Inviting systemic self-organization: Competencies for complexity regulation from a post-cognitivist perspective
Journal of Dynamic Decision Making January 6, 2024 Michael Kimmel
Regulating systems with multiple causes and non-linear dynamics—such as therapeutic, economic, or ecological systems—requires a distinct skill set not captured by existing frameworks. Drawing on dynamic systems theory and “4E” cognition (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended), this work redefines the regulator's agency as skillfully imposing constraints to create openings for self-organizing dynamics, rather than exerting direct control. Expert regulators apply multi-pronged, multi-timescale constraints for nuanced effects, including scarcely noted enactive competencies for “emergence management” omitted by intellectualistic accounts. The author advocates treating regulation and target system dynamics symmetrically, grounding competencies in complexity theory.