System theory - renewed	....................	Description theory
“The most important work on EA and applied System Theory today.” “Makes EA more powerful, coherent and usable.” “I read and regularly refer… way beyond any other EA/system engineering/human factors/systems theory resource.” “I just want to tell you how much I appreciate your musings on systems… exceptionally useful”.		Descriptions <create and use> <idealise> Describers <observe & envisage> Realities
Blurb Preface Comments Click to ask about a one day tutorial		Home page

1 The evolution of thinking 2 Some system thinkers Glossary System theory terminology

Cybernetics	General system theory	Soft systems	Enterprise architecture	Description and reality	Philosophy
3 Cybernetics	4 Bertalanffy and GST	6 Checkland and soft systems	7 Enterprises as systems	8 Description theory	9 System philosophy
Ashby’s ideas Beer’s ideas Ashby on cybernetics Information feedback loops System stability and change	What is a system? System properties More general system theory ideas Holism and emergent properties Encapsulation The primacy of behavior Determinism and hysteresis	Boulding’s ideas Systems thinking or poetry? Complex adaptive systems? Marx and Engels ideas More sociological perspectives	Premises of EA and TOGAF EA as applied system theory EA as applied systems thinking EA and philosophy Abstraction in TOGAF and Zachman	Description Communication Information Language, logic and data Fuzzy types and fuzzy instantiation	Types and tokens Other triangular philosophies. Knowledge and truth Realism or Idealism?
System Dynamics	Background research and musings
5 System Dynamics	More obscure system properties	Challenging thinkers and ideas	Business system models	Older musings	Older musings
Relativity v quantum mechanics Discrete event-driven systems (DEDS) Continuous System Dynamics Converting discrete to continuous	Complexity Goal-directedness Hierarchical (v network) organisation Chaos and non-linear behaviour Predictability and probabilty Agility	Ackoff’s ideas Ackoff’s system classes Snowden’s Cynefin framework Bausch’s ideas Maturana’s ideas Luhmann’s ideas	Business system modelling premises Premise 1: Encapsulation by interfaces Premise 2: Behaviours run over time Premise 3: Structures need space Premise 4: Data conveys meaning Premise 5: Models are abstractions Premise 6: Things are typified Error! Bookmark not defined.	The magic number seven Other information theories Taxonomies and ontologies	The problem of universals Description and reality The 9 propositions of scientific idealism Insights from the idealism triangle System theory as scientific idealism Philosophical position statement Existence in space and time
Intelligence and Abstraction	More about systems	Classifications	Business capabilities	Older type theory musings
Mental models and how brains work Idealisation in system theory Abstraction from “the real machine” Abstraction in the eternal golden braid Abstraction varieties and typology	The elements of systems Primacy of external and behavioural views Terms and concepts in system description The anatomy of the reference model Formalising system description System theory dictionary and ontology	System classifications Midgely’s approach classification People classification	Business architecture as systems Business capabilities as social systems EA in the system theory space EA as applied system theory Quality systems	The evolution of description The evolution of types Set and type theory Types in different disciplines How things instantiate types Why we confuse types and instances Types and meta types Types and instances – analysis	Philosophical dichotomies Ontology and phenomenology Logical positivism (Wittgenstein) About life Relevance of the above to EA
	Other / older	The schism	More…	More…
	System state: entities and identities Homeostasis and control Hierarchies and lattices. Enterprise state data Modelling madness. ISO 42010 in a nutshell What ISO 42010 means ISO change proposal	The schism in systems thinking EA, GST and social system thinking Social entities v. social systems Actors, roles and assignments	Architects, descriptions and systems Architectural descriptions of systems EA as multi-level architecture description The practical terminology challenge	Insights from description theory The psychology of description The philosophy of description Principles for a controlled vocabulary Data and reality – after Bill Kent
			Other / older musings		References
			Functionality and Logicality Granularity and Modularity Composition and Generalisation Systems as abstractions UML types and instances Modelling the passage of time		System theory and thinking references Types and sets references Laszlo and Krippner quotes & references

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