Conversation

Replying to
Feel strange as i call myself a system thinker *because* i believed that a grand model is not possible and that models are at best local (in all dimensions). That said, i may just live in different circles than the author ;)
1
3
Replying to and
More 60s. In engineering, it's usually either called controls or systems and control. People who use "systems theory" tend to be either Wiener-cybernetics people, or from the "system dynamics" fork due to Jay Forrester (stock-flow diagrams and such... Limits to Growth for eg)
Replying to and
I have no opinion on the colloquial usage with no technical/disciplinary implications. But people who use it in a technical, but not engineering sense, in my experience, tend to be one-big-model types. And here I obviously mean relative to declared scope, not universe.
1
Replying to and
Bateson was in cybernetics gang iirc. He extended it into social sciences. I don’t know that I’d say there’s really 2 uses of the term. The truly distinct thing would be Santa Fe/chaoplexity crowd who do things in a meaningfully different way and call it complex systems theory
1
Show replies
Replying to and
There is yet another "systems view", which is to do with the project management of massive tech systems, almost always military/aerospace. This is where get "system integration" from, and why everything engineers build is called a "system". Also came out of WW II.
2