Overview

A new science is emerging in this century. Systems science, also called complexity science, describes how everything, from an atom to a brain to the Universe, is made up of the same patterns. For 14 billion years, Nature's systems have organized themselves using networks, boundaries, bonds, flows, feedback, cycles, evolution, and more. Understand how Nature's complex systems work generally and we can better organize ourselves. Seeing is the first field guide to these patterns and processes. Systems theorist and researcher Lynn Rasmussen distills the work of hundreds of scientists, theorists, and systems thinkers down to the essentials. Thanks to its straightforward text and illustrations, readers at all levels easily grasp 19 core ""system processes."" Seeing illustrates how these newfound patterns work in everyday life. A child's tantrum is an amplifying feedback loop and a parent's soothing is balancing feedback. In an organization, 20% of the people doing 80% of the work illustrates a power-law distribution. One link connecting two nodes in different networks causes information, viruses, and forest fires to leap and rapidly spread. Take it a bit deeper and you begin to see how Western twentieth-century reasoning is dominated by division. To understand something, we break it into parts. Dividing the world into economics, politics, and religions, the human from the natural, and mind from spirit also divides us and leads to environmental, social, and personal crises. Seeing illuminates another way. By asking the same questions of every kind of system-Is it a network? Is it made up of networks? What are its boundaries? Inputs? Outputs? How does it adapt and evolve through time?-new possibilities appear. Former logic seems archaic. Seeing reveals the power of this new metascience to transcend and synthesize, expand our perception, and bring us together.

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Reviews

"""Seeing has forged a new and needed niche in the ecosystem of books for the general public about systems thinking, theory, and practice."" -Tyler Volk, author of Metapatterns and Quarks to Culture ""This book is going to be one of those that changes the way you see literally everything. Lynn paints a rich picture for appreciating the interconnected patterns inherent in the universe that everyone can learn from and enjoy."" -Gary Robert Smith, President (2024/2025) International Society for System Sciences ""A fascinating vision of the world as a kaleidoscope of patterns on the smallest and largest scales. . .admirably lucid, straightforward, and intuitively appealing. . .a fine introduction for lay readers to systems theory that reveals its fertile insights in many ingenious guises."" ""✔️GET IT!"" -Kirkus Reviews ""As the human social condition becomes increasingly complex, an understanding of how everything is connected to everything else and has consequences is absolutely essential. . .Lynn Rasmussen has boiled it down to the fundamentals. . . an essential starting point for anyone interested in grasping how healthy systems work."" -George Mobus, PhD, coauthor of Principles of Systems Science and author of Systems Science: Theory, Analysis, Modeling, and Design This is great work - a huge achievement to distill the complexity of Len Troncale's System Process Theory into an accessible and really useful essence. Full of transdisciplinary synergies and insights. Every page made me think! -Hillary Sillitto, co-author of Scotland 2070 and author of Architecting Systems ""Seeing is an elegantly composed introduction to systems science. The simplicity in describing complexity is comprehensive and well presented. A great contribution toward the goal of systems science literacy for all!"" -Peter D. Tuddenham, co-founder, The College of Exploration and the Systems Literacy project ""This compilation has been sorely needed in the systems field. Lynn Rasmussen has done a remarkable job of illuminating critical concepts in a way that makes them easily and clearly understood."" -Debora Hammond, PhD, author of The Science of Synthesis ""This is the book we've all been waiting for! A brilliant, accessible, yet in-depth and rigorously written coverage of systems science and its principal processes and patterns. (For anyone who wants to) learn the glorious commonality of all systems and how they work and behave. A+ for this book!"" -Stephen Mastro, PhD, adjunct faculty, Drexel University's College of Engineering ""...the story in this book is timely, an important contrast to-and a remedy for-much of what is happening in the world.... for those who want to understand more about systems science and those who want a fresh perspective on solving the challenging problems we face individually and collectively."" -Duane Hybertson, PhD, author of Model-Oriented Systems Engineering Science"

Author Information

Lynn Rasmussen, cofounder of the Maui Institute and author, is a systems theorist and researcher with over 25 years of conversations and collaborations with cutting-edge systems scientists and thinkers. With roots in public health and community service, Lynn applies her knowledge of systems to the environmental, cultural, and economic crises facing her island home. Learn more about her work at the institute's website (MauiInstitute.org) and substack (mauiinstitute.substack.com)

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