global crises of measurement & their meta-theoretical

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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