Abstract
One of the most challenging questions for psychological and sociological researchers concerns the discrepancy between two images of our world:On the one hand, our modern scientific view of the world converges with the philosophies of various cultures and times (and with those of our own culture), in the awareness that the world is above all to be seen as an incredibly complex process. It is a world out of a fast changing, high complex multitude of elements, stimuli, etc. and an incomprehensible stream of unique moments. On the other hand, in our everyday life, we describe and experience the world in terms of smooth developing, semi complex, and ordered units. In banishing the chaotic complexity, we are searching for order and stability. We are creating meaning in our personal and social Lebenswelt which is essential for our everyday life. This chapter gives an introduction to interdisciplinary systems theory with respect to describe and explain cognitive and interactive patterning and the processes of creating meaning.
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Notes
- 1.
Additionally, it should be mentioned that many further research paths exist for the demonstration of the correspondence between system-theoretical and psychological principles. Today, an increasing number of psychological researchers are involved. Overviews are given in Haken and Stadler (1990); Tschacher, Schiepek, and Brunner (1992); Schiepek and Tschacher (1997); Tschacher and Dauwalder (1999, 2003).
- 2.
It should be noted that this example can be—and is often—used to show the opposite: if we’d chosen 3.1, for example, instead of 2.2, this would have resulted in a series that ultimately oscillates between two values, lying at approximately 34.6 and 47.4; moreover, using 3.9, for example, instead of 2.2, the series of results do not have any cycle at all and the result after, say, 100 steps cannot be forecasted due to the exponential increasing amount of digits which exceeds the exactness of every computer. Therefore, in contrast to the simple determinism of the operation or the equation the result (after 50 steps) is practically unpredictable—this is called “deterministic chaos”. This is, in addition, a very important and fascinating aspect of systems science (see Kriz, 1992). However, in the context of this contribution the order-aspect is more important and realistic: Operations which lead to order instead to chaos are more relevant for the evolution of our species in the given areas of concern [cognitive and interactive patterns—while, in contrast, on the biological level in our body also chaotic processes can be more healthy than too ordered ones: for example, the EEG during an epileptic fit, or certain medical parameters in osteoporosis (a disease of bone metabolism)].
- 3.
Brady Wagoner is running a website at Cambridge University, UK with a Bartlett—Archive (created by Gerard Duveen, Alex Gillespie, and Brady Wagoner). See: www-bartlett.sps.cam.ac.uk (September 2008).
- 4.
Elsewhere (Kriz, 1997), I have pleaded for the differentiation between (a) structure emergence, e.g. formation of attractors, (b) structure representation through a dynamic process, and (c) structure representation through display.
- 5.
Some structuring principles—like the figure-ground differentiation, for example—have already even emerged in the process of evolution. However, in our considerations here they play no central role, as we share these principles to a large extent with all people, and they lie outside of our time-frame for self-organization processes.
- 6.
I use “affect-logically” here, because the meaning of “cognitive” in former times included the entire cognitive process (thus, naturally, rational, and affective components), but was then absurdly reduced in psychology to “rational–logical” aspects. As a consequence, one now has to readjust this analytical one-sidedness of this view with creative terms like “cognitive affective”.
- 7.
Here, the structuring rules of the metaphors of speaking and understanding (which are overlooked far too often) should be taken into account. These are very concisely elaborated in Jaynes (1976), with reference to the “characteristics of consciousness”: Specialization, Excerption, the Analog ‘I’, the Metaphor ‘Me’, Narratization and Conciliation (for details, see Jaynes, 1976).
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Kriz, J. (2009). Cognitive and Interactive Patterning: Processes of Creating Meaning. In: Valsiner, J., Molenaar, P., Lyra, M., Chaudhary, N. (eds) Dynamic Process Methodology in the Social and Developmental Sciences. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-95922-1_27
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