--- tags: concept aliases: systems date created: 2021-12-30 publish: true --- > Systems thinking is the ability or skill to perform problem-solving in complex systems. In application, it has been defined as both a skill and an awareness. A system is an entity with interrelated and interdependent parts; it is defined by its boundaries and is more than the sum of its parts. Changing one part of the system affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. – [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory#cite_ref-auto_4-0) No part of any system broken down sufficiently is particularly complex. Becoming an Olympic athlete seems unreachable difficult but every day of that persons life involved small simple atomic steps regarding nutrition, practice, time. This ties in to James Clear's Atomic Habits [[§ Books#Atomic Habits|Atomic Habits]]. ___ ### Shipping Container Analogy ![[Shipping Container Analogy#^b45c83]] ___ ### Rapmycin and Cells https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/dirty-drug-and-ice-cream-tub AVIR MITRA: Well, maybe that's happening, but maybe something even crazier is happening that even Suren had no idea about. What scientists are now just starting to wrap their head around is that when you turn down mTOR because you don't have enough of the good stuff, it doesn't just say stop. In fact, it deploys a whole 'nother program. And some people call that the starvation protocol. All right. So let's go back to this general contractor guy - right? - mTOR. LATIF NASSER: Yeah. AVIR MITRA: What this general contractor actually says is like, we've fallen on hard times, everybody. There's no new materials coming in. Don't just sit there and wait for something good to happen. Instead, start fixing yourself up. Take all this junk laying around; recycle it. For example, if there are no pipes - hey, plumbers, like, why don't you go around this house and pick up all this junk that's sitting there and fix it up and see if you can make some pipes? LATIF NASSER: Oh, got it. So that's what's going on inside the cell. Like, it's like - it's doing that thing. It's, like, taking up the garbage and, like, making it useful. ## Resources [[§ Articles#Every Design is a System https uxdesign cc every-design-is-a-system-28bb9bf028b7 gi bc192ba07a1|Every Design is a System]]