Systems Theory
The logic of wholes
Systems theory is the oldest branch on this diagram and the one that most directly concerns governance. It asks what makes a whole hold together, regulate itself, and know its own state. A civilisation that intends to limit itself needs exactly these ideas: feedback, homeostasis, information, and the discipline of measuring what actually matters.
12 ways in
Homeostasis
The maintenance of internal conditions within a viable range despite external change.
Open →Feedbacks
Loops in which an output returns to influence the process that produced it, either damping it or amplifying it.
Open →Self-Reference
A system that includes itself within its own description or operation.
Open →Goal-Oriented Behavior
Apparent purposefulness arising from mechanism, where a system behaves as if it aimed at a target.
Open →System Dynamics
A modelling discipline built from stocks, flows, delays, and feedback loops.
Open →Sense Making
The process by which people and organisations turn ambiguous circumstances into a workable account of what is happening.
Open →Entropy
A measure of disorder, of energy unavailable for work, and of uncertainty in a message.
Open →Autopoiesis
The property of a system that continuously produces and maintains the components and boundary that constitute it.
Open →Cybernetics
The science of control and communication in animals, machines, and organisations.
Open →Information Theory
The mathematics of how much a message can carry, how reliably, and how compactly.
Open →Computation Theory
The study of what can be computed, how efficiently, and what cannot be computed at all.
Open →Complexity Measurement
Attempts to quantify how complex a system is, by description length, by structure, or by the effort needed to produce it.
Open →