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The point is, defining something through its purpose, is sometimes nonsensical, as you have shown (on purpose?). Sometimes - I would say most of the time - a ca
by oefnak 5y ago
The point is, defining something through its purpose, is sometimes nonsensical, as you have shown (on purpose?). Sometimes - I would say most of the time - a causal definition makes a lot more sense.
- delusional 5y agoSystems thinking (as described in this post) does involve quite a bit of causal thinking as well. Each of the pipes and dotted lines seem to signify a causal relationship. An increase in bugs cause an increase in food consumption. Setting them up as opposites seems unhelpful to me.
- sam0x17 5y agoI think the point was more that causal thinking can involve an incomplete picture, and is often merely a subset of systems thinking. At least that's what I took away. Causal thinking involves analyzing maybe part of a loop, but if you think that's the complete picture, you're missing the rest of the loop.
- lrobinovitch 5y agoI totally agree with this point, but the author confusingly doesn't seem to agree: > Cause and effect will fool you: in a world where everything is looping, there is no cause or effect. But there is purpose, and purpose moves in one direction: it is created, and it is spent.
- sam0x17 5y agoI interpreted this to mean "cause and effect analysis helps when you look at how one step connects to the previous step, but when looking at a system you will eventually end up back at your starting point (you go around in a loop) with cause and effect analysis, whereas systems analysis sees the loop as a loop and lets you talk about the whole picture in a useful way. This is why cause and effect analysis is misleading -- because you can go through an entire loop explaining each connection and still miss the larger picture, or rather, the fact that there is a loop/purpose."