The 1918 flu pandemic, for instance, killed an estimated 50million people worldwide. "It probably began in Kansas and was first spread by American troops traveling abroad during World War I," Dr. Larry says. "That flu marched around the world at the speed of steamships and the Orient Express. Today pandemics can spread at the speed of a 747."
Or take the case of polio, a disease known in the ancient world, but only sporadically. "What made polio become an epidemic was urbanization; in cities people shared a single, polluted water system rather than getting water from their own individual wells.
"An epidemic exemplifies system dynamics. The more you can think systemically, the more you can follow the path of coins, art, religion, or disease. Understanding how coins travel along trade routes parallels analyzing the spread of a virus."
That kind of pattern detection signals the systems mind at work. This sometimes uncanny ability lets us spot with ease the telling detail in a vast visual array (think "Where's Waldo"). If you flash a photo oflots of dots and tell people to guess how many there are, the better estimators should be better systems thinkers. The gift shows up in those best at, say, designing software or finding interventions to save failing ecosystems.
A "system" boils down to a cohesive set of lawful, regular pat terns. Pattern recognition operates in circuitry within the pari etal cortex, though the specific sites of a more extensive "systems brain"-if any-have yet to be identified. As it stands, there seems to be no dedicated network or circuitry in the brain that gives us a natural inclination toward systems understanding.
We learn how to read and navigate systems through the re markable general learning talents of the neocortex. Such cortical tal ts-as in math or engineering-can be duplicated by computers. That sets the systems mind apart from self-awareness and empathy, which operate on dedicated, largely bottom-up, circuitry. It takes a bit of effort to learn about systems, but to navigate life successfully we need strengths in this variety of focus as well as the two that come more naturally.
The 1918 flu pandemic, for instance, killed an estimated 50million people worldwide. "It probably began in Kansas and was first spread by American troops traveling abroad during World War I," Dr. Larry says. "That flu marched around the world at the speed of steamships and the Orient Express. Today pandemics can spread at the speed of a 747."Or take the case of polio, a disease known in the ancient world, but only sporadically. "What made polio become an epidemic was urbanization; in cities people shared a single, polluted water system rather than getting water from their own individual wells."An epidemic exemplifies system dynamics. The more you can think systemically, the more you can follow the path of coins, art, religion, or disease. Understanding how coins travel along trade routes parallels analyzing the spread of a virus."That kind of pattern detection signals the systems mind at work. This sometimes uncanny ability lets us spot with ease the telling detail in a vast visual array (think "Where's Waldo"). If you flash a photo oflots of dots and tell people to guess how many there are, the better estimators should be better systems thinkers. The gift shows up in those best at, say, designing software or finding interventions to save failing ecosystems.A "system" boils down to a cohesive set of lawful, regular pat terns. Pattern recognition operates in circuitry within the pari etal cortex, though the specific sites of a more extensive "systems brain"-if any-have yet to be identified. As it stands, there seems to be no dedicated network or circuitry in the brain that gives us a natural inclination toward systems understanding.We learn how to read and navigate systems through the re markable general learning talents of the neocortex. Such cortical tal ts-as in math or engineering-can be duplicated by computers. That sets the systems mind apart from self-awareness and empathy, which operate on dedicated, largely bottom-up, circuitry. It takes a bit of effort to learn about systems, but to navigate life successfully we need strengths in this variety of focus as well as the two that come more naturally.
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