I’m writing a paper right now titled “The Self as a System of Systems Processes” for the International Conference on Complex Systems held by necsi.org in Boston at the beginning of October.

I’m trying to do it in eight pages so that it can make the published proceedings. I’m putting together a power point outline and then linking with the shortest transition sentences possible. Whew.

The abstract has been submitted and the paper and poster presentation accepted. Yes!

Here’s the abstract:

Subjective human experience is explored by psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, spiritual teachings, evolutionary biology, and more. Consciousness, cognition, and emotion are approached differently by researchers from different disciplines making interpretations of findings and communications among disciplines difficult. Reframing the self or subjective experience as a system of processes provides a model for integrating concepts and findings from various disciplines, for defining and potentially measuring what may be considered abstract and illusive, and for generating new hypotheses and models. This paper adapts Banathy’s three lenses for developing a systems view of any system and applies it to the self. The system-environment lens outlines hierarchical processes of the self and human systems, boundaries and boundary conditions, and the capacity to adapt and coevolve. The function-structure lens describes components, functions, and regulatory processes of the self within human systems. The development lens compares hierarchical levels of development and reframes them as processes and systems types. This model results in simple, functional, and measurable descriptions for  (1) the experience of self as three components: an innate “wisdom” (subconscious capacity to process masses of information), cognition, shifting awareness or consciousness; (2) ethics and emotions as regulatory “guidance systems;” (3) a process definition of mental health; and (4) the self as an developing and coevolving system emergent from neurophysiological systems and embedded in human systems.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Self as a system, Systems Science, Consciousness, Systems thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.