Subject: Systems Thinking

Posted by Anderson, Lascelles on 8/29/2006
In Reply To:Systems Thinking Posted by Ashis Sen on 8/28/2006

Message:

I was fascinated by the request and began giving some preliminary thought to it, and what it mihght imply.

Asish Sen's response is good, because I think, along with him, that a fundamental proposition in the discipline is that structures determine behaviour. That means that if we are looking at problem situiations in the domains of the human sciences, it becomes critical to identify the structures through which persons interact, observing the incentives and the prohibitions inherent in any social structure. That being said,it would appear that cognitiver research on learning would be a good starting point for seeing how that discipline deals with learning types, and how it characterizes them.

Whether your interest in finding some ranking system is implying some linearity (10%, greater than 8%,greater than 5%, etc.) would begin to raise some questions.
As to sopurce, Peter Senge's book is a good beginning for wrestling with the subject, afetr which you could go on teh any nuimber of very good texts and articles, for example those in Systems Dynamics Review.
Hope this helps a little.

Lascelles Amderson.

Follow Ups:

Systems Thinking - Richard Langheim 8/29/2006 
Systems Thinking - Ashis Sen 8/31/2006
Systems Thinking - Philip Abode 8/31/2006
Systems Thinking - Bill Braun 9/1/2006
Systems Thinking - Helder Leal da Costa 9/4/2006
Systems Thinking - Ashis Sen 9/4/2006
Systems Thinking - Marcus J Williams 9/1/2006
Systems Thinking - Joe Rimback 9/4/2006
Systems Thinking - Bill Braun 9/1/2006