global crises of measurement & their meta-theoretical
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Zachary SteinLectica, Inc.
Meridian UniversityCenter for Integral Wisdom
zakstein.org
Desperate Measures: Global Crises of Measurement & Their Meta-Theoretical Solutions
A presentation for the Integral Theory Conference
July, 2015
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Why Measurement?
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‣ Isaac Newton and the Solomonic Cubit...‣ The French Revolution and The Metric System...‣ Eugenics and the IQ testing movement...‣ Neo-liberalism and the commodification of everything...
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Social Justice and Measurement
“A false measure is an abomination to the Lord.”
—Proverbs 11:1
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Mathematics and Violence“Inequality before law implies unequal laws or rights in relation to measures: some people decree them, others have to put up with them; everyone has a measure of his own, the strong imposing theirs on the weak. The measure is not impersonal but rather human; it belongs to some, it does not belong to others, and it is dependent upon the will of whoever has the power to enforce it”
—Witold Kula, 1982
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Mathematics and Violence
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Michelle A. Rhee, Time Magazine. 2013
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Mathematics and Violence
7Bruges, Belgeim. 1500s
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Mathematics and Violence
8Chicago, USA. 1852
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Interpretive Labor & Social Imagination
‣ Those with power need not engage in interpretive labor, those without it have no choice- This creates lopsided structures of imagination and
perspective taking - Measures play directly into this and into the perpetuation of
structural violence
‣ Be careful what you measure, because measures can do violence to reality- They can also disclose deeper, truer, and more beautiful
realities; when we engage in the many forms of integral measurement praxis—but that is ahead of the story
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Integral Meta-Theory & Measurement
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What Do Measures Do?‣ They create common sense (and are creations of
common sense)- shared presuppositions of cooperation
‣ Mediate between individual mind and reality ‣ Make complexity legible‣ Legitimate knowledge ‣ Facilitate trust‣ Encode power‣ And so on...
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Measures Structure Consciousness
‣ Sense of order, reality testing, reliability of objective world, mutual understanding- all facilitated by measurement technologies- measures make sciences
- new sciences need new measures, new measures yield new sciences
‣ Aesthetics, science, engineering, commerce, medicine- all facilitated by measurement technologies
‣ Self-understanding, self-esteem, etc...
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The Co-Evolution of Measures and Minds
‣ If measures structure consciousness, what happens when measures change?‣ The evolution of consciousness is correlated with the
evolution of measurement praxis and infrastructure‣ But who creates the measures?
- remember, measures encode power
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INTEGRAL METRICS11
psychometrics
sociometrics
biometrics
econometrics
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INTEGRAL METRICS
meaning
ethics
objectivity
efficacy
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INTEGRAL METRICS12
Subjectivity: What do the results mean to individuals?
Singularity: What is unique about individuals? What has escaped measure?
Interpreting: What are the cultural meanings of the measure?
Fairness: How should the measure be used?
Reliability: Can we have confidence in the accuracy of each measurement?
Objectivity: How altered is the measure by context?
Validity: What is the fit between the measure and its function?
Utility: How can the measure be used? How is it used?
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Integral Measurement Praxis‣ An ontology of absence
- Respect the immeasurable - Presence the unmeasured- Allow for uniqueness
‣ Dynamical systems, complexity, and chaos- clouds not clocks
‣ Interiority, ethics, and aesthetics
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Measurement & The Evolution of Consciousness
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The Evolution of Consciousness...
‣ ...is in part the result of the development of measurement technologies.- Pre-modern (anthropocentric) measures- Modern (world-centric) measures- Post-modern (de-centered) measures
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Anthropocentric Measures
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Metrological relief, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Built 8th Century BC
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World-centric Measures
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C.S. Peirce Pendulum, Smithsonian Museum, USA. Built in 1881.
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Post-modern Measures
22Limits to Growth. 1972
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Post-modern Measures
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Scantron Sheet, Scantron Corporation, est. 1972
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Post-modern Measures
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Apple Watch, Advertisement, 2015
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The Global Crises of Measurement
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Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel. 1563
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Measurement Crises on Multiple Fronts
‣ Economic; Educational; Environmental; Political; Health; Personality- All interrelated and mutually amplifying- This is a crisis in the technical sense of the term
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Economics
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Economics
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BerkShare, Local Alternative Currency. Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
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Education
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Testing Boycott. Garfield high school, Seattle, Washington. 2013
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Environment
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Environment
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Smart Water Meter. Driblet, Inc. 2014.
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Politics
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Electronic Voting Booth. Travis County Texas. 2004
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Politics
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Electronic Voting Booth. Travis County Texas. 2004
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Health
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Health
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The Human Genome
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Personality
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Standardized Service Worker. Whitecastle Corporation. 1931.
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Integral Measurement Praxis
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The Future of Measurement‣ Return to the human and the local‣ Valorization of immeasurable, and unique
- unique is essential
‣ Dynamic systems, complexity, chaos- one or two measures on one or two variables taken once or
twice is never enough- dynamic systems need multiple measures across multiple time-
scales
‣ Interiority and “big data” on consciousness
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Uniqueness and Constellational Unity‣ Measures function by colonizing uniqueness
- how can one then measure uniqueness?- what does it mean to respect, or even disclose uniqueness through
measurement?
‣ It means the subject of measurement is understood as a complex constellational unity of many measures - the Integral psychograph at its best
‣ The measurement infrastructure becomes a matrix of uniqueness- which means you need enough different measures and enough
measurement events to allow uniqueness to appear - this is a mathematical threshold concerning the state-space created by the
variables being measured and their dynamic relations over time- uniqueness detection increases as the state-space expands and the likelihood of any
two profiles being identical approximates zero
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The Measurement of Psychological Dynamics
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Moscolo & Fischer, 2010
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Global Justice and Global Revolution
‣ Who’s measures? Our measures!‣ The politics of revolutionizing measurement ‣ IMF; ISO; ILO; WWF; OECD; UNESCO; etc...
- expertise and democracy- system and lifeworld- objectivity and meaning - exteriors and interiors- power and innocence- violence and peace- freedom and domination
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zakstein.org
Thank you!
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