Wildfire and the Need to Explain Yourself
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This presentation discusses how the process of explaining our past, present, and future experiences of working with wildfire shapes our understanding and drives our actions. Explanation is explored as a way of navigating change and evolving the wildfire management system.
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Wildfire and the Need to Explain Yourself
- 1. Wildfire and the Need to Explain Yourself Gregory Vigneaux Photo by Mark Mendonca Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 2. “Practicing philosophy means, I claim, reflecting about the foundations of what one does.” –Humberto Maturana Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 3. “An explanation is a particular kind of answer to a particular kind of question that asks how things, events, phenomena…come about” “An explanation…always has the form: ‘If this and this happens, then the result is such and such” –Humberto Maturana We explain to others, and we explain to ourselves. Explanations Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 4. Explanations & Time • Explaining the Future: If this and this happens, then the result will be such and such. E.g. Long-term planning, predictions, change initiatives, establishing courses of action. • Explaining the past: This and this happened, and the result was such and such. E.g. After Action Reviews, Research, Lessons Learned • Explaining the present: This and this are happening, and the result is such and such. E.g. The course of daily life: Fire behavior, problem-solving, briefings. Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 5. Explanations are answers to questions about the origins of experiences in the form of causal statements. They tell us how the world works and in doing so indicate how we should act. Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 6. “We see, we touch, we measure, and so forth, and in the same way that we use the coherences and regularities of our seeing, our touching, and our measuring as we formulate, describe, or present what we want to explain, we use the regularities and coherences of our seeing, touching, and measuring to propose the formal condition that will be our explanatory proposition.” – Humberto Maturana Coherence of Experience Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 7. The Form of Explanations Informal Conditions: Generally implicit criteria for accepting formal conditions, including mood and the legitimacy of the action the explanation unfolds into. The loop is continuously moved around until a formal condition is accepted. “The informal condition is what gives an explanation its character and defines its kind”- Humberto Maturana Formal Conditions: The process or mechanism responsible for generating the experience in question created out of the coherences of our experience. Informal Condition Formal Condition Experience to be Explained Feelings of Doubt, Awe, Strangeness Feelings Resolved, Explanation Guides Action & Becomes Part of Everyday Life Divergent, Innovative Space Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 8. Explanatory Domains Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability How we have explained our experiences managing fire in the past Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability How we explaining our experiences managing fire in the present Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability How we want to explain our experiences managing fire in the future Past Future Present Imaginary Domain Coherences Flow Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 9. Future Domains Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability The professionalization and progression of the wildfire system is leading to improved management outcomes. Actions • Year long staffing • Increased training & mentoring • Full time positions Legitimacy • Actions support the continued development of the wildland fire management system A future we would like to find ourselves in. • Wildland firefighter opportunities should be commensurate with structural departments • A new type of system is needed to cope with the new normal • Public support • Organizational transformation • Political skills • Recognition of a need for a new kind of system Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 10. Future Domains Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability If I maintain defensible space around my home, it will be more likely to survive wildfire • I do not want to lose my home • I can take action to prevent home loss Actions • Continually maintaining defensible Space • Keeping roof and gutters clear Legitimacy • These actions will help to reduce the likelihood of home loss • The information presented indicates these are advisable actions • Structure loss is increasing across the country • Measures can be taken to reduce it Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 11. “Even more problematic is the way the future is so often thought to be a void, a tabula rasa waiting to be filled or written upon. The reality is very different. A great deal of the future is delimited by what we have already thrown into it.” – Tony Fry Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 12. “Perhaps we can take a cue here from the natural sciences: how can one thing change into another – a bulb into a plant, or a liquid into a gas – unless it has already begun to resemble it?” –David Keen Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com
- 13. Transitioning Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability Future Action Legitimacy Coherence Acceptability Passing Present Present-ing: • How can we make the future present today? • How can what needs to make sense in the future start making sense today? Gregory Vigneaux | @Gregory_Vig | GregoryVig.com *With acknowledgement to David Snowden and Jabe Bloom
- 14. Fry, Tony. 2009. Design futuring: Sustainability, ethics and new practice. London: Bloomsbury. Keen, David. 2008. Complex emergencies. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Maturana, Humberto R. 1988. "Reality: The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument." The Irish Journal of Psychology, 9 (1): 25-82. doi:10.1080/03033910.1988.10557705. Maturana, Humberto R. 2000. "The nature of the laws of nature." Systems Research and Behavioral Science 17: 459-468. Maturana, Humberto Romesin, and Gerda Verden-Zöller. 2008. The origin of humanness in the biology of love. Edited by Bunnell Pille. Exeter, Devon: Imprint Academic. Mingers, John. 1995. Self-producing systems: Implications and applications of autopoiesis. New York, NY: Plenum Publishing. References
Editor's Notes
- I think, and perhaps rightly so, that there are some negative connotations that surround philosophy and it can come to mean something to the effect of thinking about things in dense, abstract, and unpractical ways. The foundations of explanation and how explanations are foundational to practicing around wildfire But I define philosophy in the same way that the biologist turned philosopher does – it is the act of reflecting on the foundations of what one does. The question is: What are the foundations of my practice as a someone working around wildfire? It is my experience that this type of reflection is not often at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and of course this is understandable as there is always a lot going on But all the same I am going to advocate for it, give an example, and try and promote it as a necessary part of the process of creating change. If we don’t know why we are doing what we are doing, it becomes exceedingly difficult to try and change it I am interested in these foundations and one aspect in particular, the role of explaining
- “An explanation is a particular kind of answer to a particular kind of question a question that asks how things, events phenomena, or I general terms the experience of the observer come about” Causal language Explain experiences to ourselves and explain experiences for others.
- “An explanation is a particular kind of answer to a particular kind of question a question that asks how things, events phenomena, or I general terms the experience of the observer come about” Causal language Explain experiences to ourselves and explain experiences for others.
- The generative mechanism or formal condition: If this and this happens, the result is such and such. This and this happened because of such and such. This and this will happen because of such and such.
- Coherences used to present experiences and explain them Experiences are enabling (the experiential coherences we have enable us to present and describe certain experiences) and governing (experiential coherences we do not have limit us from describing or presenting certain experiences) Master and apprentice
- Emphasize the formal condition
- The past is the domain of all the things already explained as well as the domain of experiences that we are still trying to explain. Our coherences flow from the past into our still unfolding experience of the passing present where they continue to accumulate and are used to explain or re-explain past experiences, those taking place in the passing present, and reach into the future to create an imaginary domain we hope to create. Action based questions: Question for the past: Why did that action make sense to do? Two variables and the explanation Question for the present: Why does this course of action make sense? Question for the future: Why will this make sense in the future? As we operate in the present domain we have criteria of acceptability, coherences, and actions seen as legitimate, some of which intersect with those we work closely with. As a result, we gain similar domains that are importantly characterized by similar actions The future domain is imaginary and constrained by the coherences of our experience in the moment that we imagine it. We struggle to imagine that which is beyond the bounds of our present experience. If we want to act disruptively and innovatively to meet the challenges rising before us, we might craft explanations of future experiences that don’t make sense in the passing present as they give way to actions seen as illegitimate, they are unacceptable due to informal conditions, and there are no coherences to support them. Founded around an explanation, a way we want to be able to explain things in the future From that explanation, what actions will be seen as legitimate? What coherences are needed to formulate that explanation? Do we posses them already? What do we need to do to get them?
- The past is the domain of all the things already explained as well as the domain of experiences that we are still trying to explain. Our coherences flow from the past into our still unfolding experience of the passing present where they continue to accumulate and are used to explain or re-explain past experiences, those taking place in the passing present, and reach into the future to create an imaginary domain we hope to create. Action based questions: Question for the past: Why did that action make sense to do? Two variables and the explanation Question for the present: Why does this course of action make sense? Question for the future: Why will this make sense in the future? As we operate in the present domain we have criteria of acceptability, coherences, and actions seen as legitimate, some of which intersect with those we work closely with. As a result, we gain similar domains that are importantly characterized by similar actions The future domain is imaginary and constrained by the coherences of our experience in the moment that we imagine it. We struggle to imagine that which is beyond the bounds of our present experience. If we want to act disruptively and innovatively to meet the challenges rising before us, we might craft explanations of future experiences that don’t make sense in the passing present as they give way to actions seen as illegitimate, they are unacceptable due to informal conditions, and there are no coherences to support them. Founded around an explanation, a way we want to be able to explain things in the future From that explanation, what actions will be seen as legitimate? What coherences are needed to formulate that explanation? Do we posses them already? What do we need to do to get them?
- The past is the domain of all the things already explained as well as the domain of experiences that we are still trying to explain. Our coherences flow from the past into our still unfolding experience of the passing present where they continue to accumulate and are used to explain or re-explain past experiences, those taking place in the passing present, and reach into the future to create an imaginary domain we hope to create. Action based questions: Question for the past: Why did that action make sense to do? Two variables and the explanation Question for the present: Why does this course of action make sense? Question for the future: Why will this make sense in the future? As we operate in the present domain we have criteria of acceptability, coherences, and actions seen as legitimate, some of which intersect with those we work closely with. As a result, we gain similar domains that are importantly characterized by similar actions The future domain is imaginary and constrained by the coherences of our experience in the moment that we imagine it. We struggle to imagine that which is beyond the bounds of our present experience. If we want to act disruptively and innovatively to meet the challenges rising before us, we might craft explanations of future experiences that don’t make sense in the passing present as they give way to actions seen as illegitimate, they are unacceptable due to informal conditions, and there are no coherences to support them. Founded around an explanation, a way we want to be able to explain things in the future From that explanation, what actions will be seen as legitimate? What coherences are needed to formulate that explanation? Do we posses them already? What do we need to do to get them?
- We are seeing this now as one argument goes, that a century of aggressive suppression policy has created the high fuel loading we are seeing in the present, that exacerbated with other factors, is creating the explosive fire behavior seen around the west. What I like about this quote is that he says the future is not a blank space that is ours to write upon, we are already and have already been sending the rippling effects of our actions into the future. This is particularly important when we want to create a different future than the one we are already destined for as we may continue to create that undesirable future while searching for a different one. One of the most important questions we get out of all of this, is how and when do we stop throwing what we don’t want into the future and start with what we do
- So this hinge that we are talking about, this what I think could be quite a protracted moment that we are already living in but may need to continue energizing and redefining, is this transitionary space from one state to another. It is a transition from one passing present domain producing one future to another passing present domain that produces a different, more desirable future. But there is this space to navigate where the water being boiled starts to produce those small tiny bubbles where it starts to be recognizable as the form it will take when it becomes gaseous Part of navigating this transition space, whether it be in the context of fire adaptive communities, the fire management system at large, or changing the way an office functions, is to create a future domain that spells out quite clearly how things are supposed to be in the future. This gives a bearing and defines a direction of travel.
- This gap here is the problem we are trying to solve and get the present to start resembling the future we are trying to create. One possible way forward when we are putting explanations at the center of a transition is to look in particular at the coherences needed to support the explanation at the center of the domain as well as the criteria of acceptability that make the explanation valid. At this point, the goal is grasp just at the corner of the coherences and criteria for acceptability, use early versions of both, ones that intend toward the desirable future domain. If you grab them as they are meant to exist in the future and try and plug them into the present, it will be too great a discontinuity, it won’t make sense and there will be friction with existing practices and explanations. But if its an early version of that domain, and there is a build towards the way these variables are supposed to exist in the future, the future becomes part of the present. This is an active building towards the future – an intending towards what we do want that gradual begins to take the place of the path toward the undesirable future state There is this ongoing creep towards the imagined future state through its partial integration into the present This is not the same as following the objectives of a ten-step plan, it is quite literally a transition toward making sense of and acting in the world in new ways because it its rooted in how we explain our experiences.