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Home , Paradigm shift, Positive feedback, System, Systems engineering

Theoretical Approach to the Interaction Between the Meta- Schemas of the Artificial (Built) and Nature

José L. Fernández-Solís, Ph. D. Kent D. Palmer, Ph. D. Timothy Ferris, Ph. D.

Texas A&M University, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3137 USA P.O. Box 1632, CA 92867 USA University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Blvd., Mawson Lakes, 5095 AU Emails: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]

Abstract:

This is an exploration of how the artificial environment links with the natural environment and requires a conceptual construct that bridges these two environments. Palmer’s General Schema Theory, a highly theoretical work, elaborated on in a dissertation by Fernández-Solís (2006), provides a theory of schemas and a theory of the schema of meta- which will be useful for interpreting the relationship between the artificial and natural environment.

The of meta-system is used first to generate and then to validate the concept of meta-industry. This paper argues that the building construction industry (which produces the built or artificial environment) that is categorized as an ‘industry’ by academia, actually acts as a meta-industry. Meta-industry is a concept that encapsulates an ‘industry of industries,’ which implies that the artificial and the natural environment interact at the meta-level. change is construed as the reaction of the natural to the artificial environment at the meta- level.

The approach to this pre-paradigmatic work uses the tools of philosophical and critical thinking, rationality and logic. General Schemas thinking at the meta- systemic level is presented as a new approach towards the formation of a novel of the artificial environment.

Keywords: Artificial (built) Environment, Natural Environment, Meta-system, Paradigm, General Schemas Theory

1. A Definition of Meta-systems

An interpretation of the concept of meta-system (Palmer 2006) can be made by linking the of ‘system’ and ‘meta’ together, as suggested by Gadomski (2007). Gadomski assumes that meta-systems are schemas which provide the environment for systems and are composed of the common of particular systems but not related to the properties of particular systems.

According to V. Turchin, and C. Joslyn (Palmer 2006), this "natural" definition is not sufficient for the Theory of Meta-system Transition, (which is a transition between configurations), nor is it congruent with the definition of as normally understood in the field of Systems . The definition of meta- system as proposed by Palmer (2000a), uncovers a categorical inverse of the system which can be characterized as that which is ‘beyond’ the system.

Meta-systems provide an Environment of Systems that extends from their boundary outward to the horizon. Once the difference between Meta-systems and Systems is understood, then we can provide a more meaningful context for locating Special Systems which are partially systems and partially meta-systems i.e. systems that are thresholds between the system and its environment. These thresholds have special properties that are called Holonomic, which is to say that they are organized as holons and thus are both part and whole at the same time . These holonomic special systems have the special of ultra-efficiency. There are three types of such Special Systems, they are: Reflexive Social, Autopoietic Symbiotic, and Dissipative Ordering.

According to Palmer’s (2000b) definition of Special Systems, Reflexive Social is based on the works of Sandywell (1980, 1995, 1996) and O’Malley (1972) who are Reflexive Sociologists in England. Autopoietic Symbiotic is based on the work of Maturana and Varella (2001), who are Chilean Biologists who coined the term, and finally, Dissipative Ordering, which is based on the work of Prigogine (1984) Nobel Price winner, who coined the term Dissipative Structures for spreading order in negentropic systems in environments far from equilibrium.

A key concept of systems and systems interaction is efficiency . Special Systems are intrinsically ultra-efficacious which means extremely efficient and effective at the same time due to the slight lifting of the pressure of on these systems locally which is compensated for globally. Where systems are judged in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, Special Systems are extremely efficient and effective while Meta- systems are less efficient and effective due to their intrinsic lacks rather than surpluses.

1.1. Totally Efficient Systems

Following Garcia Bacca’s (1989) definition of invention as “first time ” and everything else as “other than first time technology,” from one position we can ideally postulate that: At one end we ideally conceive of a totally efficient system , but alternatively we also perceive other than completely efficient systems . A completely efficient system is one in which the whole equals the sum of its parts (that is at an optimum without any surplus or insufficiency). Such systems are theoretically posited as anomalous and rare in nature. They have special properties such as holonomic , ultra-efficient , non-dual , integral , and we call them holoidal .

Holonomic indicates that they are ordered as holons, i.e. as both parts and wholes at the same time (Koestler 1967). Ultra efficiency indicates that there is a slight negative entropy to these systems, and thus the pressure of entropy is slightly lifted from them within a confined region. Beyond that region entropy is increased in the highly energetic environment in which these systems exist which is far from equilibrium. Non-duality implies that they are organized as something other than one thing or many things, or as a conglomerate produced by juxtaposition and conjunction, like a swarm. Integral connotes that such systems have their own internal coherence based on hypercomplex algebras and other mathematical forms such as non-orientable surfaces.

Artificial or built systems are alleopoietic, in other words they are other created rather than autopoietic which is self-produced . In general, manufacturing and industry, as arenas of built systems, may use this paradigm in order to determine their own limits in terms of the possibility of self-organization and self-adaptation of the building industry.

A meta-system theoretical viewpoint is one that looks at the field between systems and is concerned with the integration of systems within a domain or world (i.e. the artificial environment within the natural environment). It also looks at the context, situation, environment, etc. in order to understand how the system fits into the meta- system.

Our interest is to explore the possibility that this theory can serve as a basis for a better schematic construct than ‘.’ The goal is to be able to capture the reality of the artificial in relation to the natural environment or .

1.2. Concepts of System to System Interactions at a Meta-level

Our concern is that the construction industry, up to this point, has been developing ‘systems’ and ‘systems that interact with systems,’ but not ‘systems within a meta- system.’

First, meta-systems are the opposite of the concept that a system is ‘more than the sum of its parts’. Meta-systems are the inverse opposite, something that is ‘less than the sum of its parts,’ and contain singularities, paradoxes and incongruities. These aspects of meta-systems are anathema to systemic thinking, which attempts to eliminate singularities, paradoxes and incongruities. In contrast, higher schemas projected on nature (such as domain, world, ) have lower levels of efficiency and less integral balance within the whole, as well as multiple and differing levels.

In meta-systems, systems are nested holistically (as in holons) or as both parts and wholes at the same time (Koestler 1967, 1979). This nesting progresses up the of schemas being transformed at each level. Here we are concentrating just on the interface between systems and meta-systems where special systems arise, but the same could be taken higher as we explore thresholds wider in scope within the emergent hierarchy of the schemas.

2. A Schema is needed as a Framework for an Artificial Environment Paradigm

Unfortunately, this lack of understanding of the interaction between the artificial and the natural environments is a major contributor to our environmental predicament. At a simplistic level, human needs and wants drive production which requires processes that employ and the transformation of materials of products that become permanent consumers of energy. This energy produces emissions harmful to the natural environment. We can attempt to solve the problem of emissions by patching onto the offending technologies or we can attempt to create first time technologies that will augment supply and eventually displace the offending technology. The appearance of first time technologies is often an emergent event for the in which that advent occurs.

A problem is created when the forces behind human needs and wants are given free reign because the technology that serves those boundless desires of humans becomes out of . The general economy is predicated on continual acceleration of growth and all social and cultural forces are aligned for this unmitigated . IPCC (2007) estimates that the Global GDP is projected to double in fourteen years (2006 to 2020) from $45T (trillions, one thousand billions) to approximately $90T. In other words, all the systems move in a rapid growth direction and the ‘systems of systems’ become an exponentialoid. García Bacca (1989) expands on Born (1969), and states that “all [these] processes are fundamentally physical, mathematical exponentialoid, and thus unstoppable,” (see Fernandez-Solis 2007a).

Our predicament is a result of advancements that have gone through the several phases of the industrial revolution (advancing rationality, mechanistic, and systemic thinking) towards an accelerating growth of the general economy that is generating ever increasing efficiencies, and technological breakthroughs. In addition to this in resource consumption, emissions have become a major contributor to the adverse effects of the world’s , (see Fernandez-Solis 2006). The world’s adverse climate change is affecting the artificial environment that created the problem. For example, between the year 2000 and 2030 new construction (infrastructure as well as building) will double all existing construction. IPCC (2007) predicts that $20T will be spent in energy infrastructure from 2006 to 2030. This new construction is fueling an unprecedented increase of infrastructure especially in energy generation to support and maintain the new growth. This additional capacity to generate energy is adding to emissions directly through construction and indirectly through an increase in transportation, and most importantly in affluence with its unbounded consumption patterns. Furthermore, substantial construction will be needed in order to replace what is destroyed or abandoned due to the consequences of world climate change. This Catch 22 cycle is where new construction and re-construction increases the exponential demand on resources and emissions.

The Catch 22 cycle does not stop. If there is a doubling of global construction- assets-in-place in 30 years, and if the trend continues, the next global doubling of assets will be in less than 20 years, then in less than 15 years, then 10 etc. Will this exponential trend continue in this manner? There are no economic models that contemplate growth diminution in the short horizon (Chichilnisky 1997; Stern 2006; IPCC 2007). Resources are potentially finite, capital is not. Yet as the climate changes there are new needs to replace destroyed or abandoned assets, so we are forced into more new unanticipated construction. But the irony is that all this new construction still does not solve the problem of the homeless numbers and shanty town sizes that will increase exponentially as the population rises exponentially.

Again, our interest lies in exploring the possibilities for developing a theoretical basis for understanding this unbounded growth phenomenon by using this new meta-system schema as a basis for creating a new paradigm for understanding the total environment of the building construction industry. This new paradigm should better capture the relationship between the meta-systemic characteristics of the artificial environment and the meta-systemic characteristics of the natural environment as well as providing an arena for understanding their interaction.

3. Implications from the argument: Construction as a Meta-Industry

We argue that building construction (and the construction industry in general) in relation to its natural environment, is more akin to a meta-system than a system (See “Critique of Construction’s Paradigm from Existing State of the Art ,” Fernandez-Solis 2007b.) The potential for change and resides within the low efficiencies and holes that exist between the diverse and multiple layers and nesting of the meta-systems. We present this highly theoretical construct developed in the context of in the spirit of exploration, and as a pre- paradigmatic notion for supporting theory development (Kuhn 1962) in the construction industry.

Meta-systems, in summary, are a novel approach, speculative in nature, and they are conceptual and theoretically based on critical thinking, and as such they are a philosophical construct (Kuhn 1962) that could become the first principle of a new paradigm for the construction industry. Because of this, an understanding of the concept of meta-systems will not be without heated debate since the current paradigm, according to Mitcham (1994), is that “[t]he solution to the problems of technology is not less but more and more comprehensive technology.” Meta- systems, on the other hand, ask us to look at the interactions between systems, between technologies, between environments and to focus our attention on the unexpected side effects and unforeseen consequences, or a combination of these extraordinary factors, in a particular context.

A general view is that a problem caused by technology can be fixed by the addition of additional technology, for example, adding scrubbers to smoke stacks. In other words, continue using the infrastructure in place and add technology as a patch. For example, new renewable energy generation technologies are patched up to existing transmission gridlines. The difficulty with seeking more comprehensive synergetic technologies is that they have a deeper and wider impact on nature and society than old style isolated technologies. Of course, this is where the conceptualization of technology as related to systems arises – because new technologies are building larger and stronger webs of interaction than the earlier technologies – and with all kinds of systems implications – for good and bad. The meta-system is where the effects of the interactions of these various technological systems play out.

A futurist solution to this vicious cycle may take one of two approaches: In the first, the systems dynamic approach will propose satisfying the construction need of speed and numbers and quality through manufacturing or automatizing by using large conglomerates (a la the Marshall ) with the lure of creating efficiency in resource consumption and drastic reductions in emissions generation. The downside could be the homogenization of design and the consolidation of myriads of design and construction firms. This is similar to what happened to the automobile industry in the 1900’s. The implication is that other than some tweaking of technology, we can keep business as usual, only bigger and better. The technology of this type of efficiency brings mass production and the proliferation of types, and affordability. Affordability coupled with increases in global affluence brings concomitant exponential increases in resource consumption as well as emissions generation. But this may lead to unintended consequences that may continue the deterioration, rather than the amelioration, of the current climate change predicament. An alternate futuristic proposal enlists the characteristics of meta-systems which include the inefficiencies and paradoxes in the solution of the exponential growth problem of the individual, the firm or organization, and society and its , such as governments, economy, education, and others. Such an understanding of meta-system may be needed to implement a global paradigm shift. If a global paradigm shift is required, it will have to be effective at the conscious as well as the subconscious levels of humanity. In this new paradigm there is an understanding that we cannot continue business as usual, that the changes needed are radical in nature and great in magnitude (in order to tame exponential growth) and that these require a rethinking of all human activities (Monbiot 2007), including the building industry’s paradigm.

Paradigms such as the meta-system schema take into consideration inefficiencies that may allow for adaptability and unintended consequences that may be part of a more holistic growth scenario for the future (a point made by Hitchins 1992, chapter 13) growth scenario for the future.). It is by looking at the meta-system that we contemplate possible positive or negative catastrophes (ala Rene Thom’s catastrophe theory) which may dramatically transform the situation contemplated by our futurology. Meta-systems allow the analysis of radical transformational possibilities that come out of the interaction of artificial and natural environments.

This brings us to Ellul’s (1954) dictum: “The bet or wager of the century is not some unqualified conquest of nature but the replacement of the natural milieu with the technical milieu. The modern gamble is whether this new milieu in contrast with the natural milieu will be better or even possible.” The new milieu has an exponential growth reality that threatens its future by its own nature .

4. General Schema Theory as a Framework linking Artificial and Natural Environments

Palmer’s (2003) research on ‘General Schemas Theory’ is an exploration of new territory in the thinking about and the use of -time organizing constructs, such as pattern, form, system, meta-system, domain, world, etc. It is presented in this study as a hypothetical theoretical model. This adaptation of the ‘General Schemas Theory’ provides an ontological view of the possible levels of interaction between the ecological and artificial domains, the natural and artificial environments, and the areas of population, resource, and waste in the building construction industry. In particular this General Schema Theory (see Fig. 1, Palmer’s contribution in dashed- line box) is useful in showcasing the upper and lower limits of our discussion. The recent dissertation by Fernández-Solís (2006) looks at how man-made systems-in- place (artificial) impact the meta-system called Ecology (nature) that can change from a “normal” mode to a “dynamic” mode resulting in singularities, paradoxes, contradictions, and anomalies, with catastrophic consequences, possibly even resulting in social chaos and madness if global conditions were to suddenly deteriorate. Such scenarios have been contemplated by the U.S. military in recent publications.

Pluriverse beyond experience Kosmos limit schema World

natural environment Domain artificial environment resources Meta-System building population sustainable waste System structure, skin, comfort magnitude direction sense Form dimensions, shape, material … survival usage efficient Pattern performance, cost, time, energy limits to limits to limits to Monad limits to support resources waste efficiency

beyond experience Facet beyond experience

Fig. 1 “General Schemas Theory” Adapted from Palmer, 2001, 2004, Ontological Hierarchy in “General Schemas Theory” See http://holonomic.net , http://archonic.net

According to Palmer (2004, 2003, 2001, 2000a, b, c), meta-systems have four complementary aspects: origin, arena, source, and boundary which can be defined as transitions to where meta–systems, other than the one in question, exist. Of special import is the aspect of arena where systems interact. Arena provides the resources and constraints that include the testing regime that reject systems from niches within the meta-system that do not conform to the interfaces of the meta- system. The boundary is the horizon of the meta-system beyond which systems cannot see each other. The origin and sink are the entry and exit of systems into and out of the arena. The source is the place of production of the system outside the arena of system to system interaction.

We have, according to Palmer 2003, no general theory of meta-systems other than that which we are given by the discipline of ecology! Yet for the most part, even ecology and environmentalism continue thinking in terms of systems rather than meta-systems. In our case, we are talking about the interface of the meta-system of nature with the meta-system of an artificial environment that was not designed in a way sensitive to ecology!

This interface between meta-systems has not been theorized previously because the meta-system itself has not had a theory until recently. Also our society does not seem to be able to see meta-systems without extra effort and thus does not take them into account in planning systems, at least until the recent introduction of environmental impact reports. The theory of mutual meta-system interfaces has to take into account the interaction between loops in both the positive and negative directions between meta-systems. A theory of mutual meta- system interface must take several factors into consideration, such as:

• the relationship between singularities from different meta-systems as they interact • the mutual interference between meta-systems and their overlapping filtering of the same covered environment • the types of continuity of resource provision between different meta-systems providing niches for the same set of systems • how the interfaces between meta-systems affect the boundary maintenance within the arena of separate meta-systems for systems • the relationship of sources of systems that are distributed to different interacting meta-systems • the relationship between arenas with their niches for systems, and the progression of systems from origins to sinks within the respective arenas of interacting meta-systems

All these questions that point to how meta-systems structurally interact are open for study now that the concept of the meta-system schema has been separated from the concept of the system schema and that their duality has been realized and formalized. These questions were previously invisible and unnoticed. That is why having a theory of meta-systems as the inverse dual of systems is so valuable; it gives us leverage for our thinking about the environment under the auspices of a concept other than that of the system.

The natural meta-system and the artificial meta-system are nested within a higher order meta-system, which is the domain, or at an even higher level, the world, and ultimately the entire globalized environment planet wide. In fact, we know most about meta-systems from the artificial ones we create. The ones that we create have, by necessity, limited parameters, well defined boundaries, and reliable and predictive behavior. The natural meta-system exists as holistic, organic and typically is beyond our projections.

Similarly, Bataille (1991 - 1993) calls this higher nesting level of meta-systems the “General Economy” and all the systems we identify within this global meta-system are called “restricted economies”. Systems can be nested and interleaved with the nested meta-systems like Russian dolls. The dolls are the systems and the space between the dolls is the meta-systems. Each system has a meta-system on the outside as well as on the inside of its system boundary. The meta-system boundary is the horizon of the arena within which the systems interact. Meta-system interfaces that exist between meta-systems may cut across the arena or lie outside the meta- system horizon boundary. Thus we need to consider what happens when a meta- system interface between two meta-systems cuts across their two separate arenas, as well as when their arenas overlap. Indefinite nesting expresses the fact that we have complementarities of complementarities of complementarities within existence. This nesting is indefinite because we do not know how far down it goes in terms of the finitude of existing things, perhaps it is infinite in all directions, but this is a subject outside the arena of this discussion. However, the ultimate global meta- system may be called Gaia.

These nestings interleave so that there is an alternation i.e. system, meta-system, system, meta-system. Yet when we consider interfacing meta-systems, this nesting can be violated and systems may exist partially in one meta-system and partially in the other meta-system and thus are subject differentially to both. The meta-systems have filtering mechanisms for the acceptance and rejection of systems. This brings an important question for our study: What is nature’s testing regime for rejecting systems and other meta-systems that do not conform to the interface of nature’s meta-system?

This question is critical at a time when the production rate of the building environment is having such a high impact on the natural . The theory of meta-system interaction allows us to formalize this question, because both the system and meta-system can be formally represented as Turing machines.

4.1. Systems as Turning Machines, Meta-systems as Universal Turning Machines

Systems are normal Turing machines and Meta-systems are Universal Turing Machines. Meta-systems are like the operating systems of computers which provide an operating environment for application systems on a particular computer. Also both systems and meta-systems can be modeled with Systems Dynamic Equations or Gurevich Rules (which implements Turing machines at arbitrary levels of Abstraction), and thus we can create models of these interactions based on this theory. Meta-systems have a fundamentally different structure from systems at their meta-levels, and thus they definitely have different essences, and so by formalization we can see how the chemistry of the interactions between ‘systems and meta-systems’ or ‘meta-systems and meta-systems’ might really work, and in doing so perhaps we can provide some provisional answers to the question which we are stating above. However, this is future work to be done in subsequent studies.

Currently we have no theory of the schemas that control the design and appear in the Artificial Environment (Koskela and Howard 2002). There is a Systems Theory but no Meta-systems Theory which would be the dual of Systems Theory. The lack of a developed Meta-systems theory is a blind spot in our culture. Meta-systems are essentially different ontological schemas, or templates of understanding the organization of things at various scales in our world (see Fig. 1). The meta-system view does not look at the system as a social gestalt which is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Rather, the meta-system view sees wholes less than the sum of their parts, i.e. wholes with holes in them, like those of sponges, except that the holes are niches within which systems reside.

4.2. Systems as Gestalts and Meta-systems as Proto-gestalts

We call the equivalent perceptual organization of meta-systems, proto-gestalts. Proto-gestalts, rather than gestalts, are what Bohm (2002) calls implicate orders, or what Polanyi (1983) calls the tacit dimension . This is essentially the track of the from gestalt to gestalt within the static horizon from any particular place in the environment. Thus, we could call the meta-systems “open-scapes” after the fashion of terms like ‘land-scapes’ and ‘sea-scapes.’ For instance, when a animal senses danger and freezes and looks around at its environment, that animal is taking in its meta-system and its action is guided by the immediate of that environment by the proto-gestalt which determines the priority of the gestalts that it will focus on in succession as it checks out its environment for threats (see Fig 2).

Environmental Rate of Change Consequent Adaptation Rate of Change

Taming the Unsustainable Exponentialoid

Threats to Strategy for Taming the Taming the Unsustainable Unsustainable Exponentialoid Exponentialoid

Fig. 2 Statement of Strategy, adapted from Hitchins (1992)

5. Meta-system Interactions

‘Meta-systems’ is the general term for the field, the environment (or ecosystem), media, context, or situation containing systems, which interact in unexpected ways. Ecosystem is used in this study as an interacting system composed of the organic (biological), the inorganic, and artificial (man-made) environment. The point here is that this general Ecosystem as a ‘General Economy’ is really a domain with two interacting meta-systems: nature and the artificial built environment. This wider general economy which contains irrational elements also contains many rational restricted economies projected by man though , , industry, and other pursuits. But all these various projected restricted economies may be working at cross purposes and this is what produces the paradoxes and absurdities of the general economy.

If we only look at the separate restricted and rational economies that we , we will never understand the whole field of the General Economy and all of its irrational, paradoxical, singular, and positive feedback effects. This is the fundamental problem with our approach toward the problems of how natural resources are related to and integrated with the built environment. The problems, excesses, and insufficiencies are designated as someone else’s responsibility; therefore we do not come to terms with the problems of our of separate systems and restricted economies in the global commons. Somehow we must realize that the very problem that we are facing, such as the current exponentialoids, is a function of the ecosystem being meta-systemic and not systemic. Changing the schema of the way we look at the problems between the built environment and the natural environment may have a large impact on our ability to approach the situation in ways that might offer better solutions or at least highlight the dangers. Looking at things as systems implicitly assumes stability, enclosure, equilibrium, and that the situation is under the control of the system builder. The meta-system is a model of the situation out of control (ala Kevin Kelly 1995).

Fig. 3 is a categorization of the meta-systems as envisioned in this study (adapted form Checkland 1981). The boundaries between natural and artificial meta-systems are characterized. This figure depicts two interacting meta-systems, the natural and the artificial. In actuality these are two meta-systems therefore we can expect a very high degree of and an abundance of interstices according to Palmer 2003.

Even though some material resources of prime matter are almost inexhaustible (such as concrete), mining capacity and transportation are now experiencing temporary hurdles, so if a rapid depletion of fuels becomes a reality this will only exacerbate a crisis at the threshold of a catastrophe. Resources are only good if they are transported from the source to the user. In other words, the issue is messy and has many components, any of which can become critical. Natural Meta-systems

including

Inter Meta-systems Boundaries

Homo Artificial Sapiens Meta-Systems Physical Systems (building our SOI)

Who create

Fig. 3 Categorization of Systems (adapted from Checkland 1981)

The demand, supply, use, and the waste that is generated affects the natural environment on such scale (exponentialoid) and magnitude (Giga tons of ) that the issues move to a different level in the meta-system. Unfortunately, according to Palmer (2003, 2004), this higher level is one characterized by paradox and absurdities. A level where national security and the survival of a national (in securing resources in normal times as well as in catastrophic times) may dictate rational or irrational behavior (i.e. not allowing a fundamental questioning of whether the existing approach is right or best).

The General Schema Theory (Fig. 1 ), as previously mentioned, provides a conceptual framework that articulates relationships and linkages among elements of the universe world of reality as envisioned by Palmer (2001, 2004). This schema then becomes the backbone upon which two environments are coupled: the artificial and the natural. Of particular interest to both the artificial and the natural environment is the notion of meta-systems. In this schema, for example, the construction ‘industry’, as a meta-industry is composed of systems (such as structural systems, mechanical systems, electrical systems, etc…), that are complete and independent systems that in a process create a ‘system of systems,’ a building nested in the artificial environment. But, at the same time, that ‘system of systems’ has a meta-system that is the operating environment for the systems it contains, and those systems also have operating environments for the sub-systems they contain. So Systems and Meta-systems are interleaved in their nesting. And because Meta- systems have a different structural essence from Systems, the transitions between these two schemas is significant.

5.1. Cultural blind spot: Meta-system

The point is that meta-systems have their own structure, just like systems have their own structure, but the structure is different in each case, and our culture has a bias against meta-systems (or a preference for systems at this time in our ). For most of our history we used the form schema and did not recognize either system or pattern schemas as important; so now we find it difficult to see meta-systems, which are yet another new schema which we have not been used to singling out in our collective experience. Rather, we see systems everywhere without seeing the meta- systems that these systems are embedded in. We really need to see both and to alternate our analysis between these two very different views. We need to look the interaction between systems (via the system of system concept) as well as between meta-systems (via a meta-system of meta-systems concept). In summary, meta- systems are the complimentary inverse dual of systems. A meta-system is full of holes, or niches, and is a whole less than the sum of its parts with systems nested in its field.

Can this paradigm, or methodology, of the meta-systems schema be applied to the study of the ecological challenges and the changes that must be made to the building construction industry? And can the meta-systems schema help us to define a better paradigm for the building construction industry?

5.2. Philosophical Categories Frame the Understanding of Meta-system Phenomena

Philosophical categories and schemas are important for understanding the relationship between our theories of phenomena and the phenomena themselves. The phenomenon goes beyond our schemas, but the schemas are the basis for our understanding of the phenomena by providing a heuristic, inner coherence that is projected through a specific organizational template. The schemas bridge the various theories by providing an underlying unity of understanding, and an inner coherence, which in turn is based on the fundamental concepts () provided by our social construction of the mind in terms of embodiment. Ontology is defined by Palmer (2000) as an understanding of the various “kinds,” “aspects,” and properties of Being.

The “kinds” of Being are: • Pure (called Present-at-hand by Heidegger 1962) • Process (called Ready-to-hand by Heidegger 1962) • Hyper (called the Hyper-dialectic of Process Being of Heidegger 1962 and the Nothingness of Sartre by Merleau-Ponty, 1968) • Wild (called Wild Being by Merleau-Ponty 1968) and • Ultra (See Palmer 2004, externality of Being in Existence)

The “aspects” of Being as expressed in Greek grammar are: • (x is y) • reality (x is) • identity (x is x) • presence (this is x)

The relations between “aspects” are properties, such as the following: • Formal systems normally only consider relations to truth, identity and presence (aspects) which generate consistency, completeness, and well-formedness or clarity (properties) • Reality (aspect) further generates coherence, verifiability, and validity (properties)

A meta-system has its own essential structure that is fundamentally different from the ontology, , and logic that we normally appeal to. We cannot assume that meta-systems are just an extension of systems and that the rules that we have in systems are transferable to meta-systems. We must produce something like a theory but inverted and at a higher level of generality in order to understand the different logic. Model theory is the combination of universal algebra and classical first order logic. Algebras relate to reason through countability, a fundamental perceptual and motor action that gives us the basic substructures for the differentiation of our concepts (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 1999).

What we need is a kind of theory that combines systems theory, which is rooted in universal algebra, and a meta-system theory which invokes a kind of non-classical logic that comprehends the structure of paradox and absurdity (Hellerstein 1997). We need a non-classical deviant logic that comprehends paradoxes, supra- rationality, and contradictions that is a Para-consistent or Para-complete from the point of view of logic.

Why this exploration of a new meta-systems theory? We contend that by logic and common sense we can ascertain that building construction is not a homogeneous industry; some even say it is fragmented (Gann, 1996; Pyke 2002; Woudhuysen and Abley 2004). This point to the possibility that the background we call ‘building construction’ is formed from many industries, systems, and subsystems that are interacting independently and autonomously at multiple levels. This may be viewed as a super-system or ‘system of systems’ but it may also be viewed as a meta- system. A meta-system, as observed, has a deviant-logic of paradox and absurdities. A meta-system is less than its parts, therefore lacking in itself and inefficient by nature when compared to the efficiency of holonomic Special Systems. A meta- system also has many characteristics that may give rise to miracles (positive feedback in positive direction), rather than blackholes (positive feedback in the negative direction) which may be a breeding ground for inventions, innovations, adaptations, and new creations, but also may possess the possibility to become a breeding ground for ill conceived attempts at innovations that will fail. The question then is: Does building construction, or construction in general, have the structural characteristics that fit the definition of a meta-system? Or, is it enough to define the building industry and its relation to its environment in terms of a hierarchy of systems or in terms of the interaction of systems ?

5.3. An Example: High Rise Buildings

We postulate that the dichotomy of project/process in building construction is so blurred that it may be theorized that a building is a project whose emergent and intrinsic quality is that of a process where the project, along with organization and all the supporting networks of services and products form the fundamental elements of the process. If products are considered Pure Being and a project as Process Being, then products and processes are not paradoxically related, but have a meta- level relation between the two.

In Diamond Logic Hellerstein (1997) says that paradoxes always come in pairs. Just like there are positive and negative infinities, he interprets Brown's (1972) of Form to show that there are two limit points which are fusions of 1 and 0 (mark and background), thus the limit points are: ‘1 is fused to 0,’ and ‘0 is fused to 1.’ He expresses this as '1 yet 0' and '0 yet 1.'

Now it is true that many things are both product and process at the same time. For instance, in the Systems Engineering process there are intermediate products that make the final product possible as you go though the process. Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI), from the Engineering Institute, looks for the direct and indirect product of processes. So we could say that there is the Product (Pure Being) and the Project (Process Being). But there are also fixed points between them where things are 'Project Yet Product' and 'Product Yet Project.' These fixed or limit points might define the limits of mixture between Construction and Manufacturing. Construction takes manufactured and uses them in the construction process in order to build something greater, i.e. the high rise. But construction itself might become like manufacturing. In some sorts of construction, whole walls are molded on site and then set up on end and fastened together, so that construction becomes like manufacturing on site. In other cases homes as a whole are manufactured and transported to the site, whole or in large sections, so that construction at the site is minimized. Thus there are areas of mixture between the processes and products of manufacturing and construction that creates the field for the combinations of methods that are used in building construction. This demonstrates how two industries produce a meta-industry though their interaction in a field of possible modes of combination.

Figures 4 and 5 allude to a historical glass ceiling with respect to building height limits (verticality) of approximately 50 meters until the 1900’s, when a series of inventions, innovations, and improvements within a number of technologies took place. Buildings (for human habitation or work) in this study do not include self- standing towers such as the Ulm-Munster tower of 161 meters and the pyramid of Cheops at Giza 146.4 meters (Sebestyén, 1998). In other words, a number of disparate, discontinuous, apparently un-concatenated singular events, inventions, and systems came to maturity in the historical “background” of the industry -- a meta-system (Palmer 2004) for the “high-rise building” to emerge. The mechanisms for change from 50 meters to current heights were already in place for designers, builders and manufacturers, and the industries (along with the larger economy, culture and other meta-systems) see Fig. 6.

1. Park Row, 118m, 1899 Tallest Skyscrapers at Time of Construction 2. Singer Building, 187m, 1908 3. Metropolitan Life Insurance 1200 Tower, 213m, 1909 4. Woolworth Building, 241m, 1913 1000 15 5. The Manhattan Company, 283m, 1929 6. The Chrysler Building, 320m, 800 1930 14 13 7. The Empire State Building, 381m, 1931 600 12 8. The World Center, 11 417m, 1973 9 9. The Sears Tower, 443m, 1974 7 400 10 10. The Petronas Towers, 452m, 8 6 1998 4 3 11. Taipei 101, 509m, 2004 Height inMeters of Skyscraper 5 200 12. Guangzhou TV and 2 Sightseeing Tower, 610m, 1 2007, future 0 13. Burj Dubai, 705m, 2008 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 14. Al Burj, 750m, future Year 15. EnviroMission Solar Tower, 1000m, future Fig. 4 Tallest Skyscrapers existing and future construction. When viewed as a meta-system or meta-industry, the building construction background (known as the construction industry) is an environment for the production of the complementarities of the process/product , in this case the high-rise building. Bldg. Height 1 Meters

External Factors: Mining, Capital Generation, Railroads, Machinery, Heavy Machinery 600 Uniformat/CSI 550 General Guilds Mysteries Crafts Unions, Professions, Transport, Cranes, Specifications, 500 Site Water Sewer Gas Electricity GPS 450 Concrete Cement, Concrete, Reinforced Concrete, High Strength, 400 Masonry Mud bricks, Stone Clay bricks CMU, Cast Concrete 350 Metals/Steel Cast, Wrought Iron, Steel, Reinf. Steel, Welding, High Strength, Super 300 Wood/Plastic Wood Plastics 250 Doors/Windows Glazing Tempered, High Strength UV 200 Finishes Dry -wall construction 150 Vert. Transport. Hydraulic Electrical Elevators, High Speed 100 Mechanical Water wheel Heating, Air Conditioning 50 Electrical / Power Coke, coal, charcoal, steam, inter. combust. Oil, Electricity Power motors Variable speed 0 Telecommunication Telegraph, Radio, Telephone, Fax, Internet 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 Year 1 From Stafford, Smith and Coull, 1991 as referenced by Sebestyén, 1998

Fig. 5 Historical Graph: Building Height & Inventions / Time Line

Palmer (2004) describes this meta-system by its own nature. It has interstices or holes which make it like an ‘organic’ set of interrelations and ontic in nature. The difference between a meta-system and a system is that although a system can be optimized, the meta-system by nature contains paradoxical elements that prevent optimization, such as Koskela’s (2000) observation of ‘on site’ (each building is built at a particular site with its own environmental characteristics), ‘one of a kind’ (each building has its own peculiar design characteristics), and by ‘differing teams’ (each building has different team composition that varies during the process).

Inventions, innovations, and adaptations may occur within the interstices. In historical analysis, systems were developed independently from building construction. For example, iron (cast and wrought) which eventually could be transformed into steel was developed for the manufacture of machines such as steam engines, locomotives, and railroad tracks. Air conditioning was originally developed for making ice and the elevator for the vertical conveyance of textile materials and products. The fact that these first time technologies (inventions) found a place and evolved through other than first time technologies (innovations) in the building industry is fortunate, but not deterministic according to Garcia Bacca (1989). We propose that this type of manifestation is a key component for understanding the systemic nature of the industry.

The schema and its interpretation (see Table 1) create the framework for understanding the proposed of the built environment An historical analysis of this exists in Fernandez-Solis’ dissertation.

If we identify the industry in this context we will look at a period in history where significant changes occurred in the four identified phases of the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, the Industrial Revolution is the background where inventions and technologies, etc. originated and matured as whole systems, usually intended for other industries as we have briefly pointed out. But when these technologies were adapted to building construction and allowed the development of the high-rise building, the project became a ‘system of systems’ which contained the operating environment of a meta-system which in turn allowed for many essentially different systems to evolve and become synergistically intertwined to produce the emergent characteristics of the high rise building.

This example analysis of the high-rise building, as a part of the analysis of the Industrial Revolution, is focused on the elements that precipitated its advent and . In Fernandez-Solis’ (2006) dissertation a more granular (detailed, refined) inspection of the elements was presented through examining two of the systems that are part of the systems-of-systems of the high-rise building: air conditioning and elevators. In summary, in the Industrial Revolution, the high-rise building, air conditioning and the elevator were surrogates from a list of elements that generated change. This history gives an example of how systems are combined within an operating environment of a meta-system to produce the of a super-system that we know as the high-rise building. This super-system is a combination of some very different systematized technologies.

The various different systems are mediated in relation to each other by a meta- system that provides the place for each system, the means for their interconnection, and their needed resources. For instance, in the floors, walls, and above the ceilings of offices in high-rises there is an almost infinite tangle of ducts, wires, steel structures, and other necessary materials that connect the various systems of the super-system of the building. Table 1 Nesting of Schemas by Palmer (2002)

Pluriverse: The intersection of all existing . This schema is beyond our experience Kosmos: Or universe, subject of scientific and philosophical exploration, the upper bound limit of our direct experience. Kosmos of Kosmos = Pluriverse World: The coherence of everything we experience. Defined by Heidegger as the furthest horizon of our direct experience. Husserl calls that Lifeworld. World of worlds = Kosmos Domain: Disciplines that have different perspective s on phenomena. Domain of Domains = World Meta-system: Also called Open-scape or Proto-Gestalt. It is comprised of contexts, situations, milieus, environments, ecosystems, etc. They are fields within which systems arise and interact. They represent a whole less than the sum of its parts. Meta-system of Meta-systems = Domain Systems: Perceptually this is the level of the social gestalt characterized as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts composed of figure and ground. Usually defined as the set of things and their interrelations or interactions. But this definition is analytical and does not account for the wholeness of the system. See Rescher “Cognitive Systematization” who considers an organic metaphor that grounds our idea of systems. System of Systems = Meta-system Form: External shape of an object and its behavior. Form of Forms = System Pattern: Value, sign, flux and structure are various kinds of patterning of content. This is the lowest level of our experience and is dependent on the lowest level of articulation by our instrumentation. Pattern of Patterns = Form Monad: The datum of the content itself at whatever level of resolution. This is the lower bound limit of our direct experience. Monad of Monads = Pattern Facet: Beyond our direct experience. It is an inner determination of differences within the phenomena itself, seen within itself without the projection of our schemas. Thus this is the null schema. It is the difference beyond the resolution of our instruments. Facet of Facets = Monad This tangle is found in claustrophobic crawlways which locally looks like a huge mess is the nature of the meta-system. Globally the whole mess may make sense from the point of view of the Super-system design, but locally where the resources have to be delivered to a particular spot, or where myriad wires have to cross, or where plumbing has to be routed, there is just a horrible mess, and that is the mess of the meta-system which we cannot escape. Such a mess may exist between the Built environment and Nature, and our views of systems cannot see it because we do not have the right schemas in our minds to allow us to see that mess, to straighten it out, or to recognize its improbabilities or impossibilities.

6. Conclusion

Meta-systems are a new way of looking at the systems that we build, and the systems that exist in nature. Both systems and meta-systems are our projections on our environment. However, meta-systems allow us to see things and understand things that the system paradigm does not consider important, such as the interaction between the system and its environment. It is becoming more and more important to understand this interaction. And it is especially important to realize that the building construction industry can be seen as a meta-system this is different from the meta- system of nature. The possible ways in which these meta-systems interact as operating environments may outweigh the importance of the interactions of systems within these meta-systems.

This paper has attempted to provide an introduction to this new theoretical way of thinking about indirect causal interactions in the world via the medium of meta- systems. Hopefully this theoretical view will aid us as we consider the problems that the building industry confronts in light of the global changes in the natural environment.

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