On systems, et al.

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graph LR
    %% Stock and Flows
    Furnace[["Heat Inflow"]] --> RoomTemp[("Room Temp")]
    RoomTemp --> Dissipation[["Heat Loss"]]

    %% Feedback Loop elements
    TargetTemp["Target Temp"] --> Discrepancy{"Discrepancy"}
    RoomTemp -->|Sensed Temp| Discrepancy

    %% Delay and Oscillation Trigger
    Discrepancy --> DelayNode["Delay"]
    DelayNode -->|Adjusts| Furnace

    %% Styling
    style RoomTemp fill:#f9f9f9,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2.5px
    style Furnace fill:#f0f8ff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2.5px
    style Dissipation fill:#f0f8ff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2.5px
    style DelayNode fill:#ffebee,stroke:#c62828,stroke-width:2px
    style Discrepancy fill:#fffde7,stroke:#fbc02d,stroke-width:2px
    style TargetTemp fill:#e8f5e9,stroke:#2e7d32,stroke-width:2px

Exposure through time Link to heading

My graduate advisor - back in the days - was a bit of a people management disaster (who knows what for improvement decades can do. I fear little). Yet, I am grateful to him for something he probably did not even ever realise: In fact, while presumably getting curious in the early ’90s about Earth System Science, he seemingly discovered, and included them as additional readings for an undergraduate Sedimentary Geology course, certain books, by authors (the reading list contained also a couple of nice popular books of C. Sagan) such as:

• James Lovelock (the Ages of Gaia)
• Vladimir Vernadsky (The Biosphere) - more on this further below

That was my first exposure to systems, which I did not spend too much time on, during those years. Time passed, and especially Lovelock impressed me a lot, so I dug up through the years some more books of him. I even found a signed copy of the Ages of Gaia in its Spanish translation in a little vintage bookshop in Montevideo, back in 2007.

My path brought me - work-wise to/around/across Earth Remote Sensing and, for a couple o decades or so, Planetary Science. Those I navigated without much thinking about systems, though. At least not embedded in daily work/research.

Some one and a half decade later thanks to a colleague I discovered Donella Meadows. Later on, somehow I got to hear of / read / know also Yaneer Bar-Yam, and heard/read some more from the complexity bunch. Not enough to be “embedded”, but enough to feel the beauty and usefulness of the approach.

Long story short, I was exposed to systems late, and I grew some awareness even later. As grateful as I am to have at least been provided such view on things, I wish I had learned about systems and complexity earlier.

How much earlier?

In fact, very. I think several basic concepts of complex system science / systems thinking (which are a bit of different parishes, it seems the former more rooted into quantitative natural sciences, the latter more on the management side of things¹) could be wonderfully delivered even to small kids. I bet, had Donella Meadows lived a bit longer, this would have happened. Maybe it did? Quick and dirty Google Scholar bring up something, notably a recent paper (Fisher, 2023). It seems to be a niche, still.

There is of course a large amount of sources on complex systems, and some are beautifully crafted (such as Sayama, 2015). In this case, the amount of resources (also e.g. on Github) is substantial.

Not to mention Bar-Yam’s very accessible book (Bar-Yam, 2005).

On the other hand, looking on GitHub for “Donella Meadows” returns only very few repositories (I admit I did search at early draft stage of this post, so things might have changed/improved a bit). One, for example is nice ²:

Geology Link to heading

Why do these authors come to my mind more often lately? Because Geology (without necessarily stepping onto Earth System Science).

Geologists in the last several decades, but probably since they exist as part of a discipline / profession, incarnate a contradiction: They are among the categories with the best spatio-temporal gut feeling of systems, even when/if they lack a formal training on complexity, or systems thinking (most of the times…). Yet they use it for exploiting those systems. Which is in a way unavoidable to a certain extent (resources are needed by humankind), but the degree/extent/rate/consequences of resource exploitation is what can trigger issues. The built-in contradiction of exploring / looking for resources is embedded obviously in planetary science and exploration, too. And more will be, if things move the way they look.

The process of mapping and seeking resources naturally involved an intuitive, embedded knowledge, even if not formally developed. Roman mining, for example, required an empirical understanding of geology (e.g. Bromehead, 1945; Craddock, 2016), alongside an intuitive sense of (geological) systems’ relevance (perhaps - who knows - Fernández-Lozano and Ferrari, 2026). One cannot readily reconstruct what is not (fully) recorded. In a way, Geology does just that, it looks for some record, of some sort, and tries to figure things out, backwards.

Cosmism (& technofascism) Link to heading

While back in the days I stopped at Verndadksy’s biosphere, there was more to it, and I did not really think much about the noosphere, and the rest. It took a friend, not so many years ago, to point - while talking about technology - to the existence of Cosmism, some philosophycal movement started in Russia, but influential also elsewhere, decades after, especially in the Silicon Valley.

Yes, I did not know Verndadksy was one of the leading figures within Cosmism (see Groys, 2024), nor that that movement seemingly inspired longevity-seeking billionaires, space (human, or transhuman….) exploration tech bros, and so on³.

Silos Link to heading

Most people work in silos. Most of the time we think in silos. I would dare to predict that a certain number of think tanks might be just called echo tanks.

Complexity (here used liberally also including / overlapping with systems thinking, which might be felt unorthodox by hardcore complex systems people), though, is almost by definition cross-silo. Perhaps sometimes too much, as domain knowledge still might still be needed (and without resorting to epistemic trespassing). Yes, true, a complex system practictioner, thinker, or alike can be wrong, as any of us. So scientists in general (and - oh, boy - I do recall a few examples of scientists that behaved rather like morons…), still science is equipped with self-correction (with enough time), ante litteram human ECC RAM.

It is a pity science never made it to the hearts and minds of most. Even before “the professors are the enemy”, academy is in recent years sought perhaps a little bit too closely fluff, and hype: “High-impact”⁴ is one of the magic expressions) to a variable, growing extent, but that does not mean that it does not produce still abundant value for society as a whole. Of course unless/until it’s being dismantled…

Even one of the disciplines that made the best when it comes to communicating, engaging with politics and the public (climate science), did not make it. Because what comes after tomorrow is ignored. Because (chicken in egg) not getting multiple timescales and dynamics is what can be “forgiven” in “good times” vs. “bad times” (resonating with mediocristan and extremistan). That applied also to the latest SARS pandemic.

Relatively basic concepts such as first, second, or higher-order effects are something that regardless the knowledeg of complexity or systems thinking could/should belong to common knowledge / gut feeling.

Even the sharpest analyses on current (geopolitical) dynamics - at least those I could get hold of - from people capturing Realpolitik, sometimes choose to fully ignore stuff that is not deemed relevant: For example SARS’ long-lasting effects and its consequences (also on economy…), or anthropogenic climate change issues. That does mot make Realpolitik less relevant, or pressing, of course.

Acknowledgements Link to heading

I thank - don’t know - everyone? Everyone who shed, consciously or not, some light on how to look at systems, even if not providing any definitive answer, but creating or feeding the curiosity for them, and their applicability to (how we see, perceive, describe) reality. I also thank the small, local gemma4:e2b Shoggoth for reading though localhost:1313 over a few evenings, and providing comments that - just for a change - I mostly did not implement.

References / notes Link to heading