Thirteen Streams for Systems Literacy (September 2026)

A first draft, offered to be argued with. Streams are distinguished by what each takes as already given, not by topic, since the topics overlap almost completely.

• General systems — isomorphy across domains
• Formal systems science — ontology and system language
• Regulation and variety — first-order cybernetics
• The observer included — second-order and constructivist cybernetics
• Appreciation and purposeful action — soft and interpretive systems
• Boundary and power — critical systems
• Stocks, flows and dynamics
• Complexity and emergence
• The engineered artefact — systems engineering
• Organisation before ideology — the tektological lineage
• Life and its ground — anticipatory and biological systems
• Relational, Indigenous and quilombola knowing
• Process

Whether the last of these is a stream alongside the others or the bed they all run in is itself one of the open disputes.