Closed models and open systems

Rational choice theory relies on premises that are correct and complete; but, in general, neither can be assured. Knowledge is an open system of selected relationships and the adequacy of our representations of phenomena is always subject to Knightian uncertainty. The management of industrial research projects requires the exploration of this uncertainty, with the aid of provisionally closed models. Systems are defined by their elements and their connections, and the incompleteness of connections aids adjustment to external change and also promotes novelty - much of it unsuccessful, for it cannot be rationally generated - through variations in the degree and dimensions of closure. We create knowledge by creating patterns, grouping phenomena by selective (and problematic) criteria of similarity; and coherence between patterns is important for individuals and organizations. Adam Smith's psychological and evolutionary theory of the growth of knowledge, like the epistemology of modern science, rests on human cognition and the intersubjectivity that it makes possible. Genetically based evolution has progressed from the specification of behaviour to an endowment of motivation and the capacity to create patterns, encouraging search and the development of rules and conventions to aid individual thought as well as interactions. Uncertainty is the precondition of imagination; closure in some dimensions allows us to explore in others, and to absorb new ideas within a particular range. In 1861 Carlo Cattaneo argued that development resulted from two characteristics of the human mind: intelligence and will. These characteristics may be represented by selected connections and selected closures, which guide our actions.