[Another one where I have great sympathy with the author and intent, but don’t agree with the piece overall – however, lots of juicy debate!]
Abdul Aziz
Strategy & Performance through Empathy, Architecture and Analytics
February 14, 2026
I recently developed a “Systems & Complexity Lifecycle” framework as a teaching device, treating systems theory, complexity science, chaos theory, and catastrophe theory as temporal stages in how entities evolve from stability through transformation.
The framework maps four stages:
Stage 1 – Systems: Stability and homeostasis (Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory)
Stage 2 – Complexity: Emergence of higher-order properties (Holland’s Hidden Order)
Stage 3 – Chaos: Sensitivity to initial conditions (Gleick’s Chaos)
Stage 4 – Catastrophe: Discontinuous transformation (Thom’s catastrophe theory)
(4) The Great Divide: Systems Thinking and Complexity Science | LinkedIn
Systems Community of Inquiry 