Lessons learning - The Cynefin Co Alone in the cornerone sits whose silence persuadesof the pointlessnessof the discourse. He drinksat another fountain that buildsitself equally from the

Continuing with the brownfield series, this time on lessons learning, narrative enhanced doctrine and training LLMs

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Conrad Taylor, 1954–2026 - The Cynefin Co It is better to be somewhat pixellated than completely dotty Conrad Taylor I learned of Conrad's death somewhere over the Pacific, en route between Hong

Conrad Taylor 1954 - 2026

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Always in brown? - The Cynefin Co On co-creation, calling forth, and what happens when the sediment responds.A hurry through which known and strange things pass Seamus Heaney,

Second post in the brownfield/greenfield series, recognising co-creation from the comments to the first

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In a brownfield ... - The Cynefin Co The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. ... I'll dig with it. Seamus Heaney, ‘Digging’ (1966) Path dependency, distributed memory, and the limits of designed

The first of two posts looking at change in organisations and society through the metaphor of building on brown-field and green-field sites. thecynefin.co/on-a-brownfi...

I Can Destroy a World - The Cynefin Co “I don’t mind destroying an existing world. I can destroy a world, a mental world. I love to do it.” Boyd, U.S. Air Force Oral History Interview, 1977

I finally caught up with reflections on my two earlier posts on anthro-complecity and aspects of cybernetics, in which the comments on Boyd's OODA loop were the most substantive, so this post addresses those specifically

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The Wild Place: Brittonic - The Cynefin Co I have been in a multitude of shapes, before I assumed a consistent form. Taliesin, Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees), Book of Taliesin, translated by

A three-part series that examines the idea of wild places and innovation in Brittonic & Goidelic Celtic traditions and in the Welsh Poets. I'm working on the concepts in European traditions that allow us to reimagine the world without misappropriating others.

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The Shoulder Shot and the Altar - The Cynefin Co He jams his hat on his head and stomps off towards his own villa. General bewilderment. Maxim Gorky, Summerfolk, translated by Stephen Mulrine, Nick Hern

Today's post is about sacrifice, through a theatrical lens, but with some anger at what I consider a lack of solidarity with Ukraine

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Nice enough guy Like a lot of what he believes in but the imposition of a master and it emissary is a misuse of science

McGilchrist is trying to row back from a discredited left/right dichotomy but can’t just admit he was wrong Now almost building a theology on it

You promoting this Ben?

SF: Dark forest or generative estuary? - The Cynefin Co They gazed at one another. Homer, Iliad Book XXIV (Johnston translation) On collaboration, mediation and the limits of the universal translator. This is

First of the promised occasional SF series, this one contrasting the approaches to communication and reconilliantion in Star Trek (in particular Darmok) with the Dark Forest assumptions in the Three Body Problem

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Ashby Inverted: a reflection on requisite variety, constant overhead, and the structural case for distributed sense-making

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Ashby Inverted - The Cynefin Co “The channel requires a keeper. The estuary keeps itself.” On rquisite variety, constant overhead, and the structural case for distributed sense-making

Ashby Inverted: a reflection on requisite variety, constant overhead, and the structural case for distributed sense-making

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Star Trek, never Star Wars, anthropologists who wrote science fiction/fantasy and alternative histories. An introduction to what I intend to be an occasional series over the next few months, and an invitation to contribute ideas

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An Unkindness - The Cynefin Co "Huginn and Muninn fly every day over all the world; I fear for Huginn that he may not return, but I fear more for Muninn." — Grímnismál, Poetic Edda In

This morning's post is on my being a member of the 'unkindness of ravens'. thecynefin.co/an-unkindness/

Scaling - The Cynefin Co Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock” (1934) You Cannot

Scaling in complexity - not by aggregation or replication but by decomposition and recombination

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And “reality is understood as comprising physically instantiated entities distinguished by boundaries and organised within space-time” shows one of the basic limitations of systems thinking

Epistemic Parasitism - The Cynefin Co Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. T.S. Eliot, 'Philip Massinger', The Sacred Wood, 1920 A Field Guide to the Narrative AdjacentThe channelling

Epistemic Parasitism, a polemical post on "how genuinely centrifugal thinking gets repackaged as a centripetal product"

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A Game of Encirclement - The Cynefin Co 看山是山，看山不是山，看山还是山。 Before studying the Way, mountains are mountains.While studying, mountains are no longer mountains.After understanding, mountains are

Wrapping up the Dao series for now (but I will return to sacrifice in a future post). Here I respond to some of the comments and sharpen up my criticism: "The misappropriation of Daoism into Western complexity frameworks is a Chess move performed on a wéiqí board"

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On Misappropriation, Not Exegesis - The Cynefin Co The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. Confucius As has been the case in many of my posts over the last two months, what started

A follow-up on yesterday's post on Daoism and dichotomies, which acts as a bridge to what will be a more substantial post tomorrow

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The Way Is Not a Map - The Cynefin Co “A path repeated over time becomes pattern.We often think of the path as something we choose.But most of the time, we are already inside one. At first,

New post 'The Way Is Not a Map', complexity in dialogue with Daoism and the dangers of layering dichotomies. thecynefin.co/the-way-is-n...

- The Cynefin Co ... He keeps the interstices In our knowledge, the darkness Between stars. His are the echoesWe follow, the footprints he has

A transition post - the main themes of the last few weeks and an indication of what is coming in April. thecynefin.co/70399-2/

- The Cynefin Co ... He keeps the interstices In our knowledge, the darkness Between stars. His are the echoesWe follow, the footprints he has

A transition post - the main themes of the last few weeks and an indication of what is coming in April. thecynefin.co/70399-2/

And here I am still - The Cynefin Co Ac wele fi yma o hyd — T.H. Parry-Williams, Hon I have nowhere to go. The road is long. There are stones on it. Shall I pretend To an ecstasy I do not

A birthday post thecynefin.co/and-here-i-a...

An epilogue to the Channel & the estuary series.

"The Sirens do not threaten Odysseus with violence or deprivation. They offer him knowledge: sail past us, and you will be a wiser man. The seduction is epistemological before it is anything else"

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The channel and the estuary: 5/5 - The Cynefin Co “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Vito Corleone, The Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) “The lawyer with the briefcase can steal

Final post in the Channel and the Estuary post

"The channel deals in propositions. The estuary deals in felt sense. Metaphor is the navigational instrument of the zone between the technology by which the unresolved can be held long enough to become knowledge."

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The channel and the estuary: 4/5 - The Cynefin Co “It’s easy to know what you are against, but quite another to know what you are for.” Damien O’Donovan, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (dir. Ken Loach,

Fourth post in the channel and the estuary series:

"Colonial history is systematic dredging. Not metaphorically: structurally. The removal of language. The suppression of indigenous legal systems. The replacement of communal land tenure with individual title."

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The channel and the estuary: 3/5 - The Cynefin Co “People either survive in the jungle or exist in the zoo. Few recognise the significance of the paradoxical reconciliation of the two.” Stanley Johnston,

Third post in the Channel & the Estuary series, focused on the epigram: "People either survive in the jungle or exist in the zoo," through the lens of Richie's TV series, The Gentleman, although I think the phrase probably originated in a different form with Sonja. `

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THE CHANNEL AND THE ESTUARY: 2/5 - The Cynefin Co “Your name is Guinness. That is not who you are. It is what you are.” House of Guinness, Episode 4 (dir. Steven Knight, Netflix 2025) Between the Buoys

Second post in the 'Channel and the Estuary' series: "The dangerous water was also the interesting water. This is the thing the channel cannot tell you, because the channel has no sign that says: here is what you are not seeing"

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THE CHANNEL AND THE ESTUARY: 1/5 - The Cynefin Co “I think, Arthur. That’s what I do. I think. So that you don’t have to.” Tommy Shelby, Peaky Blinders The Estuary and the Algorithm A post appeared

First full post in the Gangster series - the Channel & the Esuary - on the dangers of digitisation. thecynefin.co/the-channel-...