Abdul Aziz
Strategy & Performance through Empathy, Architecture and Analytics
March 28, 2026
The systems framing: Beyond the 2×2 and why Operating Model Design needs Cybernetic First Principles | LinkedIn
Category Archives: Discussion
A view or perspective on the world
At #STSP26 I argued systems practice is a humanism – Taylor (2026)
Reflections on Systems Thinking Systems Practice – 2026 Conference – Raghavan (2026)
[Requires one of those infernal ‘now check your email’ logins but the trick is to just keep registering – even if already registered – to read the full article]
Pluralistic and Multi-perspective!
Reflections on Systems Thinking Systems Practice – 2026 Conference
Reflections on Systems Thinking Systems Practice – 2026 Conference
Pluralistic and Multi-perspective!
Laksh Raghavan
Review | A calculus for self-reference – Diaz (2026)
Review | A calculus for self-reference | Complexity Cat
Since Aristotle, we have attempted to avoid self-causation, giving rise to ontic dualisms, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, and pancomputationalism. In this article, Francisco Varela develops an alternative axiomatic paradigm whose arithmetic and algebra allow us to address self-reference. The implications and interpretation of employing such an alternative mathematical foundation are remarkable, and that is why I will examine it today.
Posted Mar 17, 2026
By Amahury J. L. Díaz
Reflective Interpretive Frameworks • Incident 1
Re: William Waites • The Agent That Doesn’t Know Itself
WW: ❝Why Has Nobody Done This?❞
People who study C.S. Peirce would say reflective reasoning requires triadic relations at core and there is work being done on that. One of the challenges is clarifying the role of triadic relations in category theory and raising them into higher relief as fundamental operations.
- Note. I was looking for a word to describe a random encounter with something that jogs one’s memory of a recurring theme — incident plays into the reflection theme and looked worth trying for now.
Resources
- Inquiry Driven Systems • Inquiry Into Inquiry
- Reflective Interpretive Frameworks
- The Phenomenology of Reflection
- Higher Order Sign Relations
- Notes On Categories • (1) • (2)
- Survey of Relation Theory
- Survey of Inquiry Driven Systems
- Survey of Semiotics, Semiosis, Sign Relations
cc: Academia.edu • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Mathstodon
cc: Research Gate • Structural Modeling • Systems Science • Syscoi
Rich Programmed Activity Models – Karthik Suresh (YouTube)
27 Mar 2026
A talk given at the Systems Thinking Systems Practice conference at Hull in March 2026
Rich Programmed Activity Models
Rich Programmed Activity Models – YouTube
Karthik Suresh
A talk given at the Systems Thinking Systems Practice conference at Hull in March 2026
Toward a Critical Agentic Systems Design Practice – Salvaggio (2026)
Toward a Critical Agentic Systems Design Practice
Eryk Salvaggio
22 Mar 2026 — 7 min read
STPrism
STPrism is not simply a digital library; it is an architectural framework designed to refract the differing point of views from Systems Thinking and Complexity Science into a coherent collection of principles distilled from the unique voices of individual thinkers.
Nutshell _ Mastering the Muddle
2026 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering, 22-24 September 2026, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Note that deadline for abstracts will be extended till May and full paper till June 1st
Philosophical Foundations of General Systems Theory – Challoner (2026)
[In the Facebook group ISA RC51 on Sociocybernetics, John A Challoner writes:]
Philosophical Foundations of General Systems Theory
I’m pleased to share a new paper:“Philosophical Foundations of General Systems Theory” (EFGST 01)
This paper sets out the philosophical basis for the Extended Framework for General Systems Theory (EFGST), integrating two complementary perspectives:
Cognitive Physicalism – everything that exists is physical and located in space–time, including cognition itself
Together, these provide a realist yet epistemically modest foundation for systems science.
The paper explores several key implications, including:
One theme that runs throughout is that we never act directly on reality itself, but on representations of it; representations that are sufficient for action, but never complete.
To illustrate this, I’ve included a banner image accompanying the paper. You might like to take a careful look at it…
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
This paper forms the first in a series developing a unified systems framework spanning physical, biological, and social domains.
ISA RC51 on Sociocybernetics | Facebook
Papers in Systems Discussion: Causal Texture of Organizational Environments (Emery and Trist, 1965) – discussion led by Trond Hjorteland, 6 April 2026, 1pm Eastern Time, online, free
Causal Texture of Organizational Environments
Next in our Papers in Systems discussion series: “The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments” by Fred Emery and Eric Trist
The discussion will be led by Trond Hjorteland. Trond has been bringing many of these classics in sociotechnical systems to broader attention in our field. We are very excited that Trond will lead this!
When: Monday, April 6th, 2025, 1PM – 2PM Eastern Time (US/Canada) (19:00 CET). The Zoom room will remain open until 2:30PM for informal discussion. (Check time in your timezone: WorldTimeBuddy )
The paper is available at: https://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/64/04702605/0470260564.pdf
Some quotes to tease the appetite for reading this 1965 paper:
“A main problem in the study of organizational change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exist are themselves changing—at an increasing rate, under the impact of technological change. This means that they demand consideration for their own sake.”
“This requires an extension of systems theory. The first steps in systems theory were taken in connection with the analysis of internal processes in organisms, or organizations, which involved relating parts to the whole.”
‘Organizational environments differ in their causal texture, both as regards degree of uncertainty and in many other important respects. A typology is suggested that identifies four ‘‘ideal types”‘
Papers in Systems Discussion: Causal Texture
Papers in Systems Discussion: Causal Texture
1–2pm, April 6th, 2026
Remote
View schedule
Causal Texture of Organizational Environments
Next in our Papers in Systems discussion series: “The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments” by Fred Emery and Eric Trist
The discussion will be led by Trond Hjorteland. Trond has been bringing many of these classics in sociotechnical systems to broader attention in our field. We are very excited that Trond will lead this!
When: Monday, April 6th, 2025, 1PM – 2PM Eastern Time (US/Canada) (19:00 CET). The Zoom room will remain open until 2:30PM for informal discussion. (Check time in your timezone: WorldTimeBuddy )
The paper is available at: https://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/64/04702605/0470260564.pdf
Some quotes to tease the appetite for reading this 1965 paper:
“A main problem in the study of organizational change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exist are themselves changing—at an increasing rate, under the impact of technological change. This means that they demand consideration for their own sake.”
“This requires an extension of systems theory. The first steps in systems theory were taken in connection with the analysis of internal processes in organisms, or organizations, which involved relating parts to the whole.”
‘Organizational environments differ in their causal texture, both as regards degree of uncertainty and in many other important respects. A typology is suggested that identifies four ‘‘ideal types”‘
The River of Life: Imagining Our Work as a Living System – NiCarthaigh (2026)
March 19, 2026
Jaxx NiCarthaigh
The River of Life: Imagining Our Work as a Living System – Dr. Kathy Allen
March 19, 2026
The River of Life: Imagining Our Work as a Living System
Differential Logic • Discussion 17
Re: Differential Logic • The Logic of Change and Difference
Re: Systems Science Working Group • Paola Di Maio
- PDM:
- Subject: Differential Logic —
A point of contact with AI Knowledge RepresentationDear Jon,
Thank you for keeping the bell tolling — your framing of differential logic as the logic of variation arrives at a propitious moment.
For the past year I have been working at the intersection of knowledge representation, non‑logical reasoning, and AI systems, partly through the W3C AI Knowledge Representation Community Group (which I chair) and partly through independent research. One of the persistent problems we encounter is that classical propositional and first order logic, however powerful for static state description, cannot represent the dynamics of reasoning systems — what changes, how fast, under what perturbation.
Your formulation cuts right to it: ordinary propositional calculus describes positions in logical space; differential propositional calculus describes movement through it. The analogy to Leibniz–Newton augmenting Descartes marks a categorical shift.
This connects directly to work I have been developing on what I call the five‑corners framework, extending Nagarjuna’s “catuskoti” (the four‑cornered logic: true, false, both, neither — with Graham Priest’s fifth corner as refusal of the frame) toward a relational and co‑evolutionary account of knowledge. The catuskoti gives us positions; your differential extension gives us the calculus of transitions between them. The five corners are attractors; differential logic describes the manifold on which the system moves.
I am attaching a recent research note —
- “Beyond Formal Logic: Non‑Logical Forms of Valid Reasoning and Their Implications for AI Knowledge Representation”. Online.
It documents three classes of reasoning that produce valid outcomes yet resist formalization in FOL: embodied ecological reasoning, somatic‑intuitive reasoning, and transrational insight.
I suspect your differential extension of propositional calculus may offer formal traction on at least the first two, precisely because it can represent how a reasoning agent’s truth‑value assignments shift as context changes.
I also noticed your reference to neural network activation states and competition constraints in relation to the boundary operator.
This is terrain I am actively exploring in connection with oscillatory network models and a citizen science project on anomalous luminous phenomena (where the signal is change, not static state). I may have to write a paper on that.
Jotted down some thoughts —
With collegial regards,
Paola Di Maio
Chair, W3C AI Knowledge Representation Community Group
Research Lead, Center for Systems, Knowledge Representation and Neuroscience, Ronin Institute
Dear Paola,
Many thanks for your kind reply and comments.
I was getting ready to devote a blog post (or two or three) by way of responding to your very substantial comments and I see you addressed the Systems Science Working Group but your post did not make it through to the web interface. Did you intend to post it there? It would help if I had a list link in my response if you did so. Otherwise, if it’s okay with you, I could just quote the whole of your remarks on my blog. Please let me know what you prefer.
Regards,
Jon
cc: Academia.edu • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Mathstodon
cc: Research Gate • Structural Modeling • Systems Science • Syscoi
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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