• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
INVITED PAPER
Fromsociohistorytopsychohistory
M.I. Yolles
 Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK 
Abstract
Purpose
– This study seeks to postulate a theory of psychohistory as a “think-piece”. It developsfrom some earlier theoretical work on sociohistory that can model cultures that are large-scale (e.g.societies) over the long term or small scale (e.g. corporations) over the short term. Sociohistory, asdeveloped by Yolles and Frieden, provides a new theory to explore the possibilities of tracking andexplaining social and cultural change. It offers entry to the development of a theory of psychohistorythat explores the psychological basis for decision making and social action and interaction, andconnects with both Jung’s propositions on psychological profiling and with the popular Myers-Briggsinstruments of personality testing.
Design/methodology/approach
– Sociohistory was developed by coupling three theoreticalframeworks: the knowledge cybernetics of Maurice Yolles, the mathematical approach in extremephysicalinformation(EPI)ofRoyFrieden,andthesocioculturaldynamicsofPitrinSorokin.Knowledgecybernetics creates the vehicle for the exploration of the sociocultural dynamics that reflects thetheoretical structures of Sorokin, and uses EPI as a way of fine tuning one’s understanding of thequalitative and quantitative dynamics uncovered. The basic fractal nature of knowledge cybernetics isbe used to extend the theory of sociohistory from sociocultural dynamics to psychosocial dynamics.Elaborating on the fractal nature of the approach, an indicative theory of psychohistory is formulated.
Findings
– The theoretical basis for sociohistory is outlined and extended from sociocultural topsychosocial dynamics, and it is shown how the methodological approach can then be extended to thedevelopment of psychohistory. An agenda for further sociohistorical and psychohistorical research isalso developed in this process.
Originality/value
– Sociocultural dynamics is extended to the promise of being able to deal withsocial dynamics within a cultural setting. The postulated theory of psychohistory both explores socialdynamics in psychological terms and is linked to the potential for developing a new personalityinventory.
Keywords
Sociology, Psychology, Cybernetics, Sociocybernetics
Paper type
Research paper
Introduction
This paper is in part a “think-piece” development of the notion of sociohistory by Yollesand Frieden (2005) and Frieden
et al.
(2005). It explores this theory of sociohistory thatarisesthroughtheknowledgecyberneticsschema(Yolles,2006a)thathasbeendevelopedin conjunction with Frieden’s (1998, personal communication, 2004) and Frieden andGatenby (2006) theory of extreme physical information (EPI) and developed according tothesocioculturalprinciplesofSorokin(1937-1942).Theseprinciplesexplorethedynamicsof cultural change processes applicable in principle to either large-scale continuouscultures (like societies) over the long term or small scale continuous cultures(like corporations) over the short term. Knowledge cybernetics creates a flexibleknowledge-based frame of reference that offers a methodological approach capable of exploring and relating a variety of differently conceived but thematically connectedtheories by exploring aspects of their knowledge bases. The integration of EPI turns the
K36,3/4
378
KybernetesVol. 36 No. 3/4, 2007pp. 378-405
 
approach from a qualitative exploration of cultural change to one which has quantitativeattributes, enabling specific outcomes to be generated from qualitative inputs. Theparticular theme of cultural change is a very important one. While Sorokin’s theories aredirected towards providing an understanding of cultural condition and change inlarge-scale cultures as occur in civilisations, the application of the sociohistorical theoryindicated here is also potentially useful for the exploration of small scale cultures as theyoccurincorporateenvironments.Understandingthenatureofsuchculturalenvironmentsprovides an entry into the change imperative that every organisation experiences today.The basis of sociohistory which explored the historical dynamics of social collectiveswill be presented following Yolles and Frieden (2005), but it will only indicate themathematical approach adopted. While the general theory outlines the qualitativeexplanationsofsocioculturalchange, themathematicaltheory hasthecapacitytodeepenthe explanations and develop a quantitative dimension to the theory. The samemethodological approach as is provided to explore sociocultures can be applied at adifferent focus of inquiry to the individual, therefore having the promise of a theoryof psychohistory, which explores the dynamics of individuals through the exploration of theirpsychologicalattributes,i.e.atheoryofpsychosocialdynamics.Whilethetheoreticalapproachforthisisnotaswelldevelopedasthatofsociohistory,ithasthepotentialtolinkwith the Myer-Briggs psychometric tool that has become so popular with corporatehumanresourceenvironments.Introducingthisaspectofthepaperiswhatconstitutesitsthink-piece attribute, and provide entry into a broad research agenda.
Knowledge cybernetics
As an introduction to knowledge cybernetics and its use of ontological categories,consider three types of reality that can be attributed to archetypical rational beings:
believing 
,
thinking 
and
doing 
(Figure 1). Epistemologically speaking,
believing 
isconnected to knowledge while
thinking 
is connected to information and
doing 
is empirically connected and is therefore data related; these connections may not beimmediate and linear however. In the archetypical emotional being it may be said thatprocesses of 
thinking 
are complexified by
feeling,
though this extension is beyond myinterest here. While the natures of the three attributes of Figure 1 are all very different,they do have a mutual relationship in the autonomous being. Knowledge cybernetics isinterested in exploring aspects of these complex relationships.In particular, knowledge cybernetics is a systemically based schema that: exploresknowledge formation and its relationship to information; encourages a critical view of 
Figure 1.
Elementary ontologicalrelationship between threetypes of reality
Believing(Knowledge)Thinking(Information)Doing(Empirical data)AffectsIs conditioned byIs affected byConditions
Fromsociohistory topsychohistory
379
 
individual and social knowledge and their processes of communication and associatedmeanings; and seeks to create an understanding of the relationship between people andtheir social collectives for the improvement of social collective viability and anappreciation of the role of knowledge in this. In a coherent autonomous human activitysystem, knowledge occurs in structured patterns. This provides the structure thatenables the system to recognise its own existence, maintain itself, change, and developmanifestations that can be seen as being indicative of systemic content.The schema has its base history in the work of Schwarz (1997, 2001). In developinghis notions he explains how persistent viable systems are able to maintain themselves,change and die. Viable social collectives participate in the self-development of theirown futures, and are self-organising and adaptive to perturbations that arise in theirenvironment. They have structures that facilitate and constrain their behaviour, andthey are responsible for the manifestation and maintenance of that structure. A viablecollective is able to support adaptability and change while being able to maintaindesired stability in its behaviour, and this is affected by incoherence and pathology.E. Schwarz’s (personal communication, 2004) approach was to create a generaltheory of viable autonomous systems, and its creation was stimulated during thepreparation for a course of lectures on the “Introduction to Systems Thinking” at theUniversity of Neuchaˆtel, in particular using Prigogine’s dissipative structures theory,Erich Jantsch’s Self-Organizing Universe, Maturana and Varela’s (1979) autopoieticapproach and of course, cybernetic concepts. Schwarz tried to extract the basiccommon features of these different approaches and produce a unique metamodel thatconstitutes a transdisciplinary epistemo-ontological framework, from which otherphenomenological models could be constructed through a combination of logicaldeduction and intuition. The metamodel itself has some internal dynamics, coherenceand self-referential character, and it also had resonances with philosophia perennis[1].While many (phenomenological) models show that the evolution of systems go throughthe successive stages of emergence, growth, stability, and decay, the interest of thismetamodel is its global coherence and its questioning of the foundations of the usualmaterialistic, dualistic, realistic, reductionist and mechanistic approach that, forSchwarz, provides the basis for a language for a new holistic paradigm.Our intention here is to explain how a development of this metamodel, that we referto as social viable systems (SVS), can be established as a social geometry, noting that itis its epistemological impact that leads to the notion of knowledge cybernetics.The SVS model, shown in Figure 2 derives from the general model of Schwarz (1997)and developed within the social context by Yolles (1999, 2006a), and like the notion of the system it is metaphorical in nature and recursive in facility. Its metaphorical naturedoes not mean that it has no scientific significance (Brown, 2003), and its recursivenature means it establishes a relative theory of contexts that results in epistemologicalvariety (Yolles, 2006a). This occurs because the knowledge that it claims to express isrelative to changing contexts.We regard SVS more as a
holonic
rather than systemic model. The term holon wasproposed by Koestler (1967) to stress that the system is a whole and that it hasassociated with it a set of constituent parts which may themselves be sub-wholes; thesesub-wholes are within their own (recursive) context also holons. The sub-whole “parts”were normally considered to be lateral to each other within a given ontologicalspace, and this is equivalent to talking about the relationship between a system and
K36,3/4
380
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...