Systems

Type: Concepts (9) · Dualities (8) · Principles (18) · Tools (4)

Concepts

Boundaries — Every system is defined by where you draw its edge. Move the edge, and the system changes.
Cognitive Grammar — The structure of a language shapes the thoughts its speakers can easily think.
Ergodicity — The average across many people is not the average across one person's life.
Infinite Hotel Paradox — Hilbert's hotel: a full infinite hotel can still take more guests.
Paradigm Blindness — The paradigm you think with is the one thing it won't let you see.
Power of a Loop — A loop repeats. Repetition is how small things become big.
Predictable Surprises — Disasters we should have seen coming — and didn't act on.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy — A prediction that causes itself to come true.
Universality — Very different systems can obey the same underlying laws.

Dualities

Chaotic Doesnt Mean Random — Chaos is deterministic. Randomness isn't. They look similar but behave differently.
Context Over Content — In category theory, the relations between things matter more than the things themselves.
Entropy vs Energy — Energy does the work. Entropy eats the order.
Holism vs Reductionism — Understand the whole, or break it into parts. Both are incomplete.
Linear vs Non-Linear — Doubling the input doesn't always double the output.
Model vs Reality — Your map is not the territory.
Profit vs Rent — Profit is earned by creating value. Rent is extracted by holding a position.
Signal vs Noise — Data has two parts: what matters, and what distracts from what matters.

Principles

Bottom-Up Systems — The most resilient systems aren't designed from above. They grow from below.
Complexity at the Edge of Chaos — Interesting behaviour lives between order and chaos.
Different Systems Require Different Modes of Operations — What works in one system breaks another. Match the mode to the system.
Everything We Think Is a Model — You don't see reality. You see a compressed, filtered model of it.
Hierarchy Is Where the Top Serves the Bottom — Good hierarchies exist to serve the parts, not command them.
Information Exchange in Systems — A system's behaviour depends on how information flows through it.
Less Rules More Probability They Work — Every rule has a compliance cost. Fewer rules, higher compliance.
More Is Different — At sufficient scale, new properties emerge that don't exist in the parts.
Nature of Infinity Is Not Intuitive — Infinity breaks the rules you learned from finite things.
No System Can Grow Forever — Every growth curve ends. The question is when and how.
Reductionism Works Only for Non-Complex Systems — Take it apart to understand it — only when the parts don't interact strongly.
Resilience of a System Matters — A system's ability to absorb shocks matters more than its peak performance.
Self-Organisation in Systems — Order can arise without a designer if the right conditions are in place.
Simple Rules Create Complex Behaviour — A handful of rules, applied repeatedly, can generate endlessly rich behaviour.
System Dynamics What-If Scenarios — Simulating a system forward reveals behaviours that static analysis misses.
The Most Limiting Input Is the Most Important — The system is only as strong as its bottleneck.
The World Is a Continuum — There are no separate systems. Every boundary we draw is a choice.
What You Notice You See Everywhere — Once a pattern enters your awareness, it appears to be everywhere.

Tools

Behaviour Over Time Graph — Sketch how a variable moves over time. The shape reveals the system.
Feedback Loops — Loops where output feeds back into input. The fundamental unit of system dynamics.
Iceberg Model — Look beneath events to find patterns, structures, and the beliefs underneath.
Stocks Flows and Dynamic Equilibrium — Model systems as things that accumulate, rates that change them, and balance points.

Home · Search · Full site