Systems Philosophy Lab

In 2017, the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) all publicly declared Systems Thinking as a key leadership skill and that it is necessary to deal with the fundamental interconnectedness of complex, local-to-global economic, social and environmental issues. We need systems change is the most cited popular mantra in the public climate crisis debate!

Welcome to the Systems Philosophy Lab, from systems sensing to systems acting.

In this Lab we inquire what a galaxy and a biological cell, an organism and an organization, technology and social fabric, an ecosystem and economy and many more unities have in common. We inquire the potential of thinking in interconnectedness, circularity, emergence, wholes, synthesis and relationships and how this skillset may change our perception, reasoning and action.

System theory or systems science is the transdisciplinary study of systems in which System Thinking can be learned. However, Systems Thinking is more than just a collection of tools and methods (which are so many available specific to the context), it is at its core an underlying philosophy and worldview. With systems thinking we can move from observing events, to identifying patterns of behaviour overtime, to surfacing the underlying structures that drive those events and patterns.

But the journey starts with each one of us, as a human, one particular system of systems, a complex beauty or beautiful complexity and the most beautiful unity, our mind.