System theory for architects https://bit.ly/2yXGImr	....................	Philosophy
“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 Tutorial in London Saturday March 2^nd 2019		Home page

1 The science & philosophy of systems 2 Thinkers before systems thinking 3 System thinkers & ideas 4 System stability & change 5 Systems thinking: science or poetry?
Cybernetics	General System Theory (GST)	Soft Systems	Enterprise architecture	Description and reality	Philosophy
6 Cybernetics	8 GST: Bertalanffy	9 Soft Systems: Checkland	10 Enterprises as systems	11 Description theory	12 System philosophy
Ashby’s ideas Beer’s ideas Ashby on cybernetics Information feedback loops	System properties More system ideas Holism and emergent properties Encapsulation The primacy of behavior Determinism and hysteresis	Boulding’s ideas Complex adaptive systems? Marx and Engels ideas Ackoff’s ideas Ackoff’s system classes 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
7 System Dynamics	More obscure system properties	Challenging systems thinkers	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 probability Agility	System types System approaches - Midgely Participatory democracy - Bausch People types Maturana’s ideas Luhmann’s ideas Snowden’s Cynefin framework	Business system modelling premises Business architecture as systems Business capabilities as social systems EA in the system theory space EA as applied system theory Quality systems 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	The schism	More…	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	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	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		Other / older musings	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		Functionality and Logicality Granularity and Modularity Composition and Generalisation Systems as abstractions UML types and instances Modelling the passage of time	Insights from description theory The psychology of description The philosophy of description Principles for a controlled vocabulary Data and reality – after Bill Kent	Glossary System theory terminology References More references Types and sets references Laszlo and Krippner references

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