Policy Making and Meaning as Design of Purposeful Systems

Policy making may be viewed as the design of purposeful systems to deliver values to participants. An operational methodology for policy making/systems design is developed which is applicable to problem definition and solution in complex, multiparticipant, multivalue/goal, ill-structured, dynamic contexts. Policy making/systems design may be treated on an adaptive control (design) problem expressed mathematically by a dynamical system with associated dynamical values in which nothing is considered fixed. Participants choose values, goals, technology and controls. Choice of a goal target involves a goals/values referral process wherein participants can identify and change operational goals and values, as well as negotiation process. Policy making, systems design and meaning arc identified as one—as an act/process of cooperative control to all there is—dissipative self-organizalion—manifested by increasing consciousness (represented mathematically by sets). The result is, hopefully, enlightened operational policy making. The methodology may be termed evolutionary systems design.