Does foreplay cause erect nipples, or do erect nipples cause foreplay?
(This thought crossed my mind the other night as I attempted to read Thinking in Systems: A Primer in bed while Neal attempted to distract me.)
A confluence of factors at work and school has sparked my interest in systems thinking and systems dynamics. A lot of it seems like "well, duh" common sense, but elucidated in such a way as to clear up one's own thinking as well as suggest a broad range of applications. As an attention-deficit voracious reader and compulsive internet surfer, I've had a shallow exposure to a wide range of fields and thus had already noticed that similar ideas pop up again and again under different names in different disciplines. So I agree with the premise that most of the world can be analyzed through a common set of systems analysis concepts and tools, and was excited to discover that there's actually a formal field of study of "how it all fits together."
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows provides a well-written, clear, concise, broad overview of systems thinking and its applications for a lay audience, without delving into technical material like mathematics or computer modeling. It got me excited enough about the subject to order another book, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, which I hope to read later this week (if I have time). At first glance the second book appears to be a more technical and mathematical text, so I hope that I can still follow along. I'm also thinking about working my way through MIT's online self-study course Road Maps: A Guide to Learning System Dynamics. Anyone know of any other good introductory resources on the topic?
I wonder how one breaks into the field of systems dynamics? Now that UNLV's Informatics program has been cut, I'm at a loss for what to do after I complete my MBA. I'd still like to get a PhD and become a professor, but I'm not sure where or in what. Systems dynamics seems like it could be a good field for a dilettante like me...
