you attract what you are

It’s time to write my last words on this blog. I realize that this is one of those subjects that I will really remember later on. I think this is partly because of the content and the way the courses are conducted. Aside from the fact that it’s a little confusing at first, I found it quite enlightening to debate our opinions on the subjects at the end of the class. But I also felt a good dynamic in this course. Indeed, in my country I am used to attending classes where the professor teaches without any real interaction with the students. We are so used to going to class to learn theory that we are not used to learning about ourselves. As I am quite shy, I don’t like to speak in public but I really enjoyed this exchange between the teacher and the students because the teacher cares about how we really feel. I have been able to push my limits and get out of my comfort zone. This class was a real opportunity for me to change my habits.

Regarding the content of the courses, I had vaguely heard about the systemic theory without really knowing what it meant though. I understood that systemic thinking considers that each phenomenon must be treated as an interconnected system that does not focus on individual elements but on the whole of the processes and relations of this system. In this regard, there is a phrase from Aristotle, that you surely know, to define this theory: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Thus, a system will constitute a whole that is indivisible and interdependent. However, let’s not forget that the members of a system do not have the same personality, some suffer more than others, even if from the outside everything seems stable and functional (like in a company). If we take the example of a human pyramid as the system, the modification of one of its elements leads to a general modification of the whole system. If one of the people in the pyramid has a cramp, for example, it causes all the others to modify the structure of the whole. Moreover, we know that a system is not the sum of its parts. For example, a family or a couple is not the sum of each of its members but represents another entity. To this systemic theory we can add that the same consequences can have different origins and vice versa. If we take a group in which all the people are depressed, each one may have fallen into depression but because of different origins. There are a multitude of causes that can arrive to the same point. Also, similar means can have different results. So you always have to find different solutions because they won’t work in every case and every time. Here is a small summary of what I have understood in general about systems theory.

If we take a closer look at the different topics covered, I enjoyed being able to discover new concepts at each session. I enjoyed attending the lecture on the Anthropocene and seeing how our generation is progressively emerging into an era where new technologies are becoming our daily lives. These are more innovative every day than the previous day, such as the creation of artificial intelligence, for example. Then the Anthropocene above all represents the period of history through which man is said to be the main actor of many consequences for biodiversity. Many researchers say that our actions have an irreversible impact on the environment. To tell the truth, I was surprised to see that Greece (for all the places I have visited) is a much more polluted country than the one I live in. This course made me realize that we all have an impact on the development of our planet and that every positive action we can take will have an impact on future generations. This could be picking up a piece of plastic and throwing it in the trash, for example. We owe each other by any ecological act, for example.

On the other hand, I think we could link two notions together: the Anthropocene and emergence. Or rather to say that the Anthropocene is due to a certain form of emergence (or development) of human civilizations. In this regard, I also enjoyed the session where we talked about DDT because I discovered that DDT had saved millions of lives from the disease and encouraged the intensification of agriculture. Although some countries still use it, it is now banned as a very harmful pollutant to humans and the planet. As such, the development of our planetary system makes it possible to find solutions to all problems but can, on the other hand, engender our loss.

Also, I liked the relationship the professor made between rhizomes and connections in a system. Now I understand better why the rhizome is not only seen as an underground stem with roots, but as an interaction, propagation and growth of permanent information, without beginning and without end. This would allow progress and development without stopping. To interpret this in relation to the human, one would have to understand this piece of information in terms of the relationships an individual has with the outside world. If I understood correctly, the rhizomatic learning theory would be the creation of an interactive network composed of material and artificial goods and human skills. All of these interactions would develop a level of resources. In other words, if rhizomes are connected, they connect to a networked community, like the impact of the internet on people’s lives where we all are connected. This connects us once again to the systemic theory: “any type of phenomena must be considered as a system, that is to say as a complex set of interactions contrary to the analytical method”.

These are the main courses that I really enjoyed to attend. However, there were a few courses that I didn’t like as much and a few others that I didn’t understand. In particular, a piece of the course on “complexity”. The whole part about linear causality and the causality complex is confusing to me. Actually, the whole physics part I would say. I’ve never been good at math and physics, I’m sorry. Also, I didn’t find the usefulness of this part of the course. It might be because I did not understand. 

As for the course on artificial intelligence, when I arrived, I was a bit skeptical to attend it because it was a subject that was almost unknown to me. On one hand, I wondered why we wanted to equal or surpass human intelligence. On the other hand, I also realized that AI is very useful in our life, especially through our connected objects, such as the telephone, the television…In summary, the achievement of this essay and the choice of this course allowed me to do research on the concepts I had not understood beforehand and complete all information on the concepts I had assimilated. I am in the psychology department in France, and I have discovered that I will be able to use the systemic approach later on as a psychologist. This would be the idea of considering the psychological problem as a symptom of the dysfunction of a group such as the family. The subject is thus influenced not only by his environment but also by himself. The aim is to identify the past in its “present identity”. In all that we have studied, I think that one of the most indispensable and important concepts is to understand this idea of a system. The fact that everything is connected and connected.

Don’t forger that you attract what we vibrate

(sorry for spelling mistakes)

It’s time to write my last words on this blog. I realize that this is one of those subjects that I will really remember later on. I think this is partly because of the content and the way the courses are conducted. Aside from the fact that it’s a little confusing at first, I found it quite enlightening to debate our opinions on the subjects at the end of the class. But I also felt a good dynamic in this course. Indeed, in my country I am used to attending classes where the professor teaches without any real interaction with the students. We are so used to going to class to learn theory that we are not used to learning about ourselves. As I am quite shy, I don’t like to speak in public but I really enjoyed this exchange between the teacher and the students because the teacher cares about how we really feel. I have been able to push my limits and get out of my comfort zone. This class was a real opportunity for me to change my habits.

Regarding the content of the courses, I had vaguely heard about the systemic theory without really knowing what it meant though. I understood that systemic thinking considers that each phenomenon must be treated as an interconnected system that does not focus on individual elements but on the whole of the processes and relations of this system. In this regard, there is a phrase from Aristotle, that you surely know, to define this theory: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Thus, a system will constitute a whole that is indivisible and interdependent. However, let’s not forget that the members of a system do not have the same personality, some suffer more than others, even if from the outside everything seems stable and functional (like in a company). If we take the example of a human pyramid as the system, the modification of one of its elements leads to a general modification of the whole system. If one of the people in the pyramid has a cramp, for example, it causes all the others to modify the structure of the whole. Moreover, we know that a system is not the sum of its parts. For example, a family or a couple is not the sum of each of its members but represents another entity. To this systemic theory we can add that the same consequences can have different origins and vice versa. If we take a group in which all the people are depressed, each one may have fallen into depression but because of different origins. There are a multitude of causes that can arrive to the same point. Also, similar means can have different results. So you always have to find different solutions because they won’t work in every case and every time. Here is a small summary of what I have understood in general about systems theory.

If we take a closer look at the different topics covered, I enjoyed being able to discover new concepts at each session. I enjoyed attending the lecture on the Anthropocene and seeing how our generation is progressively emerging into an era where new technologies are becoming our daily lives. These are more innovative every day than the previous day, such as the creation of artificial intelligence, for example. Then the Anthropocene above all represents the period of history through which man is said to be the main actor of many consequences for biodiversity. Many researchers say that our actions have an irreversible impact on the environment. To tell the truth, I was surprised to see that Greece (for all the places I have visited) is a much more polluted country than the one I live in. This course made me realize that we all have an impact on the development of our planet and that every positive action we can take will have an impact on future generations. This could be picking up a piece of plastic and throwing it in the trash, for example. We owe each other by any ecological act, for example.

On the other hand, I think we could link two notions together: the Anthropocene and emergence. Or rather to say that the Anthropocene is due to a certain form of emergence (or development) of human civilizations. In this regard, I also enjoyed the session where we talked about DDT because I discovered that DDT had saved millions of lives from the disease and encouraged the intensification of agriculture. Although some countries still use it, it is now banned as a very harmful pollutant to humans and the planet. As such, the development of our planetary system makes it possible to find solutions to all problems but can, on the other hand, engender our loss.

Also, I liked the relationship the professor made between rhizomes and connections in a system. Now I understand better why the rhizome is not only seen as an underground stem with roots, but as an interaction, propagation and growth of permanent information, without beginning and without end. This would allow progress and development without stopping. To interpret this in relation to the human, one would have to understand this piece of information in terms of the relationships an individual has with the outside world. If I understood correctly, the rhizomatic learning theory would be the creation of an interactive network composed of material and artificial goods and human skills. All of these interactions would develop a level of resources. In other words, if rhizomes are connected, they connect to a networked community, like the impact of the internet on people’s lives where we all are connected. This connects us once again to the systemic theory: “any type of phenomena must be considered as a system, that is to say as a complex set of interactions contrary to the analytical method”.

These are the main courses that I really enjoyed to attend. However, there were a few courses that I didn’t like as much and a few others that I didn’t understand. In particular, a piece of the course on “complexity”. The whole part about linear causality and the causality complex is confusing to me. Actually, the whole physics part I would say. I’ve never been good at math and physics, I’m sorry. Also, I didn’t find the usefulness of this part of the course. It might be because I did not understand. 

As for the course on artificial intelligence, when I arrived, I was a bit skeptical to attend it because it was a subject that was almost unknown to me. On one hand, I wondered why we wanted to equal or surpass human intelligence. On the other hand, I also realized that AI is very useful in our life, especially through our connected objects, such as the telephone, the television…

In summary, the achievement of this essay and the choice of this course allowed me to do research on the concepts I had not understood beforehand and complete all information on the concepts I had assimilated. I am in the psychology department in France, and I have discovered that I will be able to use the systemic approach later on as a psychologist. This would be the idea of considering the psychological problem as a symptom of the dysfunction of a group such as the family. The subject is thus influenced not only by his environment but also by himself. The aim is to identify the past in its “present identity”. In all that we have studied, I think that one of the most indispensable and important concepts is to understand this idea of a system.

The fact that everything is connected and connected.

(Sorry for the spelling mistakes)

In fact, before the class started, I read “rhizomes” on the board and wondered why we were going to talk about that. What does this have to do with the systems theory course ? Now, I understand better because the rhisome is not only seen as an underground stem with roots, but as an interaction, propagation and growth of permanent interaction, without beginning and without end. This would allow progress and development without stopping. To interpret this in relation to humans, one would have to understand this information in terms of an individual’s relationship with the outside world. If I understood correctly, the rhizomatic learning theory would be the creation of an interactive network composed of material and artificial goods and human skills. All of these interactions would develop a level of resources. In other words, if rhizomes are connected, they connect to a networked community, like the impact of the internet on people’s lives where we are all connected. This connect us once again to systems theory : “all types of phenomena must be considered as a system, that is to say as a complex set of interactions contrary to the analytical method”. This mode of learning is constantly being built and rebuilt because it is based on the changing needs of students at a given time. So it is a learning process that follows and changes naturally. I think the teacher uses a little of this learning technique to do his classes and I think it’s a good thing.

Sorry for this late post, it would be too long to explain why…

Artificial intelligence, here is a subject that doesn’t really fascinate me. But what is the purpose of AI, what is it for? Why do we want to equal and surpass human intelligence? As we can see in our daily life, it allows to automate some daily tasks and to offer personalized experiences to users. We can find it everywhere in our connected objects such as the television, the fridge, the phone and even the car… But do we really need a complement to our real intelligence? Why would we want to create even more comfort in our lives when most people only live in their comfort zone? Yes, I wonder a lot about this because it is a notion that was almost unknown to me before this course. But for me it is important to remember that artificial intelligence technologies also have negative and even catastrophic consequences if they are used without taking into account how they affect human rights. Facial recognition is a good example to represent this. Facial recognition is particularly intrusive, especially in countries where personal freedoms are limited (China, North Korea…), to spy on citizens for example. But the question is: can we stop the emergence of the world, the emergence of technology, the development, the growth or the evolution of this new era?

The world is growing every moment. How can we avoid that ? That’s not possible. On the one hand, it is a good thing and it allows us to find solutions to every problem, whatever they may be, more and more quickly. As we have seen, DDT saved about 25 million people at the time, but years later it was banned because of its high environmental and health impact. Shouldn’t we have let the planet prevail and allowed the inevitable things to happen? I think we can’t neglect that part of the thing. But I wonder: if we had known the consequences, would we have let those millions of people die but we would have saved the planet and future generations; or would we still have used this product to save those people? The concept of “emerging properties” is therefore essential for understanding the evolution of life.
About the course, the only thing I didn’t understand is the part about causality, the whole physics thing. I was never good at physics, I’m sorry! Otherwise, I liked the part about DDT and its impacts.

As we know, humans have shared the planet with the rest of the universe for thousands of years. But only in recent years, it has become the central player in the ecosystem. Man has always neglected and continues to marginalize ecology on Earth. But why have human practices on the environment had such a major impact on nature and the ecological system? Are we so terrified of our responsibilities? Why are we fleeing change to a better world? There came a time when human actions became more important (vast) and intense than the forces of nature. Events are accumulating, leading to changes in our ecosystem: the invention of technologies, pollution, the modification of flora and fauna. . . I even read in an article that in Hawaii an unnatural rock was created as a result of the mixing of toxic waste with marine elements. This is the result of human activities. It is very sad to think that man will leave behind such a bad memory. That is why we are the generation on which the life of future generations rests. We owe each other and that by any gestures of each one. This can be to pick up a piece of plastic on the floor every da

Regarding the video seen in progress on intelligence, I found that it represented exactly the thought that everyone should have. Everyone should see their skills through their actions and achievements and not through societal expectations and social pressure.

To tell you the truth, this course seemed a little complicated. Perhaps I should have some other explanation. We have seen reductionism, emergence and self-organization: three very original and complex concepts that can be linked to system theory. Here I would like to explain the emergence because that is what I understood best. Thus, the emergence illustrates an organized and totally unpredictable grouping of entities from chaotic to equilibrium. The synchronization of metronomes perfectly represents this in the course. However, I found another example that I find more significant. We take a saucepan filled with water, which heats on the gas. This saucepan has a problem because the bottom is hot and the top is cold. In this way, she wants to regain her balance. So it’s going to dissipate the energy, going back and forth from hot to cold and from cold to hot. You can see chaotic movements. But when we get to a certain temperature, the play of molecules going from top to bottom is no longer sufficient to dissipate the temperature difference. And that’s where, miraculously, at some point, the molecules will coordinate and circulate together in collective cells. But how did his molecules get together? This is what we call emergence: a chaotic situation that transforms into a new organization. I think then that the phenomenon of the saucepan also corresponds to self-organization (because the system organises itself) : thus emergence and self-organization are linked. In fact, emergence has always been present in the universe since the beginning of time. Everything changes through emergence and self-organization. Throughout the history of the universe, we are faced with leaps in complexity that are always emergent and unpredictable phenomena. But there are conditions for the emergence. You would have to be in an environment with high tensions to evacuate and unpredictable. This is where combinations of old properties are created to create new, more useful and interesting properties.

What is a system? Consider the overall balance.
As we know, a system is a whole of interacting elements forming a whole that is indivisible, interconnected and interdependent. In a system, everyone’s reality is good and valid. If we take the example of a human pyramid as the system, the modification of one of its components results in a general modification of the whole system. In other words, if there is one person in the pyramid who is in pain somewhere, who has a cramp for example, it causes everyone else to change the structure of the whole. Thus, in a system some suffer more than others, even if from the outside everything seems stable and functioning. This is exactly what happens in a family, a group or a company. . . This systemic way of looking at things makes it the opposite of analytical methods. The psychoanalyst would have gone to see specifically in the past of the suffering person, what is it that makes them have this problem. Whereas in the systems approach, we’ll look at the overall structure and we’ll take it up, because maybe the problem it has now is because of something that happened on the other side of the pyramid.
In class, an important subject of this theory was also discussed: feedback. Previously, we saw that everything was interconnected and connected. So it’s important to know that every time I interact with someone, my behaviors, actions and words influence the other person, just as the other person’s reactions influence me in return.
I really liked the theory of this course. And here’s the main thing I understood from this course, plus some research I enjoyed doing. Many of your posts have also helped me to understand more about theory systems.

People often suffer because they desire what they do not have, so they endure that lack. But as soon as they have what they want, they get bored because they have what they no longer want and want something else. I have the impression that some of the comments about the course looked like this. Some are unhappy because there has not really been a theory. And it’s true, but for me it’s a way of seeing a course that might seem boring at first. It is true that when I left the course, I thought that I had not really worked or learned from it. And that must be because we’re so used to going to class to learn from theory that we’re not used to learning about ourselves. In the end, we learn everything about the world but nothing about us. This course was an opportunity for me to change my habits. It also made me realize that I miss my small country village, its fields, nature and the forest. Travel and new landscapes are thus a way of realizing what we see as our “home. ” But knowing new cultures and new landscapes is always rewarding and I don’t think anyone would say otherwise. With a little thought, I realize that wherever I am in this world, it will always be my home. So what will the next class look like ?

If you are present on earth, it is because you have something to achieve. Find that life purpose and you can only thrive. But how ? It’s a good question… Human beings are destined to live in society, and unfortunately, sometimes we have to adapt to it. But other times, I think it’s a good way to progress. Isn’t that how new projects are created, by bringing our thoughts together, by taking all of our ideas? Weren’t technologies created in this way? Yes, humans are constantly evolving, causing change and adapting to it at the same time. Thus, acquiring a certain reflexivity, alone but especially in a group, becomes a form of maturity. And the field of possibilities is available to us. We can only progress. Also, let’s not forget that we are connected together by the energy of the universe. We attract each other by our vibrations. So maybe we’re not so different.

I love this blog concept. It helps us to develop our thinking and have several visions of things. We each had the same instruction and yet we all do something different. Well, I admit that getting down to work is always a test. I often tend to procrastinate. By the way, sorry for this rather late post, but I had trouble understanding how this blog works. I hope to enjoy the next courses and less apprehend the difficulty of adapting to work in English.