When we Move up and down in the system hierarchy, we should start our system descriptions “top down”, with the largest patterns, instead of “bottom up” like in Systems Thinking.
A sufficient representation [of a complex system] is one that has a set of possible states corresponding to the set of distinguishable states of the system at each level of resolution, down to the level we need to describe the properties we care about—the relevant parameters—and no further. When considering interventions that affect the large scale properties of the system, rather than accumulating details about the system, we should start with the largest scale pattern of behavior and add additional information only as needed.Bar-Yam (2017), 1
References
- Bar-Yam (2017): “Why Complexity is Different”