
Move
up and down in the system hierarchy.Scale-free abstractions are similar to Daniel Dennett’s
“tools for thinking” (Dennett 2013), which are also re-usable cognitive
tools, but less metaphorical and more systematic. They are related to
Boisot & McKelvey’s “scale-free theories of nature” (Boisot &
McKelvey 2010, 427), which are more concrete – some of our scale-free
abstractions figure as components in these theories. Taken together, the
abstractions are practically co-extensive with Manuel DeLanda’s
topological, intensive, and population
thinking (DeLanda 2002).
An initial set of scale-free abstractions are the following:
- System and System Boundary
- State Space, Attractor and Attractor Landscape
- Explicit Model and Implicit Model
- Free Energy Minimisation
- Causal Emergence
- Selection and Self-organisation
- Memes and Egregores
- Adaptive Cycle and Panarchy
- First-Person Perspective and Third-Person Perspective
We should Replace Sensemaking Frameworks with Scale-free Abstractions because they are more effective Heuristic Devices for Sensemaking.
References
- Boisot & McKelvey (2010): “Integrating Modernist and Postmodernist Perspectives on Organizations: A Complexity Science Bridge”
- DeLanda (2002): Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy
- Dennett (2013): Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking