pdf_slides - Dr. Zachary Stein

Desperate Measures:
Global Crises of Measurement &
Their Meta-Theoretical Solutions
Dr. Zachary Stein
Lectica, Inc.
Meridian University
Center for Integral Wisdom
zakstein.org
A presentation for the Integral Theory Conference
July, 2015
Sunday, July 12, 15
2
Sunday, July 12, 15
Why Measurement?
‣ 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...
3
Sunday, July 12, 15
Social Justice and Measurement
“A false measure is an
abomination to the Lord.”
—Proverbs 11:1
4
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
5
Sunday, July 12, 15
Mathematics and Violence
Michelle A. Rhee, Time Magazine. 2013
6
Sunday, July 12, 15
Mathematics and Violence
7
Sunday, July 12, 15
Bruges, Belgeim. 1500s
Mathematics and Violence
8
Sunday, July 12, 15
Chicago, USA. 1852
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
9
Sunday, July 12, 15
Integral Meta-Theory & Measurement
10
Sunday, July 12, 15
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...
11
Sunday, July 12, 15
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...
12
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
13
Sunday, July 12, 15
psychometrics
biometrics
sociometrics
econometrics
INTEGRAL METRICS
14
11
Sunday, July 12, 15
meaning
objectivity
ethics
efficacy
INTEGRAL METRICS
15
Sunday, July 12, 15
Subjectivity: What do
the results mean to
individuals?
Reliability: Can we have
confidence in the accuracy
of each measurement?
Singularity: What is
unique about individuals?
What has escaped measure?
Objectivity: How
altered is the measure by
context?
Interpreting: What are
the cultural meanings of
the measure?
Validity: What is the fit
between the measure and
its function?
Fairness: How should
the measure be used?
Utility: How can the
measure be used? How is
it used?
INTEGRAL METRICS
16
12
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
17
Sunday, July 12, 15
Measurement & The Evolution
of Consciousness
18
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
19
Sunday, July 12, 15
Anthropocentric Measures
Metrological relief, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Built 8th Century BC
20
Sunday, July 12, 15
World-centric Measures
C.S. Peirce Pendulum, Smithsonian Museum, USA. Built in 1881.
21
Sunday, July 12, 15
Post-modern Measures
Limits to Growth. 1972
22
Sunday, July 12, 15
Post-modern Measures
Scantron Sheet, Scantron Corporation, est. 1972
23
Sunday, July 12, 15
Post-modern Measures
Apple Watch, Advertisement, 2015
24
Sunday, July 12, 15
The Global Crises of Measurement
25
Sunday, July 12, 15
Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel. 1563
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
27
Sunday, July 12, 15
Economics
28
Sunday, July 12, 15
Economics
BerkShare, Local Alternative Currency. Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
29
Sunday, July 12, 15
Education
Testing Boycott. Garfield high school, Seattle, Washington. 2013
30
Sunday, July 12, 15
Environment
31
Sunday, July 12, 15
Environment
Smart Water Meter. Driblet, Inc. 2014.
32
Sunday, July 12, 15
Politics
Electronic Voting Booth. Travis County Texas. 2004
33
Sunday, July 12, 15
Politics
Electronic Voting Booth. Travis County Texas. 2004
34
Sunday, July 12, 15
Health
35
Sunday, July 12, 15
Health
The Human Genome
36
Sunday, July 12, 15
Personality
Standardized Service Worker. Whitecastle Corporation. 1931.
37
Sunday, July 12, 15
Integral Measurement Praxis
38
Sunday, July 12, 15
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 timescales
‣ Interiority and “big data” on consciousness
39
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
40
Sunday, July 12, 15
The Measurement of Psychological Dynamics
Moscolo & Fischer, 2010
41
Sunday, July 12, 15
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
42
Sunday, July 12, 15
43
Sunday, July 12, 15
Thank you!
zakstein.org
44
Sunday, July 12, 15