Theme: The Challenges of Quantum Mechanics and Risk
Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the development of Quantum Mechanics (Max Plank) (https://quantum2025.org/en/). As Kuhn warned us many years ago (https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf), it takes a long time in science to accept change. Indeed, the institutionalisation of science serves the purpose of not changing paradigms (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348669790_INSTITUTIONALIZATION_OF_SCIENCE_AND_THE_SOCIAL_FUNCTIONS_OF_THE_UNIVERSITY_-_DIFFICULTIES_AND_OPPORTUNITIES).
One cannot separate the discoveries of science from the social and linguistic frames it uses. The very Metaphors We Live By (https://nyshalong.com/public/archive/20150131/20150131_ref.pdf), shape and frame belief. See MacCormac, R., (1976) Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion. Duke University. Durham. (https://archive.org/details/metaphormythinsc01macc)
What we see realised in Quantum Mechanics is a complete shift away from a mechanical ontology (theory of being). Quantum Mechanics turns upside down the Newtonian view of the world. The idea that we live in a mechanical, predictable and controllable world is a myth exposed by 100 years of Quantum Mechanics. The leading physicist of the century David Bohm used the metaphor of ‘the dance’ to describe where we are now with our understandings of physics.
Zukav (1980) summed it up well in The Dancing Wu Li Masters, An Overview of the New Physics (https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/dancingmasters.pdf) where he demonstrated the commonalities in language between science and religion in Quantum Mechanics.
Research
Any exploration of Quantum Mechanics or the New Physics is an education in what we don’t know. Perhaps start here:
· Ball, P., (2018) Beyond Weird. Uni of Chicago Press. New York
· Carroll, G., (2020) Quantum Physics, For Beginners. (https://images.jumpseller.com/store/digitaluniverse/8495454/attachments/cef26eceb6051a5a4933fedd36b8b652/Quantum_Physics_for_Beginners_Discover_the_Most_Mind.pdf)
· Holzner, S., (2009) Quantum Physics for Dummies. Wiley. New York.(https://ia801301.us.archive.org/25/items/QuantumPhysicsForDummiesByStevenHolznerBooks.dezox.com/Quantum%20Physics%20for%20Dummies%20by%20Steven%20Holzner-books.dezox.com_text.pdf)
· Zukav, G., (1979) The Dancing Wu Li Masters. William Morrow. New York. (https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/dancingmasters.pdf)
Or watch any of these:
· https://youtu.be/twY2q1F-ciI?si=WNFsLf1WQWQ0Je8u
· https://youtu.be/QqY8fY0TqaQ?si=18Sgf6ndrUOt_ycu
· https://youtu.be/5hVmeOCJjOU?si=C3-xCuD21xTAmbDm
and you will soon realise that we don’t know much about much. How is this relevant for risk and safety?
What we get from traditional safety is the myth of objectivity and certainty, what we get from any exploration of the Quantum world is Radical Uncertainty (https://safetyrisk.net/radical-uncertainty/). In popular terms this is often labelled VUCA (Volatility, Unpredictability, Complexity, Ambiguity) (https://safetyrisk.net/kiss-safety-in-a-vuca-world/).
Unfortunately, confidence in mechanics and certainty is supported in Safety by the global love of and the delusion of zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/). No physicist (traditional or Quantum) would support the delusion of zero/perfection.
What Quantum Mechanics tells us is that the quest for certainty is an illusion. What we know for sure in the Quantum world is, we don’t know much. Indeed, the acceptance of paradox is essential for understanding Quantum Mechanics.
The opposite is often portrayed in Safety where even in the area of psychosocial health we see nonsense language of how things are ‘simple’ (https://flourishdx.com/). Such language is both ignorant and dangerous.
One of the grand delusions in the safety world is that life and being is predictable, simple, easy and controllable. We witness this in the behaviourist binary thinking of safety in black/white, yes/no and either/or thinking common to zero. This is common in the question: ‘how many people do you want injured today’.
What binary language creates is a dangerous and simplistic mindset that fosters cultural blindness to risk. What we often see in Safety is the seduction of measurement and the strange idea that the absence of injuries demonstrates safety. The reality is, neither safety nor risk can be measured and this is why the acceptance of paradox and ambiguity of Quantum thinking is so important.
The seduction of measurement in risk and safety is a huge problem and blinds Safety to the nature of uncertainty about risk.
What we know in the human world for certain, is that fallibility is the foundation of being (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/). We also know that death is inevitable, it’s just that we don’t talk about it (https://humanposthuman.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ernest_becker_the_denial_of_deathbookfi-org.pdf).
Once we realise that we live in Radical Uncertainty, we better understand risk and the nature of faith. From here, we better approach the nature of risk and the possibility of safety. Then we take the naivety and mythology out of tackling risk and jettison the mythology of objectivity. There is nothing more dangerous for safety than the silly KISS principle.
There is nothing to fear in uncertainty. There is nothing to fear in not knowing. To bluff about knowing is dangerous, such is the nature of risk.
To speak of risk as if ‘everything is under control’ or simple, is dangerous language (https://safetyrisk.net/hazards-and-controls-risks-and-uncertainty/). Nothing is more dangerous in safety than the language of overconfidence. Hubris creates cultural blindness. The same applies by asking an engineer or Safety about culture, resilience or ethics.
Not knowing and uncertainty are both a gift and a mystery. The best way to live in being is to know that all life works in leaps of faith (Kierkegaard).
Fallibility and imperfection are a blessing (https://ati.dae.gov.in/ati12052021_4.pdf). Without fallibility we would not know life, we couldn’t learn nor would we need relational knowing (https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Peter%20Ralston%20-%20The%20Book%20of%20Not%20Knowing%20-%20Exploring%20the%20True%20Nature%20of%20Self,%20Mind,%20and%20Consciousness.pdf).
The projections of Transhumanism are delusional and dangerous (https://safetyrisk.net/the-safety-anthem-control-all-and-all-in-control/).
Once we accept that risk is a ‘wicked problem’, we approach risk with a realistic method about the state of being. In Radical Uncertainty, we learn to trust our systems less and shift our focus to an ecological methodology (https://files.libcom.org/files/EcologyofEverydayLife.pdf).
When we develop an Ecology of Mind (https://monoskop.org/images/b/bf/Bateson_Gregory_Steps_to_an_Ecology_of_Mind.pdf) we begin to engage in the mystery of social relationship with greater maturity and wisdom. This should then drive us to more qualitative ways of knowing in how we tackle risk.
In Quantum, Einstein described it as ‘spooky’ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-entanglement-isnt-all-that-spooky-after-all1/). Whereas, Elise Crull describes Quantum as ‘delightful’.
https://youtu.be/twY2q1F-ciI?si=nUqFjIkY5xK69kNb
Zukav sees in Quantum the remerging entanglement of science, philosophy and Religion. We see the same entanglement in the way Safety speaks about ‘zero’.
All of this doubt and entanglement is good for smashing the myth of objectivity. This sends us back to the drawing board of radical uncertainty and pushes us towards the subjectivities of knowing, being and fallibility. Anything that destroys the delusions of perfectionism is a good thing for persons, ethical relationships and safety. Anything that moves Safety away from the obsession with measurement is good for understanding culture and the Social Psychology of Risk.
| Risk as a ‘Dance’
When we search for metaphors to think about life, being and risk there is none better than the dance. In many ways fallible humans ‘dance’ through life and as much as we might like to invent and concoct a controllable, predictable, measurable and confined world, it is not. The reality is, the world is not predictable, which is why we have insurance. The world is not predictable and error is normal. The reality is, life is messy, things go wrong, people will be harmed. The real questions Safety should be asking are not about control but about resilience (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/). This is why the language and expectation of zero is so harmful. Instead of concocting a delusional cocoon of zero denial (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/). The real challenge should be about what dispositions, orientation, skills, worldview and character is needed for resilience and learning. If we accept the reality of a VUCA world and that risk is a ‘wicked problem’, then the way we approach risk is anchored to the reality of uncertainty. The Canadian New Wave band Men Without Hats most successful song is ‘The Safety Dance’. Their official website is: https://www.safetydance.com/ The song ‘The Safety Dance’, was written by the lead singer after he was ejected from a club for ‘pogo dancing’. The song has been around for 30 years (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p_BvaHsgGg). Pogo dancing is not about using a pogo stick to dance but rather a form of up and down jumping on the spot. It got its name from looking like bouncing up and down like a pogo stick. The dance is characterised by keeping torsos rigid or thrashing about; holding arms stiff at their sides or flailing them, keeping legs together or kicking about, jumping straight up and down or, in any direction, and spinning in the air. The pogo dance emerged in the 1970s and is associated with The Sex Pistols. The song ‘The Safety Dance’ is basically about freedom of expression and the psychosis of obsession with safety (https://safetyrisk.net/dont-be-obsessed-with-safety/; https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-a-mental-health-disorder-obsession/). Obsession is a psychosis and a mental health disorder encouraged by Safety. The official video clip is set in the country side featuring; Morris dancers, Mummers, Punch and Judy and a maypole. Some of the lyrics are: And you can act real rude and totally removed The song is also a song of protest against thug bouncers (https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/the-safety-dance.html) who love to overpower and bully people, in the name of safety. When you want to brutalise others in the name of good, make sure it is made a safety issue. The moment Safety steps in, nothing must be questioned. THis is the opposite of Punk Rock Safety that is not about punk rock or safety. In SPoR, we often use the metaphor of the dance to explain the joy of motion (learning) and the messiness of resilience. You can do all the research you like on resilience; no one really knows what it is or knows what it takes to be resilient. But we sure know when things fall apart but no one knows or has a recipe for ‘the flourishing life’. Resilience is like fallibility: unpredictable and randomness and cannot be packaged in some formula. Unless of course you read all the con merchants trying to sell something titled: ‘The three steps to …’; ‘The five ways to …’ or ‘Seven tips to …’ resilience. In many ways resilience like fallibility, is a mystery. Dance is often a part of music and Poetics and both are Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson – https://www.textosenlinea.com.ar/libros/Lakoff%20y%20Johnson%20-%20Metaphors%20We%20Live%20By%20-%201980.pdf). In dance and music, we move and embody movement (https://journals.openedition.org/signata/1087?lang=en). In music and dance we become interaffected and intercorporeal (https://www.academia.edu/30974462/Intercorporeality_and_Interaffectivity) with others and the world. Some even suggest that the dance is the world’s favourite metaphor (https://joymotiondance.com/dance-metaphor/). Many cultures in their religious beliefs position ‘the dance’ as divine (https://www.themindfulword.org/divine-dance/). Badiou articulates well what is embodied in dance (https://www.gamu.cz/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Alain-Badiou_Dance-as-a-Metaphor-for-Though_Excerpt.pdf). Dance is also associated with trance, dreaming and vision (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/). Dance is Poetic and Semiotic. None of this is of any interest to the likes of Hopkins, Cooper, Dekker, Conklin or Hollnagel. Metaphysics is of no interest to Safety, neither is there any interest in the unconscious or Religion. Safety prefers the materialist myth of Behaviourism and Mechanics, controls and prediction but, has no interest in knowing about suffering, harm or the e-motions. This is how you end up with nonsense by Hopkins that claims that structure creates culture. This is how you end up with books on Culture that argue that the best thing to do about culture is to NOT talk about it (Busch). This is the opposite in Quantum Mecganics that intersects with metaphysics and is entangled with metaphysics. The reality is in Quantum Mechanics, any talk of prediction, controls and measurement is nonsense. Without research into all that comes with Transdisciplinarity, Safety will never understand: ritual, mythology, human judgment and decision making, culture, fallibility, ethics or semiotics. Much of the language of Quantum Mechanics and philosophy accepts metaphysical conversation and exploration (https://youtu.be/-PllBEuwT1Q?si=PFzal200F57b6yfe; https://youtu.be/Nj4SP3aCapo?si=T7V9Jl-ZhPf_8GHx). It is in Poetics and Semiotics that one finds the best understanding of what it is to be a human fallible person. Understanding human error starts with understanding personhood, not with a construct of Behaviourism. If we make Poetics and Semiotics the starting point for studying risk and learning, we don’t end up with so much concocted mechanistic nonsense that dominates the safety industry. All the myths of curves and pyramids, dominoes and Heinrich nonsense ratios (https://safetyrisk.net/deconstructing-the-myth-of-heinrich/) quickly fall over in the face of any discussion about Quantum Mechanics. Knowing Semiotics and Poetics lead us into a trajectory of humanising risk. These lead us into taking the notion of culture seriously and embracing a Transdisciplinary approach to knowing. When we accept paradox and ambiguity, we move away from the silly idea that culture is about behaviours, systems and propositions. Working in the Transdisciplinary space, between and across disciplines, is a dance. It is a dance where we partner with disciplines with different worldviews than safety. It is a dance between disciplines, where safety is NOT given primacy over everything. It is a dance where personhood and ethics are taken seriously. It is a dance where safety arrogance has no place. If you want to learn about SPoR, and how to tackle risk so that persons are humanised and valued in their fallibility, welcome to the dance. Studying SPoR is all about practical positive methods for tackling risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/). You can study SPoR here: https://cllr.com.au/register-to-study/ or write to Matt Thorne for your free 2 hour introduction: matthew@riskdiversity.com.au |
| Are We Learning From Accidents?
You can purchase Nippin’s ebook here: https://amzn.asia/d/b7cdD8g At last, a book has been released that challenges the populist myths that consume Safety about incident investigation. However, this is not just a book of critique of investigation myths but a positive, practical and constructive exploration of better methods to tackle the way we investigate. The book takes a Transdisciplinary approach in thinking and this means that it doesn’t exclude worldviews outside of traditional risk and safety approaches to investigations. Indeed, the common risk and safety myths of: Swiss-Cheese, Bow-Tie, linearality and root cause are demonstrated to be part of the problem when we explore normalised traditions in investigation methods. However, as you can tell from the map above, the book starts with critique but ends with a very practical and different approach to investigations based on a visual/verbal method (iCue™). By being open to Transdisciplinary ways of thinking, this book is open to learn from disciplines other than the common Behaviourist/Engineering approach to risk. In consistency with ‘embracing differences’ this book is open to thinking from: Semiotics, Poetics, Religion, Anthropology and Aesthetics. Indeed, Nippin’s academic work as an Anthropologist stands out from the risk and safety sector that remains enclosed in the mono-disciplinarity of Engineering. In this worldview the language that dominates is the ‘control of hazards’. In Nippin’s book, the focus is on persons, listening, care, helping and learning. Nippin maps the disciplines included in the perspective of this book early in Chapter One: One of the features of this book is that it speaks of many things not part of any discourse on the market about investigations. For example: the discussion of humans as Embodied Mind is critical for understanding learning. The discussion of the work of Damasio is foundational for understanding the nature of learning. This book doesn’t shy away from discussing: the emotions, feelings, homeostasis, healing or the unconscious, all neglected by populist approaches to investigation. Yet, without such an understanding one remains deluded by the myths of objectivity in investigation. Indeed, the biases of the investigator and investigation design, are mostly what shapes typical investigation outcomes. This is what happens before a question is asked and how ‘judge, jury and executioner’ are manifest in popular investigation methods. One of the features of this book is that it tackles the ‘elephant in the room’ – fallibility. Unless we understand fallibility, subjectivity and the nature of human personhood, it is unlikely that an investigator will include such consciousness in their investigation. By the time we get to Chapter 10-16 we have a wonderful framework to begin exploring all the eventuated with the Costa Concordia disaster. These chapters are the backbone for a new approach to a different methodology of investigations. The story of the Costa Concordia is told through the lens of all that has been before in a Transdisciplinary understanding of risk. The chapter on scapegoating and the depth of analysis based in Girard (https://archive.org/details/scapegoat0000gira) is something rarely discussed in any text on investigations. This chapter is unique to any other book on investigation. This is not a short book (448 pages) and although easily readable, demands a commitment to work though critical concepts before one is ready for the final chapters on learning. By the final stage of the book, one knows that learning is not ‘telling’, fixing’, ‘data’, ‘information’ or ‘training’. And so, chapter 16 forward has a focus on a practical alternative approach to investigation that focuses on the true nature of learning as embodied movement. And so, I will leave you to explore these final chapters and the concluding case study that brings the themes and narrative of this book together. Enjoy. You can purchase Nippin’s ebook here: https://amzn.asia/d/b7cdD8g You can contact Nippin here: nippin.anand@novellus.solutions You can see Nippin’s work here: https://novellus.solutions/ You can catch Nippin’s podcasts here: https://novellus.solutions/podcasts/ |
| Greg Smith and Nippin Video Series – Proving Safety
You can watch this video series here: https://novellus.solutions/past-event-videos/ It’s really good to start the video series by getting to know Greg. The personal start gives us an insight into what motivates Greg in his experience and perception of the Law, Risk and Safety. https://www.amazon.com.au/Proving-Safety-problems-management-tyranny-ebook/dp/B0CYNVZ7H7 His previous book Paper Safe, The triumph of bureaucracy in safety management, can be purchased here: https://www.boffinsbooks.com.au/books/9780987630001/paper-safe-the-triumph-of-bureaucracy-in-safety-management In the videos one gets amazed at the absurdities of the safety industry, especially the ‘alligator at the gate idea’. Greg’s learning about the safety industry continues to assert that Safety still doesn’t ‘get it’. The foundation of this video series is criticism of the current state and focus of safety. Greg’s message is so often, that our Safety Management Systems do not give us the information required to demonstrate that our legal obligations in safety are understood. |
| Free Intro to SPoR Course By Matt Thorne
For those who want to learn SPoR, Matt Thorne is again offering a free Introductory 2 hour course. You can email Matt here to join: matthew@riskdiversity.com.au The program will run on 6 August at the following times: Matt lives in Adelaide Australia so these times need to be converted to your time. · 7:00 am · 2:00pm · 6:00pm If you want to join in just email Matt: matthew@riskdiversity.com.au |
| Training in SPoR in Adelaide and South Australia
Just a reminder to any receiving this Newsletter that Matt Thorne is a local to South Australia and is available for delivering any of the Human Dymensions, SPoR or CLLR programs. He’s a local to Adelaide and has an exten sive background in practical approaches to tackling risk.. You can find out more about Matt here: https://www.humandymensions.com/our-people/matt-thorne/ Matt has been undertaking the work of SPoR for more than 10 years and rrecently completed work in Europe and India. He specialises in the interface between traditional safety management systems and the integration of SPoR Methods. He is the Author of SPoR and Semiotics, Methods to Tackle Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/) Contact hum at matthew@riskdiversity.com.au and he may even give you a free demo. |
| Brain Misleads Sight |
| Research demonstrates that (https://neurosciencenews.com/brain-light-optical-illusion-026299/https://neurosciencenews.com/brain-light-optical-illusion-026299/) the nature of light misleads visual perception. Published on May 21 in i-Perception, the findings show that when three light flashes are presented in rapid succession in our side vision, our brain tends to perceive them in a straight line, with the second flash around the midpoint, no matter the actual location of the second flash. There is also a sense in which this research corresponds to what Quantum Mechanics knows as the Double Slit Experiment (https://youtu.be/uva6gBEpfDY?si=BlbsVRdzN4dLmyMY).If you really want to do your head in about Quantum, watch this: https://youtu.be/QqY8fY0TqaQ?si=LdLM8vdC3F5w5uMTThe experiment of the flashing light demonstrates that perception can be easily altered according to the way light affects vision and how the Mind interprets what it sees. Understanding visual perception ought to be foundational study for anyone in the risk and safety industry.What we know is that: ‘What we “see” is not solely dependent on our vision, it is often a construction of our brain, influenced by attention and memory. This questions the reliability of eyewitness testimony.’ Furthermore, our history, social meaning, social psychological influences and many unconscious influences frame the way we perceive the world. As the study suggests, our peripheral vision, especially with fast-moving objects, is not completely reliable. Our culture, personality type, up-bringing, emotions, position and context all condition what we see. Further read: Balcetis, E and Lassiter, G., (2010) Social Psychology of Visual Perception. Psychology Press. London. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330215545_Psychology_of_Visual_Perception). In Quantum, we learn through the Double Slit Experiment that the observer changes what is observed (https://www.hendrix.edu/uploadedFiles/Departments_and_Programs/Physics/Faculty/The%20Double%20Slit%20Experiment%20and%20Quantum%20Mechanics.pdf). Try to get your hear around that. One of the things we do in our Visual Perception training is help people to ‘see’ that visual perception is improved by conversation and collective sharing. This requires extensive education in learning how to share, listen and dialogue about risk. You would think this may be easy but it is not, especially when the safety industry teaches that the key to communication is telling. BTW, can you see the woman in the picture above? (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/people-perfect-vision-cant-see-30984295) |
| Myth of Awareness
One of the great myths in risk and safety is the myth of awareness and being ‘unaware’. This kind of language in the risk and safety industry perpetuates mythology of consciousness and un-consciousness through the myth of ‘complacency’. No-one in safety can tell you what unawareness is, nor what complacency is yet use the words continually to explain why people don’t see things and why accidents happen. |
| Von Foester’s Theorem
The more [rigidly] connected are the elements of a system, the less influence they will have on the system as a whole … The more [rigid] the connections, the more each element of the system will exhibit a greater degree of ‘‘alienation’’ from the whole. This is Von Foerster’s Theorem (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0732118X9090028Z). This also reminds us of the Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Mechanics. In the original Heisenberg formulation of the Uncertainty Principle (https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/quantum-science-explained/uncertainty-principle), we are forced to choose between measuring a quantum entity’s position (its particle aspect) or measuring its momentum (its wave aspect). The particle aspect is the individual, the particular, located in space and time. The wave aspect is the spread out (nonlocal), the holistic. Why is this important? We tend to think that the more we exercise control and the stricter we are in organising, the better the outcome. This is not the case indeed, the more we try to reach absolute safety, the more new problems we create (https://safetyrisk.net/managing-risk-rather-than-striving-for-absolute-safety/). The more we tighten systems, the more fragile we make the system. As Weick stated long ago, the best system incorporates bricolage in the system (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269465031_Organizational_Bricolage/link/548c9d520cf225bf66a1a48b/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19). Building resilience and bricolage in systems is as critical in managing risk as developing tight systems. This paradox of fragility in tight systems is also discussed by Taleb (http://kgt.bme.hu/files/BMEGT30M400/Taleb_Antifragile__2012.pdf) by Taleb and equates to the Uncertainty Principle and the paradox common in Quantum thinking. |
| Can Language Change Perception? – Competition for Book |
| The competition in perception for this newsletter is for a free copy of Nippin Anand’s Book Are We Learning From Accidents? A Quandary, A Qyestion and A Way Foreard.
There are only free 3 copies to give away. For this prize you will have to submit a short narrative (10 lines) of how language used in your organisation (or by you) has influenced a change in behaviour/s. If you need help this might help: Your example could be of a organisational campaign or, how you have inflfunced a change by your own language. It could be a stroy of a poster campaign, a company strategy or a message given by an organisation. Submit your entry to admin@spor.com.au with your postal address. |
brhttps://safetyrisk.net/cllr-june-newsletter-2024/
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