See my post on LinkedIn (replicated below) and join the discussion there:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_rough-draft-systemscomplexitycybernetics-activity-7246779585235664896-64Xz
pdf: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/85zlt0t6ph8qarx7d7gic/2024-09-27-rough-draft-systems-thinking-reading-list-v1.1BT.pdf?rlkey=3rfavacsy4n6sl8j0pyedph1q&st=qagh1418&dl=0
Commentable Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tt8GgQQj4Qw4HnR7DxKeF370o_HlDlpv/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115526108239573817578&rtpof=true&sd=true
How do you get into systems | complexity | cybernetics?
Here’s my rough reading list.
There are a lot of answers to the question, many of them connecting with some kind of disjointing break from ‘normal’ ways of seeing and being. Anything from being bullied at school to being dyslexic. Being in an outsider group. Naively applying thinking from one domain to another. Studying a technical problem long enough to suddenly see it in a completely different light – then either have your breakthrough celebrated or rejected.
It isn’t some mystic thing and it doesn’t require to you break from polite society. But it is one of the richest, weirdest, most diverse and challenging, inspiring and confounding, confronting and validating things you can study.
I’m often asked for a reading list for people interested in the field, and I usually suck my teeth. Some of the books are engaging, insightful, humorous, relevant. Others are dry as old twigs but less likely to kindle a spark.
Really, it depends on you and your context – as David Ing says, it’s better to talk of the thinkers and their individual constellations of interests, history, learning, and personal tendencies than it is to talk of schools and fields and separate places.
And even presenting this reading list, I’d say that I’d recommend Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Ursula K Le Guin, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Star Trek, old 20th Century Sci-Fi and Apartheid-era South African writing, art movies and music more – if you happen to be a bit like me. You’ll find your thing, if you’re interested.
But. The books are there – and many of them are *really good*. Top ones I’d recommend came out this decade
- Hoverstadt’s Grammar of Systems
- Jackson’s Critical Systems Thinking: A practitioner’s Guide
- Opening the box – a slim little thing from SCiO colleagues
- Essential Balances by Velitchkov
The attached list is a bit systems-practice focused. It is also too long and incomplete and partial simply for lack of time and energy.
There are *so many* flavours of systems thinking / complexity / cybernetics – do yourself a favour and don’t flog through stuff that doesn’t work for you, find things that bring your mind alive. Start with the articles and skim through.
But do start, because you will find in here the thinking and tools to find better ways of doing things for organisations, societies, the ecosystem, for people – and a lot of fun.
Tip: to save the pdf, hover over the image of the first page and find the rectangle bottom right – click that and it should go full screen. Top right you’ll have a download option, which when clicked will then resolve into a download button… (which might then open in your browser, but at least as a proper pdf you can save).
So… deep breath… what would you recommend? What do you think is missing?
Cognitive Physicalism – everything that exists is physical and located in space–time, including cognition itself
Download the paper (PDF): https://rational-understanding.com/EFGST#01
Also available on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/165229843/Philosophical_Foundations_of_General_Systems_Theory
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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