What Have Stories Got to Do with Systems? Narrative and Emergence

York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis
Interdisciplinary Seminar Series

The aim of this talk is to open up a dialogue between two interdisciplinary paradigms, complex systems analysis and narrative theory, which appear to be fundamentally incompatible. This incompatibility is interesting because both perspectives are concerned with ways of modelling temporal processes, and both are notable for the range of the fields in which they apply; the mismatch between them is therefore not a trivial or marginal issue. It is not an issue that lends itself to being resolved one way or the other, because these paradigms are not in competition with each other so much as locked together in mutual dependence. Beginning with some elementary observations on the concept of emergence, I shall try to show first of all that this is so, and secondly that it should not be considered an impasse, but an opportunity. I’ll suggest that there are several ways in which this encounter between concepts can be reciprocally illuminating precisely because it resists any synthesis: I’ll elaborate upon the potential consequences for narrative theory, and hint darkly (if with less confidence) at some of the possible implications for complex systems theory. I will also touch upon some of the broad methodological issues raised in the context of the practice of interdisciplinarity; and, given time, I’ll extrapolate further by sketching the impact this line of research can have upon science communication beyond academia and by referencing that grand theme (or old chestnut), the “two cultures” debate.