Systems Thinking and Reductionist thinking.
According to Karl Popper, all problems are either Clocks or Clouds. A clock is something you can take to pieces analyze the parts and work out how it works. A cloud is a dynamic system, you can’t take it apart. The way to understand a cloud is to study it in a holistic way.
You can’t approach a cloud-like a clock, it’s too complex. You can reduce its elements to fundamental components but that doesn’t solve the mystery of its dynamic nature. Problem-solving needs both approaches.
Traditional science tries to explain how the universe works with a mostly reductionist point of view. Most problems are approached on the basis of the analysis of their discrete elements in order to form a story that is able to predict behavior. Deductive reasoning rules the day. If we can understand the parts, we can understand the whole. This is in part due to our brains’ need to reduce uncertainty and increase predictability by creating feasible stories from observations.
But many things we experience aren’t like that, they’re far more complex. Many things we experience are much more than the sum of their parts. Many things we experience have emergent properties that don’t exist in the parts that make them.
Think of a city like London or New York. There is something more than just the people or just the buildings, there is a dynamic that only happens by the pattern, interaction and relationships of the salient elements.
In order to understand these complex adaptive systems, we have to take a holistic and more intuitive view. We need to focus on how things operate within the context of the system and how they change over time. We need to take a bigger picture.
It’s not that one system of understanding and problem solving is better than another, each one is needed but in the right place. Not all problems can be understood by summing the parts and not all problems can be understood and solved by holistic thinking. We need both.
Understanding the concept of a city, evolution, personal relations, Organisms, the weather are examples of complex adaptive systems.
Our brains are complex adaptive systems, analyzing each neuron doesn’t explain how consciousness occurs, how we have a sense of self or in fact how any cogent thought seems to have meaning for us.
Our personal relationships with other people cannot be reduced to simple constituent parts. Our relationships are fluid, complicated and dynamic, changing over time. We only understand (if we do understand at all) with intuitions and negotiations which depend on the other person's reactions (which are also complex). Mostly anyway we don’t think how they feel, don’t say what they think and don’t do what they say. Personal relationships an only be analyzed with systems thinking approach which most people do automatically and intuitively.
There are, of course, many other examples of emergent systems. One that I particularly like is the example of our idea of atoms. Suggested by the ancient Greeks, we finally established that they were real things, then we go deeper and we understand that atoms are made up of a nucleus, electrons and then all the elementary particles and so on. We form a mental picture, a kind of metaphor, like our solar system, that allows us to visualize, in physical terms, many of the things around us. We can look up to the heavens and we can understand the stars and the galaxies and even the origins of the universe. Then we shift our metaphor and understanding because of quantum mechanics and the whole picture is thrown out.
We need thinking frames, metaphors and conceptual models in order to understand and make stories that allow s to be able to predict the physical universe. The problem is that it’s a dynamic system and evolves, grows and changes.
Geoffrey West, the physicist has suggested a method for using systems thinking for problem-solving. He suggests also that it’s not reductive or systems thinking that is required for problem-solving but a combination of both. Each in its right place. Systems-thinking requires deep intuitions to discover the essential features of that system and to discover what are the feature or characteristics that are really dominating the way it operates.
For approaching any professional or life project, Big Think website suggests the following
Step 1.
List your “Clouds” and “Clocks”.
Create a list divided into two columns. Label one column “Clocks” and the other “Clouds”. Then write in clock or cloud projects you’d like to undertake.
Remember that clock projects are those that can be deconstructed into their constituent parts. They lack hidden information, and success is easy to assess. In the end, the clock either works or it doesn’t. A good example of a clock project is balancing your finances.
Cloud projects, on the other hand, are emergent in nature. Many different facets synthesize in the project – some visible, some hidden. Changes to one facet will feedback into others in complex ways. While there is no right answer, there are alterations that produce better systematic results. A good example would be a cloud project for maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
For a cloud project, start by writing a mission statement that declares your goal. Something that inspires you to direct your efforts. For example: “I will improve my work-life balance, so I can be more engaged at home.”
Step 2.
Reduce the system.
To succeed you’ll need to understand your cloud project’s component parts and how they interrelate. To do that you will also need some reductionist thinking.
Take time to analyze your cloud project’s system. As you do, write out your project’s component, characteristic parts.
For example, a work-life balance list might include the following parts:
Sleep
Exercise
Mental Health
Hobbies
Professional and personal goals
Hours spent at work
Obligations to friends and family
Stress management techniques.
And so on.
Step 4.
Analyze the system.
Review your list and analyze its relations, syntheses and feedback loops.
In the work-life balance example, sleep and exercise provide the energy they need to complete the work on time, meaning less likelihood of bringing work home. Similarly, stress management techniques increase the quality time spent, allowing one to engage in at-home moments. Clear personal and professional goals mean less time wasted scrolling through the Netflix catalog of life.
After your analysis, devise a plan to tackle your project. This plan can be in any form you like. You can create an outline or self-affirmation statement. If you are a more visual person, you can create a mind map, flowchart or feedback cycle.
Step 5.
Reflect on the system.
Put your plan into action. As with any plan it should be reviewed, reflected on and adjusted against perceived successes and failures.
Because cloud projects are so dynamic, you’ll probably encounter hidden information or emergent information where unforeseen things interplay.