"Oh, you're a theoretical physicist? I find theoretical physics is just thinking. Think hard, and repeat!" There's more to both the study of systems and the mi

"Oh, you're a theoretical physicist? I find theoretical physics is just thinking. Think hard, and repeat!" There's more to both the study of systems and the mindset than "think". Knowledge of a subject is knowledge of differences and distinctions- reductionism doesn't mean you know something, often quite the opposite. It took many of us a long time to better think about complex systems, especially those systems we grew up as a part of. There are a number of useful mental patterns that have helped me in my limited journey (eg OODA, feedback mechanisms from cybernetics) and it's not clear to me I'd have recognized the concepts were valuable enough to name on my own.