System Thinking: To See a World in a Grain of Sand
Posted on October 25, 2013 | posted by:When Isaac Newton holds a simple dropped apple and unseals the most mysterious principle of nature, system could be simpler than you see, but also more complex than you think. Being praised by poets, philosophers, and all the ancient wise men, every little thing like a flower, a leaf, and a teardrop is a system.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
William Blake (1757-1827)
System is about relationships
System is artificial and natural. Interestingly, from biological laws to ideological philosophy and from philological experiments to economical principles, most of the theories in the world have similarities. When you see the world and every single piece of it as a system, you will discover the inherent relationships, your past experience and knowledge will be connected and you will get inspired.
System is about questions
System gives the reason of every existence and why they exist this way. The nature of system is relationship, so there is no sense to judge a thing without thinking in the context of a system. System is ubiquitous. It outspreads its fairly long tentacles around us. Those tentacles are the most accessible and pervasive touch-points in our life. If you stop here and make decision/ judgment base on what you see, you will no longer see the full body. The tentacles are the questions but not answers, clues to the intangible relationship and position in a more organized system.
System is about look outside
System is a tower. People in it overlook the view from the tower and they think that view is a full view. But only people who stand outside the tower will see the exactly whole things. Things go same when we talk about design. We usually used the word ‘user-centered design’ in the product design or interactive design process; however, it is totally different when we see design in a systematic vision. There are many stakeholders in this Eco-system, including business, marketing, management, engineering and so on. It is no longer a systematic thinking if we only consider the user, what’s more, a risk will be taken for the structural mistakes.
System is design
Nowadays, most leading digital giants on this planet, such as Google and Apple, applied system thinking in their strategy. Every product they make will be a very important tentacle in the system they are building to cover every touch point of customers. A single product is no longer a collection of expected features by customers, but also possible connections to other possibilities. Take latest iOS versions for example, the Passbook in iOS 6 is not a single feature but an incredible connection to all the existing travel services in mobile; similarly, the thumbprint scanner in iOS 7 opens up a door to the next generation of payment, security check, personal identification, etc. What they bring to the industry is an increased complexity and possibility of a system, but not longer a feature. This is how system thinking changes the business world, it amplifies how product can be influent in a business context, more than in a customer context.
To be a designer is far more difficult than before, as the world is become more and more artificial and overwhelming knowledge and information and more importantly, the desire to gain them. Design is no longer only aesthetic, functional or creative; it’s a part of the system, as well as business, society and technology. System thinking is the first criterion for being a real 21st century designer.
System is a philosophy of life
Buddhism shares similar thought with system thinking in life. (I am not a Buddhism, but the following philosophy is the best explanation of how system thinking important in life.)
The main question that Buddhism tries to answers is “how to overcome suffering”. Ji, one of the four basic principles in Buddhism (Ku, Ji, Mie, Dao) tells us the reason why we are suffering from our lives: the incomprehension of the ultimate truth of the world, namely “the rules of origin”, a kind of system thinking. The incomprehension may lead to the feeling of like or dislike, and the motivation of endeavor or rejection. The result is greedy to things and suffering comes along.
“The rules of origin” claims that nothing in the world will exist alone in eternity; All origins attach others and combined by elements and conditions in the systems. Nothing has noumenon. We will definitely be suffering if we are going to pursue happiness from a single thing.
In a word, system thinking is not only important for design, but also for our life. If we see things from the system perspective, then there will be less complaint, disappoint and even less ecstasy and crazy. Our mindset will be more calm and clear. It is a practical philosophy for all human beings.
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