D U T Research Center of Knowledge Science and Technology 2005. 08 SYSTEM INTUITION AND ITS ROLE IN KNOWLEDGE CREATION ZHONGTUO WANG DALIAN UNIVERSITY

D U TD U T Research Center of Knowledge Science and Technology

2005. 08

SYSTEM INTUITION AND ITS ROLE IN KNOWLEDGE CREATION

ZHONGTUO WANGDALIAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

DALIAN, CHINA


2005. 08

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION2. INTUITION AS THINKING STYLE3. SYSTEMS INTUITION4. COLLECTIVE SYSTEM INTUITION5. ROLE OF INTUITION IN KNOWLEDGE CONV

ERSION AND CREATION6. CONCLUSION


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1 INTRODUCTION • In the recent years, the knowledge creation problem b

ecoming a hot point (not only in R&D, but also in DM ,design & BPR) is both in theory and practice.

• For the knowledge conversion and creation process, the “SECI”model by Nonaka and Takeuchi is well kno

wn. Its main contribution is emphasizing the role of tacit knowledge and the conversion processes from tacit knowledge to explicit and from individual to organizational , as well as creation of new knowledge.

• People often appreciate Polanyi’s contribution on tacit knowledge. But ancient history tells that more than two thousand years before, Chinese philosophers had many investigations on it.


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WRITTEN

TALKED

AWARED TACIT

UNAWARED TACIT

Confucius said :“Writing could not fully describe what the people want to say; speech could not express what the people want to think”


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• The “SECI”model is from the macroscopic view and the conversion processes from tacit knowledge to explicit and from individual to organizational are more or less dichotomously.

• According to the view point of the author of this presentation, the knowledge possessed by individual or organization is a continuum from tacit to explicit.

• In the knowledge creating process, there are many intermediate sub-processes, e.g., knowledge integration, data and text mining, oral exchange of experiences, etc.


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INDIVIDUAL

ORGANIZATIONALENVIRONMENT

知识的传递与转化

EXPLICIT

TACIT

If we investigate it microscopically, the knowledge body is a continuum and there are many sub-processes.

ES

DM

DISCUSS.

BRIEF.

SKILL


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• The knowledge conversion and creation process is closely related to the way of thinking.

• In these sub-processes, beside the analytical thinking, the intuition is always employed.

• Intuition is one of the greatest powers latent in all human beings and called "straight knowledge", but is often underrated and unrecognized.

• This presentation aims to investigate the role of intuition in knowledge creation and put forward a new concept “system intuition” for the systems approach to complex knowledge systems.


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2 INTUITION AS THINKING STYLEUnderstanding of intuition is also intuitive.

Definitions of intuition, formal or informal :

“A sense of feeling of pattern or relationships”.

“Holistic thinking, immediate insight, seeing the answer without knowing how it reached”.

“The sixth sense”.

“Compressed expertise, a way of rapidly accessing chunks and patterns of knowledge formed from previous experience”.


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• “A way of thinking which stems from reason, that generally improves with experience and that can also improve by appropriate exercise”.

• “Understanding without rationale”.• “A perception of possibilities, meanings and

relationships by way of insight”.• “Knowledge of fact or truth as a whole;

immediate possession of knowledge; and knowledge independent of the linear reasoning process”.

• “Immediate knowledge of something without the conscious use of reason”.


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• The essence of intuition has been included in these definitions:

- Holistic thinking.

- Feeling of pattern or relationships.

-without the conscious use of reason.

- Understanding without rationale.

Intuition can be considered as a mode of thinking and as a kind of knowledge.

As called straight knowledge, It is closely related to tacit knowledge.


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• Intuition vs Analysis Depend on Conscious. Learn by Kldg Intuition Feeling Unconsc. Self TacitAnalysis Thinking Conscious. Taught Explicit• Chinese traditional philosophy paid more attention to i

ntuition and has a brilliant tradition on intuitive thinking.

• In the years of 80s last century, initiated by Professor H.S.Tsien, a new discipline named “Noetic Science” was founded in China, it is quite similar to Cognitive Science, but its main focus is on both logic and imagery thinking.


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The relations between intuition and two types of thinking are like:

(logic operation)

(Logic thinking) Concept Judgement Inference

Sensation Perception Image LT memory

Intuition (Imagery thinking) Pattern Association Imagination

(experience operation)

Intuition is not always right.


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The relations between intuition and two types of thinking are like: (logic operation)

(Logic thinking) Concept Judgement Inference

Sensation Perception Image LT memory

Intuition (Imagery thinking) Pattern Association Imagination (experience operation)

People often think the logic thinking is for scientists and engineers and imagery thinking for artists. The facts are anyone needs both of them.


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• Chinese heritage of the image thinking is partly from Chinese calligraphy.


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3 SYSTEMS INTUITION

• The systems approach is often adopted to tackle the complex knowledge creation problems.

• It is worthy to investigate the role of intuition in the area of Systems Sciences and Engineering.

• When people faced with a complex system, they firstly take a holistic view and before taking system analysis, go straight to intuitive view of the whole system. This means that intuitive thinking will provide rapid and appropriate response to the system situation.


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• The modern Systems disciplines are founded in the last century. But the primitive idea of system thinking emerged several thousand years before. From the ancient history of China we recognize that some ideas of system thinking were created from Chinese traditional medical science.

• The main idea of the Chinese traditional medicine is the concept of “organic whole”. The meaning of organic whole has two folds, entirety and unity.


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• Chinese medicine suggests to use some holistic methods like “Observation”, “Listening”, “Inquiring”, and “Pulse feeling and palpation” (望 ,闻 , 问 , 切） to collect information of the whole body and analyze intuitively.

• A Western scientist F. Capra pointed out: “the Chinese idea of the body has always been predominantly functional and concerned with the interrelations of its parts rather than with anatomical accuracy.”

• This means more relying on the intuitive thinking rather than analytic to the whole system.


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This leads to a new thinking style, the author of this presentation would suggest to call it “System Intuitive Thinking” or simply “System Intuition”.

In the sixth to fourth century B. C., Both the Chinese and Greek philosophers developed some holistic view of the world. At that time, science, philosophy and religion were not separated. These types of holistic view are intuitive and from our point of view, are primitive system intuition.


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The System Intuition or system intuitive thinking is characterized by both holistic and intuitive view.

The main features are: 1.Emphasizing on the entirety, or “Seeing the whole

first.” From the whole functional view, from the totality to see the system. Pay attention to the synchronic patterning of things and events.

2.Emphasizing the unity, pay more attentions to the interrelations of parts and environment.

3.Top down approach.4.More relying on tacit knowledge.5.Context orientation.


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• Some Western scholars have noticed this point. H.Muller-Merbach suggested a hierarchical typology of system approach and distinguishing between systematic and systemic approaches.

• The Western tradition brought about systematic type. Since the system thinking originated from the Western countries is mainly relying on structure and function of artifacts and they considered that the systems are dividable, it often takes the bottom-up approach.


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• In contrary, the Eastern system thinking was originated from medicine and organic world, considered that things are indivisible. If you try to divide them, they will be destroyed. Like the human leg, it is only meaningful as a leg of human when it is on the body. Once it is cut off, it will no longer be the human leg. This is one of the features of Oriental system thinking.

• Systemic type is characteristic for Eastern philosophy , whose main feature is holistic and top-down.


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Experiment of a Scientific group of University of Michigan shows the difference of cognition

Path of the sight of Chinese Student

Path of the sight of American Student


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• Intuition cannot be taught, but can be learned by practice.

• The creation of systems intuition(Chinese fashion):

“ 习” ---Experience

“ 薰” ---Nurtured

“ 悟” ---Enlightenment

“ 化” ---Sublimated

You don’t know what you don’t know

You know what you don’t know

You know what you know

You don’t know what you know


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Imagination and creativity creativity imagination Analytic Experience The system intuition excels in the complex, uncertain,

ambiguous and highly unpredictable situation when the quick response is needed. Especially some real-life systems in the world are becoming complex adaptive systems. In such case, people can not follow the analytic procedure in terms of problem identification, problem definition, modeling, problem solving.


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4 COLLECTIVE SYSTEMS INTUITIONAnother concept the author of this paper would put

forward is “collective system intuition”. The collective intuition is defined (by Schamp T.) as :

“The collective capability amongst a management team’s member to recognize issues especially in fast changing environment”.

The collective system intuition can be defined as the collective capability to system intuitive approach. In the case of group decision making or problem solving, collective system intuition is necessary as the basis for the same feeling.


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• If the individual intuitive ability can be enhanced through subconscious learning and understanding, the collective intuitive ability can be got by raising intuition to a more or less explicit level. Collective system intuition, as well as collective intuition in general, may be considered as cultural gene. To this point, perhaps the collective unconsciousness(after C.G.Jung) may be the influencing factor.

• The concept “Meme” can also be used to explain it. • A meme is a cognitive or behavioral pattern that can be tr

ansmitted from one individual to another one.• It is a replicator of cultural information analogous to the

gene, constitutes a second form of evolution.


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• The system intuition is based on the tacit knowledge, and collective system intuition is based on organizational tacit knowledge. People often acquire tacit knowledge when they think intuitively.

• Just like the intuitive is not opposed to rational, the system intuition is not opposed to the analytical system thinking, which is the core of modern systems sciences. In the present stage Having rigorous methodology, methods, and tools of analytical approach, we can use the system intuition synergetically in different ways according to different situations.


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5. ROLE OF INTUITION IN KNOWLEDGE CONVERSION AND CREATION

• The existing research on intuition is limited in theoretical area by psychologists and only a few in application.

• It is necessary to investigate the role of intuition, especially the system intuition in knowledge working processes.

• If the knowledge creation process is investigated microscopically into different sub-processes, the intuitive and analytic thinking are used synergetically.


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In fact there is a continuous cognitive spectrum from intuition to analysis just like there is a continuous spectrum from tacit to explicit knowledge. In each part, there are some mix of

intuitive and analytic components.

Analysis Intuition


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• The knowledge creation process is a spiral between chaotic and ordered states.

CHAOTIC STATES IN SYSTEM（ EXCHANGE AND CREATION OF

TACIT KNOWLEDGE ）

KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION & CREATION

（ INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM WORK）

ORDERED STATES IN SYSTEM

（ ACQUISITION,INTEGRATION AND EXCHANGE

OF EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE）


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• In different sub-processes, the intuition is portrayed in different ways. It includes:

Intuitive vision (based on system intuition) for the empathy building.

Intuitive emotion and Intuitive prediction as well as Intuitive imagination for the help of synthesizing isolated

information into integrated picture and for idea generation. Intuitive collaboration(collective intuition based on the

empathy) to help the brainstorming and consensus building. Intuitive judgement to check on results.


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C J INF

S P I LTM INTUITION

PAT A IMG

Resonant

Understanding

C J INF

S P I LTM INTUITION

PAT A IMG


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6. CONCLUSION• The system intuition or system intuitive thinking is

characterized by both holistic and intuitive view.• The main features of system intuition are:

-Emphasizing on the entirety

-Emphasizing the unity

-Top down approach

-More relying on tacit knowledge

-Context orientation


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• The collective system intuition can be defined as the collective capability to system intuitive approach.

• The system intuition is based on the tacit knowledge and collective system intuition is based on organizational tacit knowledge.

• The system intuition has been and should be used complementally with the system analytic techniques.

• In the process of knowledge creation the intuition plays important role indifferent sub-processes.


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THANK YOU

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D U T Research Center of Knowledge Science and Technology 2005. 08 SYSTEM INTUITION AND ITS ROLE IN KNOWLEDGE CREATION ZHONGTUO WANG DALIAN UNIVERSITY