My current ESRC-funded PhD research crosses the boundaries of linear thinking by drawing on ‘complex realism’ – the conceptual framework through which I investigate the mechanisms that lead mature undergraduates to withdraw from their degree studies in Welsh universities.
There is more to reality than meets the eye. As Malcolm Williams explains, reality has a contingent nature (Williams, 2021). The probability of an event A is contingent and conditional upon an event B (Williams, 2011, p. 41). Using this contingency and the ontologically known stable entities in our social lives where we perform our duties and responsibilities while observing certain social rules, we are able to predict the unknown (Williams, 2015, p. 89). In the natural world, there is natural necessity – that is, some things must happen (the sun rising in the east), and some things are impossible (no human can fly unaided to the moon).
But the social world is steered by the probability of occurrence (Williams, 2021, p. 40). All events in the social world have a probability of greater than zero and less than one – for instance, you will take the train to work (if it is the workday and you usually prefer the train) in which case, the probability is very close to 1; or you will be the next king or queen of Britain, the probability of which is very close to 0 unless you are somehow related to the Royal family.
