#systems thinking

[alianoralacanta]

Ahhh I want to kiss your brain. Thank you for that absolutely BRILLIANT analysis, I love your essays :) You are brilliant!

I hesitated in sending this ask because you've explained so much so well already, but you mentioned you're open to clarification 🫣 I hope you don't mind, I was wondering about this part, this especially caught my attention...

Mattia Binotto in 2022 had a problem. His plan was progressing faster than he’d anticipated. Ferrari was supposed to mount its title challenge in 2024, not 2022.

Mattia had not put all the systems in place to support the title bid that he had intended. Instead, he chose to stick to his plan. Keep building systems and manage down expectations.

There were times when it felt like he was favouring Carlos Sainz because his driving was closer to the plan. However, Charles Leclerc appeared to be convinced, from the beginning, that a title fight was on due to Ferrari’s performance level.

Forgive me this might very well be a stupid question but what do you mean by systems that he hadn't placed yet to support the title bid? I read up about the 2022 season around last year since I wasn't actually there to witness it (I became a fan mid-2023), clearly there is a lot more to the picture than I anticipated!

What other systems are there? Was he planning for new recruits to the team, or something different...?

Thank you once again! :)

Warning! Long post alert! (This time it is only a 2-parter) I am so happy that you enjoyed my essay :D The question is a sensible one. Section 1: Defining a system (eventually)

By "Mattia had not put all the systems in place to support the title bid", I meant that the organisation as a whole had still not coalesced into something that consistently gave the same, helpful response when encountering difficulties. The part of this we see most often expressed is in race strategies. When everything goes to plan, Ferrari could and still can execute a race strategy absolutely fine. However, it just takes one unplanned change to break the system. (This may also be why strategy fails happened to Charles Leclerc more often than Carlos Sainz in 2022, for Charles is the one most likely to have discovered something outside the pre-calculated strategic parameters - usually that discovery was good, sometimes it was bad, but the Ferrari strategic team seemed to be just as bad at handling it either way). This specific pattern is often a sign that the right people are in place, with a valid "Plan A" system, but don't yet have systems behind them to adapt. (This is also why Charles Leclerc defended Xavi Marcos Padros so much despite Xavi being linked with many of these errors. There is more detail in Section 9: China 2004 of the original essay about Charles accepting more fractious interaction as problem-solving than might be expected, and in addition both Charles and Xavi probably agreed there were systematic issues behind at least some of the problems we saw). Departments we see less may or may not have had the same problem, though it's realistic to believe they did. Mattia Binotto called Ferrari a "young" team in 2019 because many of its staff had not worked the positions they were in before and were still getting used to the processes and people in those new positions. So, what is a "system" in these contexts? It is how the actions taken within the team fit together to get particular things done. It considers: - the individual components involved - the goal(s) to which they are employed - the nature of the links - and the conditions that make these change When we are told that people have been hired into a team, that is part of the system, but only part. A person is (for the purpose we're considering) the smallest complete component of a system, but different parts of what someone thinks, says and does will interact with different systems in different ways. It is also necessary for a F1 team to do, at minimum, the following for these people: - teach them enough about their new team to let them buy themselves the time needed to do everything else in this list - help them work with their new colleagues - give them a worthwhile and useful task to aim towards - link that goal with the other goals needed to eventually win the title - plan everything out so that things happen in a sequence that makes sense to everyone. This may require putting in/removing intermediate steps, swapping round goals, exchanging less useful goals for better ones, figuring out the carrying capacity (amount of goals can be done simultaneously) of the team and its departments, deciding what counts as "good enough" and having some idea what needs to change if a given goal is at "good enough" rather than "ideal" - or indeed is missed. - making sure all the resources that are needed are in the right place at the right time. - monitoring the situation surrounding the team, its departments and people - knowing when and how to intervene in internal issues - protecting the team from negative external influences where possible - mitigating against harm done by issues from which protection could not be provided. It is not just F1 that is like this. Pretty much every large enterprise is the same way. There is an upper limit as to how many resources people can marshal effectively without this sort of planning, and even small companies often benefit from proportionate planning. I've emphasised "plan everything out" because I this is the part where Mattia Binotto's plan came unstuck.

[noosphe-re]

There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion—the questions we want to ask.

Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

[futuramb]

Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries. - James P. Carse in "Finite and Infinite Games"

[msexcelfractal]

The funny thing about these first line psychiatric medicines is that they don’t test them on users. For the trials that get these drugs approved, the scientists made sure participants didn’t drink or use any other drugs. That is the only use case supported by the establishment.

The conservative position is that anyone who takes anti-depressants should take personal responsibility and stay “clean” of other substances.

The systems point of view says: Contemporary psychiatry assumes patients will perfectly abstain from a long list of very common human behaviors. That means it’s not a very good model of the population it’s meant to serve. A good model predicts its outcomes.

[frank-olivier]

Emergence: A Multidisciplinary Journey towards Understanding Complex Systems

Emergence, a concept central to our understanding of complex systems, has long captivated scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists. Despite its ubiquity, emergence remains enigmatic, with its multifaceted nature necessitating a multidisciplinary approach to grasp its full implications.

Emergent properties, which arise from the interactions of simpler components, often exhibit features that are irreducible to their constituent parts. This challenges scientific inquiry, as traditional reductionist methods may fail to capture the essence of emergent phenomena. To tackle this complexity, a holistic, multidisciplinary perspective is required, drawing insights from physics, biology, sociology, and computer science. The predictability of emergence remains a contentious issue. Some argue that it is a predictable outcome of complex systems, while others view it as an unpredictable, 'magical' aspect. This dichotomy highlights the need for further exploration and nuanced understanding of emergent properties.

Philosophers have long grappled with emergence, with debates centering around its implications for our understanding of reality. From a philosophical perspective, emergence raises profound questions: Do emergent properties cause changes at the micro level, or do changes in the micro components give rise to emergent properties? This question challenges our understanding of causality and its directionality. If emergent properties determine system behavior and are not directly controlled by the components, how does this relate to free will? This question forces us to reevaluate our understanding of agency and autonomy. How do the micro and macro levels of reality relate to each other? Emergence challenges the notion of a straightforward, bottom-up relationship, suggesting a more complex, bidirectional interplay.

Computer science has significantly contributed to the study of emergence, particularly in the realms of artificial intelligence and complex systems. The role of software in emergence is pivotal, but under-explored. A clearer definition of 'software' in this context is needed, as well as an understanding of its implications for our comprehension of complex systems. The concept of 'primitive software' in complex systems is intriguing. By studying simple software systems that give rise to complex behaviors, we can gain insights into the mechanisms underlying emergence. However, further exploration is required to fully understand this relationship.

A comprehensive understanding of emergence necessitates a multidisciplinary approach that integrates scientific, philosophical, and computational perspectives. By developing an integrated framework, analyzing case studies, modeling and simulating emergent phenomena, and exploring the ethical and social implications, we can advance our understanding of this fascinating concept. Moreover, fostering communication and collaboration between scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists is crucial. By learning from each other's disciplines, we can refine our theories, improve our methods, and ultimately, unravel the mysteries of emergence.

Fernando Rosas, Hardik Rajpal: Towards a formal understanding of emergence in biological systems (Michael Levin, November 2024)

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

[thegodwhocums]

i'm taking a class on systems thinking and realizing it's just a structured format for the way i already interact with 1. life, 2. power structures, and 3. magic

[thehuskies]

Systems Thinking

Singla Rice Mills

Hello from Group 3 - The Huskies B)

This is a blog to document the everyday progress of our Systems Thinking Research and you are welcome to give your valuable feedbacks every step of the way!

The group includes Akriti, Akshaya, Gautham, Karthik, Ketaki, Madhumanti and Prerna.

Day 1 - 21.08.2024

First day started with brainstorming for the domain. The group decided to focus on a topic within the agriculture sector, as Haryana is well-known for its agricultural activities.

Initially, we planned to conduct our research at a sugar mill. Upon visiting the site, we learned that the sugarcane harvest season hasn’t started yet, and the factory wouldn’t be operational until November.

After exploring other nearby agro-based industries like disposable leaf plate makers, poultry farms, wheat factories, and honey bee farms, we finally connected with Singla Rice Mills.

The CEO, Harsh Singla, was very welcoming and gave us a comprehensive overview of the business and its technical aspects. He explained the rice processing stages, discussed the factors that directly impact the business, and provided a tour of the facility.

We also saw samples of different rice categories obtained after processing. The first day was full of valuable insights that will guide our research moving forward.

Thanks, see you tomorrow :)

[conceptsnest]

From decision-making to social dynamics, creativity to adaptation, let's explore the myriad ways in which Entropy shapes our existence.

#StrategicThinking, #ProblemSolving, #ProfessionalDevelopment, #systemsthinking, #closedsystem, #opensystem, #energy, #stability, #structure, #simplicity, #emotionalintelligence, #entropy

[kenyatta]

Maybe this is inevitable. How could anyone create an understandable story which ties together, say, the fabric of a device; and its tiny embedded sensors that track heart rate and location; and, embedded software that crunches this data to determine habit and behaviour; and the server farms that collect and collate this material through environmentally-intensive processes; and any ethical and political considerations around any single part of this process, let alone how all of these moving parts all interact with each other? (This is for a smart dog collar, by the way.) Background and foreground collapse into each other.

In the light of increasingly complex networked technologies and phenomena such as climate change, there's been a growing rumble of calls for a new kind of systems literacy: not to treat these strange entanglements of nodes and connectors as definable things but to create a fundamentally different way to know them.

- Systems Ultra by Georgina Voss

[librarianrafia]

"When trying to understand systems, one really eye-opening and fundamental insight is to realize that the machine is never broken. What I mean by this is, when observing the outcomes of a particular system or institution, it’s very useful to start from the assumption that the outputs or impacts of that system are precisely what it was designed to do �� whether we find those results to be good, bad or mixed.

The most effective and broadly-understand articulation of this idea is the phrase, “the purpose of a system is what it does”, often abbreviated as POSIWID.

....Through this lens, we can understand a lot about the world, and how we can be more effective in it. If we accept that the machine is never broken (except in the case of the McDonald’s ice cream machine), then we can recognize that driving change requires us to make the machine want something else. If the purpose of a system is what it does, and we don’t like what it does, then we have to change the system. And we change the system by making everyone involved, especially those in authority, feel urgency about changing the real-world impacts that a system has.

...Part of the reason I’m insistent about the POSIWID idea is because it’s a prerequisite for optimism that actually has impact. Mindless optimism says, “this system is supposed to have a good output, therefore if we support it hard enough, it’ll do the right thing.” But this results in people doubling down on investing in broken institutions, and organizations selecting leaders who become defensive and reactive to any challenge to the institution. These are systems organized around perpetuating themselves, rather than around any identifiable principle or goal. And you have to start with the principle.

[interested-pig]

Free will versus determinism

Complex adaptive systems adapt to persist in their environment. Birds flying in a flock, DNA and the human brain are all complex adaptive systems. Although we think about human brains to be goal oriented and anthropomorphise DNA to have similar qualities, we do not do the same for flocking birds. Bird flocking appears to be too neutral to anthropomorphise. A more balanced perspective, therefore, would be to align goal-oriented behaviour to homeostasis. Our goals, our purpose, are resultant from a homogeneous relationship with our environment. This is not to deny free will as complex adaptive systems are not limited to linear-cause and effect. Rather it suggests a more complex relationship between free will and determinism than an often presumed dialectic one.

[dipperdesperado]

we need to have a real conversation about hierarchy

Hierarchy is a complex issue that can be found in many different settings. It is often viewed as a tool of oppression and is therefore a contentious topic. Interestingly, people seem to be more willing to accept hierarchy than other forms of oppression. This may be due to a number of factors, such as the belief that hierarchy is necessary for order and stability, or the idea that some individuals are simply better suited for leadership roles than others. Whatever the reason, it is clear that hierarchy is deeply ingrained in our modern worldview. Even in revolutionary projects, where one might expect to find a rejection of traditional power structures, hierarchy rears its head.

Hierarchy can be best thought of as a pyramid. The tip holds the brunt of the social power, while the foundational bricks hold the least. Emphasis on social power. Going back to our conversation about power, the foundational levels of the pyramid have the greatest power potential, (or “potential energy” that can be transformed into a kind of “kinetic energy” of collective action) due to their position in the system and sheer numbers. However, the social system that is in place funnels their power to prop up the tip at their own expense. Their collective power (“power with”) gets drowned out by the tip’s “power over”.

Hierarchy, if nothing else, is problematic because it acts as the glue for other forms of oppression such as power, domination, and coercion. It’s the space that codifies and justifies those relationships, all the way from the personal to the systemic level.

This is what makes hierarchy the most dangerous form of oppression. It is seen as ultimately pragmatic, even if it necessitates stratification by its very nature. It begs questions from those that exist under it, while not allowing space to explore those questions safely. Hierarchy occupies a space similar to capitalism more broadly; though it’s hard to deny the inherent issues from any rational perspective, there is a question of “what else is there?” Any system that can continue to justify itself, even when the agents in that system understand that it’s against their best interests, is one that has reached a spooky level of maturity. Hierarchy is seen as “realistic” and “pragmatic”, the same way that capitalism is.

This probably makes hierarchy sound like a pretty bum deal. I mean, it is. There is something truly sickening about all of the social engineering that occurs to create a system that leads to toil of the many for the comfort of the few. That’s hierarchy in a nutshell. Even more disturbing is that there isn’t any real reason that everyone can’t be comfortable. There’s nothing inherent to the materiality of the Earth that requires unsustainable appropriation. Maybe we all can’t be on the level of those who ascend the pyramid in a hierarchical system, but that is excessive by any metric you could measure. People have to come to the understanding that it is against their best interests to live vertically. Imagine being treated like you’re too unwise to have agency over your life. That’s the reality in hierarchical systems.

At this point, you might be really interested in the answer to the “what else is there” question. Even if you don’t fully buy into the idea that hierarchy can be good, you might not feel like you have any other options. I mean, from a societal perspective, the concept of civilization as we know it has been hierarchical from the get-go. It’s been around much, much longer than the current Big Bad, capitalism. Simply put, if hierarchy is a vertical solution to organizations, then the way out of it is horizontal.

If people organize in horizontal and cooperative ways rather than hierarchical and competitive ways, there is the potential for an egalitarian relationship for everyone involved.

This is important to bake into the work being done in the present because of the rule of means-ends unity. Basically, where we want to go has to be aligned with how we get there. If we want a stateless, moneyless, classes, solarpunk society, but we recreate states, monies, and classes, then our end result will never be achieved. Recreating oppressive systems to fight oppressive systems just leads to more oppression, even if our goal is genuinely abolitionary and liberatory. Sadly, hoping for stuff while not taking the necessary actions for it to happen won’t get us to where we want to go.

All in all, hierarchy should be questioned at every turn. Not for silly reasons like “being a rebel” or an uninformed “dislike for authority”. Hierarchy is a breeding ground for oppression; any perceived gains are drowned out by the human cost. Human societies that will be able to reach their full capacities will by necessity have to be horizontal, decentralized, and systems-oriented, rather than vertical, centralized, and uniform. We should strive for the balance between order and chaos, hitting the sweet spot of emergence. That way, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can organize big societal projects like social programs, while allowing everyone to have the room to live in the ways that they see fit, exploring and creating individually and collectively for the betterment of themselves, their community, and society at large.

[convivialdave]

My personal Obsidian, animated, to show cross connections to subjects.

[embervoices]

I saw a post go by about how rules carry an implicit threat of violence. I think my thoughts on the matter are a tangent that would constitute a derail of the point of that post, so I'm starting a new one instead.

I believe "rules" work better as parameters for our own decision making, rather than walls designed for other people to slam into.

I was raised by computer engineers, so I tend to think about decision making in terms of pseudocode:

IF [situation I find myself in] THEN [known options for dealing with this situation] ELSE [best guess according to general default understanding]

as opposed to just signs everywhere that say

NO

Okay, yeah, sometimes we do actually need those boundary signs.

"No, really, it's not okay for you to hurt me."

Mostly, though, what we're really looking for when we make up all these rules-that-are-walls is a map for navigating the overwhelming territory of reality.

The thing is, people get confused and frustrated and scared and angry when they realize the map they have doesn't match the territory they find themselves in and now they don't know how they're supposed to navigate it. The knee-jerk impulse is "This situation wasn't accounted for in my options, therefore this situation is not allowed to exist".

But deciding there shouldn't be something in the territory because it's not on the map is a fundamental error in map use.

By definition, if the map and territory differ, it is always the map that needs to change.*

* If it's the territory that needs to change, that's not a map, it's a blueprint!

[censemaking]

Whole System Learning and Evaluation

There aren't extraneous factors anymore: systems awareness and evaluation are what's necessary for making sense of what we do and the influence we have #eval #evaluation #systemsthinking

Persistent, dramatic changes are taking place that influence our work, communities, and personal lives and understanding what it means to learn, respond, and succeed will take changes in how we evaluate it all. A key feature of change in a complex system is that once its shifted, it never goes back; there’s no ‘undoing’ what’s been done. We can change it again to something else, but we will not…