Metaphor, conceptual integration, and adaptive capacity

Background/Question/Methods

We have entered an era, the Anthropocene, in which human activity is playing an increasingly significant role in the dynamics of the planet. As the environmental and social problems facing humanity have escalated in number, complexity and severity, there have been increasing calls for perspectives and adaptive policies that can drive the transition to a more sustainable global society. But, this is no easy task. Complex systems behave in counterintuitive ways that make it difficult to anticipate the main outcomes of management interventions. Narrowly focused policies are likely to be ineffective, or to have unexpected outcomes that exacerbate the problems that they are designed to ‘solve’. Attempts to deal with problems caused by complexity, uncertainty, and conflict between environmental and economic goals, have led to a growing awareness that our ability (and willingness) to adapt to changing global conditions depends directly on the extent of our shared understanding of the dynamics of the social-ecological systems of which we are a part.

The generation of such an understanding is a major challenge. It requires a long-term, global-scale, integrative effort by a wide range of researchers from the natural and social sciences, engineering, the humanities, and the wider community. The extent to which we, the participants in this interdisciplinary endeavour, manage to create a unified conceptual framework will be a critical factor in determining our eventual success. It will set a fundamental limit on our ability to communicate with one another, and hence the degree of integration that we can achieve. It will determine the viability of the policies that emerge from our efforts.

Results/Conclusions

My aim in this paper is to outline a practical method for the development of the shared conceptual frameworks that are necessary for successful adaptive policy design. The approach draws on insights from modern cognitive science and mathematical information theory. Of particular importance are the empirical findings that human understanding and reasoning are largely metaphorical, and that words do not carry meaning. These insights provide a fresh view of the conceptual barriers to integration and, if correct, can guide our efforts to craft new, more effective forms of interdisciplinary communication. In particular, they suggest ways to implement the efficient ‘focused dialogue’ needed in the development of shared conceptual frameworks, and in efforts to design adaptive environmental and social policies.