Convenient Categories Contradict Complexity

My friend’s recent trip to the opticians taught me about problems.

“We’re referring you to an ophthalmologist to investigate your dry eyes”, said the optometrist.

“It’s not something you can help with?”, replied Sam.

“No. We optometrists specialise in visual defects, whereas ophthalmologists treat eye conditions. This seems more of an ophthalmological problem.”

Sam visited the ophthalmologist a few months later, still unsure about the difference between optometrists, ophthalmologists, opticians, and obstetricians.

The ophthalmologist spoke up, “Your dry eyes may be caused by a thyroid problem. I’m going to refer you to an endocrinologist, okay?”. Sam nodded.

Visiting the endocrinologist, Sam was relieved to find that his thyroid was fine. He didn’t know what a Thyroid was, but glad it was okay. However, recognising the dry eyes could be due to an autoimmune problem, the endocrinologist referred Sam to a rheumatologist.

Reflecting on his consultations, Sam scratched his head. A problem that had seemed to be optometrical had become an ophthalmological, then endocrinological, and now a rheumatological. What kind of problem was it really?

In organisations, we often categorise problems: a finance problem, a technical problem, a process problem, a technology problem, a people problem. But the adjectives here tell us nothing about the problem, and instead presuppose the solution.

Russell Ackoff suggested, “Subjects, disciplines, and even professions are convenient ways of labelling and filing knowledge. But the world is not organised in the same way as our knowledge of it is. There are no physical, chemical, biological, psychological, sociological, or other unidisciplinary problems. The disciplines and subjects are not different parts of the world; they are different ways of looking at the world.”

Will Wright continues, “The problem with our education system is we've taken this kind of narrow, reductionist, Aristotelian approach to what learning is. It's not designed for experimenting with complex systems and navigating your way through them in an intuitive way, which is what games teach.”

The takeaway? Subjects are a way to organise curriculums, not to categorise problems - problems know no boundaries. When we try to categorise problems, we’re presupposing the solution. And, Sam is fine - he’d just played too much SimCity.