Inviting systemic self-organization: Competencies for complexity regulation from a post-cognitivist perspective

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.

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Abstract

This contribution discusses competencies needed for regulating systems with properties of multi-causality and non-linear dynamics (therapeutic, economical, organizational, socio-political, technical, ecological, etc.). Various research communities have contributed insights, but none has come forward with an inclusive framework. To advance the debate, I propose to draw from dynamic systems theory (DST) and “4E” (embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended), cognition approaches, which offer a set of perspectives to understand what expert regulators in real-life settings do. They define the regulator's agency as skillfully imposing constraints on a target system and hereby creating context-sensitive openings for self-organizing dynamics, rather than “controlling” the system. Adept regulators apply multi-pronged and multi-timescale constraints to achieve nuanced effects. Among other things, their skill set includes scarcely noted enactive processual competencies for “emergence management”, which the intellectualistic and insufficiently ecologically situated accounts of the complex problem solving literature omit. To capture the nature of system regulation, I advocate treating regulation dynamics and target system dynamics “symmetrically” by grounding regulator competencies in concepts from complexity theory.