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If you prefer formalism, the cybernetics literature should appeal. I prefer the Systems Dynamics approach, because it's formal enough to avoid woo, but informal

If you prefer formalism, the cybernetics literature should appeal. I prefer the Systems Dynamics approach, because it's formal enough to avoid woo, but informal enough to avoid avoidance. But it's a mistake to create the general conclusion, from this blogpost, that a program aiming to describe, catalogue and comprehend phenomena across many fields in common terms is a fool's errand. It's been an ongoing program of research for most of a century now.

Geminidog 6y ago
>But it's a mistake to create the general conclusion, from this blogpost, that a program aiming to describe, catalogue and comprehend phenomena across many fields in common terms is a fool's errand. It's been an ongoing program of research for most of a century now. It's not a fools errand but the way this article and many others approach this task is a fools errand. If he thinks colloquial use of "systems design" applies to various fields outside of computing, then he should formally define what he means by a "system" then prove his point. We don't need another blog post about some "design" metaphor.
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  I had a slightly different complaint from yours, which is that the author doesn't seem conversant with the kinda-sorta-formal fields of study that already exist. Take for example the "chicken-egg" problem. Economists study this under "multi-sided markets" (which the author touches on, but late in the example), as part of the study of path dependency. Systems dynamics researchers have framed the economics work in their own terms of stocks and flows, but the essential structure is the same and can be reduced to equations. It's mostly calculus, sometimes there's some linear algebra. The best book in my view is still Sterman's Business Dynamics, which is much broader in scope than the title suggests (it's a play on earlier book titles). There will hopefully be a second edition in the next year or two. Edit: I should note however that when I see "system" I pattern match on what I know best. But there's a whole discipline of "System Engineering" which comes mostly from defence, aeronautical and astronautical fields. It has a high focus on formalisms to try to govern immensely complex technological efforts.
qznc 6y ago
Can you suggest a good introductory book for Systems Dynamics? The last time the topic came up, I read the popular one from Donella Meadows but I found it too shallow [0]. Now I'm considering "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" because it was written a computer scientist, Gerald Weinberg. Also, is there any free tool to play around with the modelling of feedback loops? LOOPY [1] is too simple quickly. [0] http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/thinking_in_systems.html http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/thinking_in_systems.html [1] https://ncase.me/loopy/ https://ncase.me/loopy/
- qznc 6y ago
  Ok, saw "Sterman's Business Dynamics" in the other comment. :) Any good tool suggestions?
  - jacques_chester 6y ago
    Sheetless looks promising: https://sheetless.io/ https://sheetless.io/ There are also the classic tools like Stella, but they're expensive.
  - qznc 6y ago
    I found https://insightmaker.com/ https://insightmaker.com/ which looks quite capable and polished.

Geminidog 6y ago

>But it's a mistake to create the general conclusion, from this blogpost, that a program aiming to describe, catalogue and comprehend phenomena across many fields in common terms is a fool's errand. It's been an ongoing program of research for most of a century now. It's not a fools errand but the way this article and many others approach this task is a fools errand. If he thinks colloquial use of "systems design" applies to various fields outside of computing, then he should formally define what he means by a "system" then prove his point. We don't need another blog post about some "design" metaphor.

jacques_chester 6y ago
I had a slightly different complaint from yours, which is that the author doesn't seem conversant with the kinda-sorta-formal fields of study that already exist. Take for example the "chicken-egg" problem. Economists study this under "multi-sided markets" (which the author touches on, but late in the example), as part of the study of path dependency. Systems dynamics researchers have framed the economics work in their own terms of stocks and flows, but the essential structure is the same and can be reduced to equations. It's mostly calculus, sometimes there's some linear algebra. The best book in my view is still Sterman's Business Dynamics, which is much broader in scope than the title suggests (it's a play on earlier book titles). There will hopefully be a second edition in the next year or two. Edit: I should note however that when I see "system" I pattern match on what I know best. But there's a whole discipline of "System Engineering" which comes mostly from defence, aeronautical and astronautical fields. It has a high focus on formalisms to try to govern immensely complex technological efforts.

qznc 6y ago

Can you suggest a good introductory book for Systems Dynamics? The last time the topic came up, I read the popular one from Donella Meadows but I found it too shallow [0]. Now I'm considering "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" because it was written a computer scientist, Gerald Weinberg. Also, is there any free tool to play around with the modelling of feedback loops? LOOPY [1] is too simple quickly. [0] http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/thinking_in_systems.html http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/thinking_in_systems.html [1] https://ncase.me/loopy/ https://ncase.me/loopy/

qznc 6y ago
Ok, saw "Sterman's Business Dynamics" in the other comment. :) Any good tool suggestions?
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  Sheetless looks promising: https://sheetless.io/ https://sheetless.io/ There are also the classic tools like Stella, but they're expensive.
- qznc 6y ago
  I found https://insightmaker.com/ https://insightmaker.com/ which looks quite capable and polished.