1 Prologue: From Chaos to Having No Choice But to Use the Word “System”

If judged solely by the article titles, my blog content indeed appears increasingly “cluttered”: extending from home data centers, Docker, WordPress, Cloudflare, active-active architecture, and AI, to vocal music, medicine, religion, mathematics, and potentially philosophy in the future.

Putting these topics side by side, any reader clicking in for the first time would probably have an intuitive impression:Cluttered, and lacking an obvious classification logicThis is not the kind of clutter that comes from “broad interests,” but rather feels like engineering notes, spiritual reflections, vocal practice insights, and medical observations, among other things, have been forced into the same space.

At first, I felt uneasy about this myself: from the perspective of a traditional “tech blog,” home data centers, Cloudflare, and AI are already vertical enough; but when the content begins to touch upon singing, Buddhism, or medicine, the original classification methods fail almost immediately, leaving me to rely on tags to barely maintain a kind ofeditorial order, rather than an order of understanding.

As my writing progressed, I gradually realized a subtle yet increasingly clear shift: on the surface, these articles are distributed across completely different fields, but at a deeper level, the questions they attempt to answer often follow similar patterns.

This feeling did not initially come from abstract thinking, but from concrete problems:

In vocal practice, I encountered this situation time and again: a certain technique, when isolated, was completely correct, even highly “standard,” but once placed into a whole song or a real performance scenario, the voice instead became tense, awkward, and uncontrollable. Only later did I realize that the problem was not with the technique itself, but rather—in pursuing local correctness, I had destroyed the stability of the whole.

In my medical-related studies and reflections, it was almost the exact same structure. A certain indicator is successfully “brought down,” but at the cost of increasing the burden on other organs; a certain intervention is effective in the short term, but leaves the body in a state of compensation over the long term. The further I looked, the more clearly I realized: health is not about whether a certain value meets the standard, but whether multiple subsystems can maintain a dynamic balance.

In the fields of technology and architecture, this experience occurred even earlier and more frequently. A service might look excellent in performance on its own, but once it enters a real production environment, it triggers chain reactions across network, storage, scheduling, and fault tolerance; a module is “beautifully designed,” yet becomes the most fragile node in the overall architecture. Engineering experience constantly reminds me:system-level failures are often not because a certain link did something wrong, but because each link was optimized individually while ignoring their interactions.

Even when I read Buddhist and Lao-Zhuang philosophy, I was surprised to find that this tension between the local and the whole is similarly abstracted into philosophical and religious concepts: “dependent origination,” “non-self,” “the Tao produced One, One produced Two...” On the surface, these concepts belong to religion or philosophy, but the core issues they discuss are highly consistent with the dilemmas I encountered in technology, the body, and the voice:nothing exists in isolation, and treating the local as the whole is in itself a fundamental misjudgment.

It was at this point that I gradually realized a fact:I did not deliberately set out to do ‘cross-disciplinary writing,’ but rather subconsciously hoped to discover and summarize similar patterns from problems in different fields.

Thus, a more fundamental question naturally emerged: Is there a perspective that can penetrate the differences of specific fields and capture the recurring patterns behind them? This perspective cannot hold true in only a single discipline, nor can it be just an abstract metaphor; rather, it must possess stable explanatory power across different scales and contexts.

Through constant comparison and reflection, I found myself pointing toward the same way of understanding—about how a whole is composed of parts, how those parts interact, and why the behavior of the whole often defies single-point intuition. Only later did I realize that this is precisely what people call:systemsWhat the ancients called “skill advancing to Dao” is perhaps describing this very process: when we truly delve deep into a specific endeavor, we often eventually touch upon structural laws that transcend the technique itself and possess a more universal nature.

Thus, my thoughts return to the most fundamental step:What is a “system”?

2 What is a ”System”?

In daily life, we actually live within systems all the time, though most of the time we do not consciously realize their existence. The mobile phone is the most intuitive and easiest example to understand: iOS and Android systems manage hardware, applications, storage, and networks, allowing various functions to operate in coordination. Every time you swipe the screen, open an app, or receive a message, what lies behind is not a “single-point action,” but rather the system's rules at work.

From this perspective, a mobile phone system has a very clear structure: it has boundaries—the whole formed by hardware and software; it has components—chips, memory, applications, and drivers; it has rules—process scheduling, permission control, and resource allocation; and it has inputs and outputs—your operations triggering system responses.

This type of system is intuitive, controllable, and decomposable, making it the easiest for us to understand and accept. For many people, their first encounter with the word “system” often begins right here.

If we zoom out slightly, we will see many more similar examples in the IT world. Database systems, distributed systems, cloud computing architectures, microservice platforms... they are likewise composed of multiple components, operating collaboratively under clear rules and interface constraints. This type of system pursues efficiency, reliability, scalability, and predictability, emphasizing “design,” “control,” and “optimization”—and is also the form of system that engineers are most familiar with and best at handling.

In such systems, we are accustomed to breaking down problems: analyzing module responsibilities, locating performance bottlenecks, adjusting parameters, and refactoring structures. As long as the model is clear enough, we can theoretically deduce system behavior and even predict outcomes within a certain range.

However, as mentioned in the preceding prologue, when we shift our gaze from technical systems to the broader real world, the concept of a “system” begins to grow restless: atoms do not exist in isolation; they arrange themselves in specific structures to form molecules and matter. The human body is not a simple piecing together of organs, but rather multiple subsystems working in synergy to sustain life. Society is not a mere stacking of individuals, but a network interwoven with people, organizations, rules, and culture. In ecosystems, animals, plants, climate, and soil are interdependent, where a change in any single link triggers a chain reaction. Even from galactic motion to cosmic evolution, everything exhibits some form of relationship, cycle, and hierarchical structure. In this sense, “system” is no longer just a technical term in engineering, but has gradually become alanguage for describing the way the world exists。

It is important to note that the “system” we are referring to here is no longer an operating system or database in the IT sense. It points to a more abstract and universal pattern of relationships:How parts interact with one another, how parts and the whole mutually constrain each other, and how order is generated amidst change, as well as how it is broken and rebuilt within that change.

These types of systems often possess several distinct characteristics: they are dynamic rather than static structures; highly coupled rather than simply assembled; and evolutionary rather than designed all at once. They cannot be fully controlled or precisely predicted, yet they still exhibit a certain stable overall behavior.

At this point, we have actually seen two typical facets of the concept of a “system”:

• One is a system in the engineering sense—with clear boundaries, explicit rules, and capable of being designed and controlled;
• The other is a system in the natural and social sense—open, complex, constantly evolving, relying more on internal laws than external instructions.

These two types of systems differ vastly in their manifestations, but they point to the same core fact:The world is not composed of isolated objects, but of interconnected parts that form a whole; the behavior of any single part reverberates within the larger structure.

Therefore, understanding “systems” is not just about learning a concept, but about learning a way of observing the world—learning to see the whole beyond the parts, to see the structure beyond the outcomes, and to understand balance amidst change.

It is precisely from this perspective that the subsequent, seemingly disparate fields—technology, nature, society, life, and art—begin to reveal the shared logic underlying them.

3 Systems in the Eyes of the Ancients

1 Introduction: When I Look Back at the Ancients

After truly beginning to use this “system” perspective to understand technology, the body, voice, and society, a profound question arose in my mind:Is this really a “modern way of thinking”?

At first, I thought “systems” stemmed primarily from engineering, cybernetics, and modern science—an analytical tool born out of necessity when confronting complex problems. But when I brought this perspective to reread ancient philosophies, I gradually realized a fundamental truth:I am not inventing a new way of knowing, but rather using modern language to re-approach a destination that humanity has arrived at time and again.

Whether it is Laozi speaking of the “Dao,” the Buddha teaching “dependent origination,” Plato's world of Forms, or Aristotle's system of causality, their concern was never with isolated objects, but rather: how things come into being, how they interact, how they derive meaning within the whole, and how they maintain order amidst change.

These questions are, in essence, highly consistent with the dilemmas I repeatedly encounter in technical architecture, bodily regulation, vocal training, and even daily life. It is just that the ancients used the language of philosophy, spiritual practice, or metaphysics, whereas today we are more accustomed to the vocabulary of engineering, models, and systems.

Therefore, this chapter is not intended to “prove that the ancients understood systems theory long ago,” nor is it to paste modern labels on them. Rather, it is more of a look back:As I attempt to use “systems” to understand the world, I find that these ancient philosophies have long since described the same holistic structure and operational logic, across different civilizations and in their respective languages.

Approaching these ideas from this standpoint, they cease to be mere historical philosophical texts and instead become a dialogue across time—addressing the relationship between the whole and its parts, order and change, coming into being and passing away, questions that have always perplexed humanity.

2 Systems in the Eyes of Laozi

Laozi wrote in the *Tao Te Ching*: “The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced all things.” This statement is not only a philosophical classic but can also be seen as a highly condensed summary of systems thinking:

Here, the “Dao” is not a mysterious metaphysics, but rather afundamental law governing the operation of all things—which is the “system” in Laozi's eyes. If we understand a “system” asan entity composed of interconnected parts where the whole follows a certain inherent order, then the “Dao” is that very fundamental order itself.

From “One” to “all things,” Laozi outlines the generative process of a system:

• “The Dao produced One” means that the initial order emerged out of chaos, much like the underlying rules or core framework of a system, without which nothing can function.
• “One produced Two” represents the emergence of opposition and complementarity, akin to the differentiation of modules within a system: input and output, action and feedback, hardware and software.
• “Two produced Three; Three produced all things” reveals how, starting from simple binary relationships, complex multi-party interactions gradually evolve, ultimately generating the entire system of all things.

In Laozi's view, the existence and change of all things are never isolated, but are rathersystemic movements operating under the laws of the DaoThe generation and demise, functions and relationships of each part are closely connected to the whole. Just like an ecosystem in nature: rain, soil, plants, and animals are closely linked and indispensable, ultimately presenting a dynamically balanced whole.

If further refined, the “Dao” in Laozi's eyes possesses several distinct systemic characteristics:

• It hasWholeness: All things depend on “Dao”, just as the core rules of a system determine the behavior of each module.
• It isDynamic: Dao is not static, but a process of continuous generation and change, always in operation and feedback just like a system.
• It isSelf-organizing: Without human manipulation, all things run spontaneously according to natural laws, presenting an orderly pattern.
• It hasHierarchical: From the progressive logic of “Dao produces One, One produces Two, Two produces Three”, we can see the hierarchical structure of the system, where each layer is the product of the previous one.

It can be seen that the “Dao” in Laozi's eyes is essentially an all-encompassing systemic view. The world he reveals is not a collection spliced together from isolated fragments, but a whole composed of parts, relationships, rules, and cycles. From origin to diversity, from simplicity to complexity, from constraint to evolution, Laozi touched upon the most fundamental logic of system operation in extremely concise language.

This systemic view can still inspire us today:

• In the field of technology, we can regard underlying rules, protocols, and constraint relationships between modules as “Dao”, while the functions, performance, and behavioral patterns ultimately presented by the system are the concrete unfolding of “all things”.
• In nature and society, we can regard ecological laws, social rules, and interpersonal networks as “Dao”, while collective behavior, overall order, and long-term evolutionary processes are the results continuously generated within this structure.

From a broader perspective, the various fields classified in modern science are actually observations and segmentations of the same whole at different scales and from different aspects. Their objects of study differ, but they all belong to different forms of unfolding of “all things”.

Therefore, when we say “Dao is a system,” we are not applying a modern label to Laozi's thought, but rather using the language of systems thinking to re-understand what the ancients had long since discerned—how the world operates as a whole, and how the parts derive their meaning within the whole.

3 Systems in the Eyes of Shakyamuni

If Laozi used “Dao” to describe the essential laws of the world, then Gautama Buddha used “dependent origination” to reveal the way all things exist. There is a saying in the Agama Sutra: “When this exists, that exists; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not exist; with the cessation of this, that ceases.” This is one of the most core teachings of Buddhism—The Law of Dependent Origination：

The so-called “dependent origination” means that all things do not exist in isolation, but arise from the aggregation of countless causes and conditions, and cease when these causes and conditions dissipate. This thought is, in essence, a system view. A system is composed of parts, which are interdependent and mutually constraining; a change in any single link will affect the operation of the whole, which is completely consistent with the logic of the law of dependent origination.

From this perspective, the world in the eyes of Shakyamuni is not a fixed and unchanging entity, but asystem composed of relationships：

• The existence of mountains, rivers, and the earth requires the cooperation of countless natural conditions.
• Human life, through the interaction of body and consciousness, relies on the environment, food, and social relationships to survive.
• Even emotions and thoughts do not come out of nowhere, but are the result of the joint action of countless factors such as experience, habits, and environment.

This coincides with “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” in modern system thinking. Any part of a system may seem insignificant on its own, but once placed in the overall network, it interacts causally with other parts, thereby generating new properties and functions.

If further refined, the characteristics of the “system” in the law of dependent origination can be summarized as:

• Interdependence: No single part can exist independently; everything relies on conditions to come into being.
• Dynamic Change: The system is always in the process of the aggregation and dissipation of causes and conditions, with no state of eternal stillness.
• Causal Cycle: The operation of the system is manifested as the continuation of the causal chain, where past conditions determine the present, and the present nurtures the future.
• Lack of Self-Nature: Buddhism emphasizes “all phenomena are without self,” meaning that no part has an independent, fixed essence, and only makes sense when placed within system relationships.

Therefore, “dependent origination” in the eyes of Shakyamuni is actually another expression of system logic: all existence consists of nodes in a network of conditions, and all nodes arise and cease according to conditions. In this sense, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” can also be understood as a metaphysical expression of the system view: seemingly concrete existence (form) is, in essence, merely a collection of relationships (emptiness); and the collection of relationships (emptiness), in turn, manifests everywhere as concrete existence (form):

For modern people, the law of dependent origination is not just a philosophical speculation; it can also guide us in understanding complex systems:

• In natural ecosystems, the rise and fall of any single species will affect the balance of the entire system.
• In society, individual behavior is always closely related to the collective, rules, and historical background.
• In psychology, the arising of a thought is often the result of the joint action of multiple conditions, rather than an isolated will.

Shakyamuni used “dependent origination” to tell us: do not cling to a single part, nor fantasize about independent existence; true understanding lies in seeingthe whole and relationshipsThis coincides with the core goal of system thinking.

4 Systems in the Eyes of Plato

At the source of Western philosophy, Plato proposed the “Theory of Forms.” In his view, the sensory world is not the ultimate reality; the true reality is the “world of Forms” existing on the other shore. Forms are eternal and unchanging, and all things we perceive are merely projections or reflections of these Forms:

To describe it in another language, Plato's world of Forms is actually asystem's abstract layer: It contains the order and archetype of all things, and individuals in reality are merely instances under system rules. Just as we say today that the running of software relies on the underlying code logic, and the external manifestation is merely the unfolding of the underlying rules.

In this sense, the “system” in Plato's eyes has the following characteristics:

• Orderliness: Forms are the highest order, and the diversity of reality comes from the unfolding of this order.
• Hierarchical: The world of Forms resides at the highest level, the sensory world at the next level, and all things recurse in sequence.
• Purposiveness: Forms are not only the source of existence, but also the ultimate goal of value and truth.

Plato's thought reminds us that a system is not only an empirical network, but can also be understood asa collection of logic and lawsThe complexity of real-world systems relies on the regularity of abstract systems. This laid the philosophical foundation for later mathematical and scientific methods.

5 Systems in the Eyes of Aristotle

Unlike Plato, Aristotle focused more on the structure and operation of the real world. He proposed the “Four Causes”: material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause. The existence and change of any thing can be explained through these four aspects:

This theory is actually a systematic summary of the operating mechanism of systems:

• Material cause: What parts the system is composed of (material level).
• Formal cause: How the system is organized and arranged (structural level).
• Efficient cause: What drives the operation of the system (dynamic mechanism).
• Final cause: What the system's operation aims to achieve (goal or purpose).

This almost perfectly aligns with “composition-structure-function-purpose” in modern system science. Aristotle essentially viewed the world as a network composed of multiple elements, with each element having its place of explanation.

At the same time, he emphasized that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” which coincides with Eastern philosophy and modern systems theory. For example, an organism is not just a patchwork of organs, but a living system that operates in overall coordination.

Therefore, the “system” in Aristotle's eyes was both an explanatory tool of natural philosophy and the prototype for understanding society and science. He provided an analytical method: understanding the relationship between the whole and its parts through decomposition and induction.

4 ”Systems” in My Eyes”

1 “Systems” as I Understand Them”

For a long time, my understanding of “systems” did not actually go beyond the engineering context: a system meant an operating system, an information system, or a management system—an orderly structure composed of modules, interfaces, and rules, used to perform a certain function stably and efficiently. This understanding is very useful and precise enough in the technical field—it allows me to analyze architecture, evaluate performance, locate problems, and even predict system behavior.

But as the writing unfolded, I gradually realized:This view of systems was starting to become insufficient. When I tried to use the same perspective to understand nature, the body, society, and even music and thought, the engineered definition of “system” frequently failed. It could not explain why ecosystems spontaneously form balance, nor why the human body gradually collapses under minor imbalances; it could describe structure, but struggled to explain generation; it could depict rules, but struggled to confront change itself.

Looking back at the thoughts of the ancients, I instead found a sense of familiarity. Laozi said, “The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things,” emphasizing a continuous process from law to generation; the Buddha proposed, “When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises,” seeing the interdependence of all things in cause and condition; Plato focused on overall order and the structure of ideas; Aristotle pointed out that any existence is embedded in causality and purpose—they were not concerned with “how systems are designed,” but were observing:How the whole emerges from relationships.

After constantly shuttling between technology, nature, and thought, I gradually accepted one thing: if “system” can only describe the products of human design, then it is not enough to become a true worldview.

So, I began to reorganize my understanding of “systems.” For me,a system is no longer just an object to be analyzed, but a way of observing the worldUnder this perspective, my understanding of systems is closer to:A system is a whole composed of interdependent parts and relationships; it does not exist statically, but continuously generates and evolves under rules or internal driving forces, constantly adjusting its own balance between the whole and its parts.

This definition is not for the pursuit of abstract perfection, but is the result of being repeatedly “forced out” by different fields. It has made me gradually realize that some seemingly unrelated phenomena actually follow similar structural logics:

• Parts only acquire meaning within the whole
• Stability does not come from stillness, but from continuous adjustment
• Order is not always designed, but often emerges naturally through interaction
• Within a system, smaller systems are always nested, and it is also enveloped by larger systems

When I began to look at problems this way, “system” was no longer just a noun, but more like a key—it forced me to constantly return to different fields and re-examine things I thought I already understood: the boundaries of technology, the uncontrollability of nature, the fragility and resilience of the body, and what humans can truly do and cannot do within a system.

2 When “Designable Systems” Begin to Fail

If I were to trace back to where I first truly understood “systems,” it would definitely be in the world of technology: operating systems, network architectures, distributed services, container platforms, cloud computing, multi-active deployment—these constituted almost all of my initial understanding of the word “system.” In these scenarios, a system meant being designed, implemented, and configured: clear boundaries, explicit modules, and rules written in documentation and code; as long as the design was rigorous enough, the system should run as expected.

For a long time, I also tacitly accepted this premise:Technical systems can be understood and controlled. But as the scale of systems expanded, this certainty began to gradually collapse.

As components multiplied, layers stacked, and dependencies became intertwined, system behavior began to become difficult to intuitively infer. A seemingly local configuration adjustment might be amplified layer by layer during operation, eventually evolving into a violent fluctuation in overall performance; an optimization made for efficiency might instead introduce new vulnerabilities over long-term operation. Problems often do not stem from a “broken module,” but rather arise after multiple perfectly normal parts work together.

Only then did I truly appreciate a fact:Technical systems are never a simple patchwork of parts, but a whole. The so-called “wholeness” is not an abstract philosophical concept, but a reality forced to manifest in the system structure when local changes are amplified by overall relationships.

Going deeper, I realized that technological systems are never static either. The data flows in networks, the invocation relationships between services, the continuous iteration of algorithms, and the training and updating of models all keep the system in a constant state of flux. A system is not a product that is “finished once designed,” but a process of continuous operation and adjustment under real loads and real-time scales. Stability does not come from a perfect design at the beginning, but from continuous feedback and correction during operation.

In distributed systems, this feeling is particularly pronounced. We can design consistency protocols, fault-tolerance mechanisms, and load-balancing strategies, but we can never exhaustively list all operational scenarios. The actual behavior exhibited by a system is often not fully deduced during the design phase, but is an order that gradually “emerges” from the interactions of countless nodes. No single central node controls the whole picture, yet the system can still form its own structure and rhythm under constraints. Only then did I truly understand the term “self-organization” in the field of technology.

At the same time, there are always tensions and balances within technological systems. Performance versus resource consumption, security versus openness, centralization versus distribution, complexity versus maintainability—these contradictions cannot be resolved once and for all, but can only be continuously adjusted during operation. The so-called “stable state” is never static, but a dynamically maintained equilibrium.

More importantly, I gradually realized that:Technological systems are not just “cold machines”—they are themselves complex systems woven from human intentions, natural laws, modular structures, and social needs. Even the most rational engineering design cannot completely escape the influence of physical limitations, information laws, and user behavior.

This shift in perception had a profound impact on me, causing me to abandon an overly optimistic view of systems—the belief that as long as one is smart and cautious enough, a completely controllable system can be built. In its place came a more restrained and realistic understanding:Systems can be designed, but they cannot be completely tamed; they can only be guided, not fully controlled.

It was also here that I clearly realized for the first time: if even the technological systems built by human hands can exhibit behaviors that exceed the designer's intentions, then when systems expand to the levels of nature, life, and society, this complexity will only be further amplified.

Technological systems, instead, became my first gateway to understanding that “systems are not tools, but the way the world works.”

Supplementary Note: Technological Systems from an Engineering Perspective

If we re-examine technological systems solely from an engineering perspective, they often exhibit some relatively stable characteristics. These characteristics are not conclusions I “deduced” at this moment, but empirical summaries repeatedly verified in engineering practice:

• Wholeness: An operating system is not a simple piecing together of modules, but a whole formed by modules under unified rules.
• Dynamism: Data flows, algorithm iterations, and system operations keep technological systems in a state of continuous change.
• Hierarchical: From hardware, operating systems, and applications to platforms and ecosystems, technological systems naturally exhibit a recursive hierarchical structure.
• Self-organization: The Internet does not have a global control center, yet it can still form order and protocols through node interactions.
• Balance: The tension between performance, security, resources, and complexity can only be maintained in a dynamic balance through continuous adjustment.
• Purposefulness or Regularity: Technological systems are driven by human goals, while inevitably obeying physical and informational laws.

These characteristics are not “definitions of systems,” but rather empirical profiles of system behavior in the engineering world.

3 When Systems Are No Longer Designed by Humans

In technical systems, I can still retain a sense of self-awareness as a “designer”: although the system is complex and difficult to fully control, at least its boundaries, goals, and rules still come from human settings.

And when the perspective shifts to nature, this sense of position changes immediately: nature is not a constructed system—heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, climate, flora and fauna, and even life itself, are not the products of some central will. They have existed in operation from the very beginning, without design documents or global blueprints, yet they have maintained an astonishing order for a long time.

At this moment, I realized clearly for the first time:A system does not necessarily need to “be designed” to exist. When we stand before nature, it is easy to instinctively explain it in human language—purpose, efficiency, optimization, benefits. But these words are often invalid in natural systems. Nature does not “pursue” a certain goal, yet it continues to operate; it does not guarantee local stability, yet it maintains continuity on a global scale.

The ecosystem gave me a powerful shock: a forest is not a simple superposition of trees, rivers, and animals, but rather a whole formed by water circulation, energy flow, and material exchange in long-term interaction. Any local change—species extinction, climate anomaly, external intervention—will be amplified or transmitted through the relationships within the system, ultimately affecting the overall state.

The way nature operates has also allowed me to re-understand “change” itself. The alternation of day and night, the rotation of the four seasons, and the evolution of species are not to achieve a certain ideal state, but rather the continuous unfolding of the system in the dimension of time. Stability is not static, but rather continuity amidst change. The so-called “imbalance” is often just a judgment made from a local or short-term perspective.

More importantly, natural systems exhibit an extremely restrained power: they rarely act by “correcting errors,” but rather advance overall evolution slowly but firmly through elimination, adaptation, and reorganization. Disasters, destruction, and even extinction are failures from a human perspective, but on a system scale, they may just be a structural adjustment.

Here, for the first time, I truly felt a form of system completely different from technical systems:A whole with no center, no mission statement, yet capable of long-term self-maintenance and self-renewal. This also made me realize that humanity's position in the system is far humbler than we imagine—we are not controllers standing outside natural systems, but rather a highly active, yet not always self-aware, subsystem within them. Our technology, organization, and civilization both rely on the basic conditions provided by natural systems and continuously exert feedback on them.

As I began to look at nature again through a systems perspective, one judgment became increasingly clear:Truly complex and truly stable systems often do not center on human will.

Supplementary Note: Systemic Characteristics of Natural Systems

If nature is structurally described from a systems perspective, natural systems also present a series of highly stable systemic characteristics. These are not abstract deductions, but rather facts that have been observed and verified over a long period:

• Wholeness: Ecology is not a superposition of elements, but rather a whole composed of a network of relationships.
• Dynamism: Nature is always in a state of cycle, change, and evolution.
• Hierarchical: From cells, individuals, and communities to the biosphere, natural systems are nested layer upon layer.
• Self-organization: Order does not come from external control, but rather emerges naturally from interactions.
• Balance: Predation, competition, symbiosis, and repair together maintain dynamic balance.
• Regularity: Nature does not have a purpose in the human sense, but always obeys the laws of energy, matter, and evolution.

From this perspective, nature is not “primitive chaos,” but ratherthe earliest and most mature form of systemTo a large extent, humanity's subsequent technical and social systems are merely imitations, extensions, or even misuses of this systemic logic.

4 When a System Directly Affects “Me” for the First Time”

In technical systems, I can still observe them from the outside; in natural systems, I realize that humans are just one of the subsystems. And when the perspective further contracts to life itself, for the first time, I can no longer maintain this distance—Because I myself am the system.

Life is not an object of my “study,” but rather a system that is operating, giving feedback, and exerting influence on me at all times. Heartbeat, breathing, metabolism, neural activity, and immune response—these processes do not require my permission, yet they determine whether I can remain conscious, act, think, or even continue to live. In the face of life systems, the position of “onlooker” does not exist, which made me truly understand for the first time what is calledthe inescapability of systems。

You can temporarily ignore the complexity of a technical system, and you can maintain an abstract sense of awe in natural systems, but you cannot escape your own life system. Any tiny imbalance will be directly fed back by the system in the form of fatigue, pain, anxiety, and illness. It is also here that I have a very concrete understanding of “wholeness”: the human body is not a simple splicing of organs, but rather a highly coupled whole. An abnormality in a certain indicator often does not mean that the organ is “broken,” but may be the result of a long-term game among multiple systems. Attempting to repair only a local part often triggers new chain reactions.

Life systems are also not static; they rely on continuous changes to maintain stability: heart rate fluctuates, blood pressure regulates, metabolism switches pathways, and the immune system is constantly learning. This stability is not static, but rather a dynamic balance maintained amidst fluctuations. Once this regulatory capacity declines, problems often do not appear suddenly, but have rather been accumulating deep within the system for a long time.

At the level of life, the concept of “hierarchy” also becomes exceptionally clear: cells, tissues, organs, and individuals are not independent levels, but rather nested and mutually constraining system structures. Local interventions may produce amplification effects at higher levels; while changes in the overall state, in turn, shape local behavior.

What shocks me even more is the self-organizing capability of life systems. Embryonic development, neural network formation, and the establishment of immune responses are not uniformly dispatched by some “central control unit,” but rather emerge naturally under the constraints of rules and the environment. Life is not “assembled” step by step, but rather takes shape gradually through interaction.

In such systems, “purpose” also becomes subtle; life seems to always operate in the direction of survival, continuity, and adaptation, but this purpose is not an explicitly written goal, but rather a tendency embedded in structures and rules. It does not guarantee individual comfort, yet it maintains the continuity of the system over a longer time scale.

As I began to look at life again through a systems perspective, one fact became unavoidable:Life does not promise the optimal solution; it only maintains the feasible solution. This has also completely changed my understanding of health, risk, and control—life systems are not machines waiting to be “repaired,” but rather a whole that needs to be understood, collaborated with, and regulated over the long term. Many problems are not about “what is broken,” but rather that the system has already been operating in some marginal state for a long time.

At this moment, I finally realized: systems are not just tools for explaining the world, they are alsothe way of existence that I endure and live with every day。

Supplementary Note: Systemic Characteristics of Life Systems

If life is structurally described from a systems perspective, life systems also clearly present the general characteristics of systems:

• Wholeness: The human body is not a superposition of organs, but rather a highly coupled whole.
• Dynamism: Processes such as heartbeat, metabolism, and neural activity constitute a continuously operating system.
• Hierarchical: From molecules and cells to individuals and populations, life systems are nested layer upon layer.
• Self-organization: Development, immunity, and neural structures are not products of central control.
• Balance: Life maintains dynamic homeostasis through continuous regulation.
• Regularity or Purposiveness: Life does not pursue the optimal, but rather follows evolutionary and physiological laws to maintain a sustainable state.

From this perspective, life systems are not “precise and perfect machines,” but rather a complex system that continuously survives and adjusts in an uncertain environment.

5 When Countless “Me's” Converge into Society

After understanding the incomplete controllability of technical systems, the non-human-centric nature of natural systems, and the direct constraints of life systems on individuals, I began to turn my attention to society. Unlike the previous types of systems, social systems bring a more complex and more unsettling experience. Because here,The basic unit of a system is the “human”—a living system like me, with feelings, intentions, and judgment.

Society is not a whole designed by some central authority, but it is also by no means a completely spontaneous natural system. Institutions, laws, culture, organizations, and markets—traces of human intention can be seen everywhere; however, when these intentions overlap, compete, and feed back among a vast number of individuals, the final outcome often exceeds the expectations of any single entity.

This is precisely the most puzzling aspect of social systems:It seems both designed, yet at critical moments, it completely refuses to listen to anyone.

In society, individual behavior only has meaning when placed within the overall structure. A person's choice, seemingly out of free will, is often already shaped by the institutional environment, cultural expectations, resource distribution, and the behavior of others. Many outcomes are not a matter of “who did what wrong,” but rather the state naturally generated by the system's structure under current conditions.

Society is also always in flux. Adjustments in demographic structures, fluctuations in economic cycles, the impact of technological progress, and shifts in ideas and culture mean that society is never a static framework. Even the most stable institutions maintain their operation through constant patching, adjustment, and compromise. Stability is not because society stops changing, but rather because change is absorbed and dispersed within the system.

At this level, “hierarchy” begins to become exceptionally obvious. Individuals are embedded in families, families in communities, and communities in larger organizational and state structures. Upper-level rules shape lower-level behavior, while the collective behavior of the lower levels in turn alters the upper-level structure. No single level has absolute control; the form of society is shaped precisely through the continuous interaction between these levels.

What makes me even more vigilant is the self-organizing capacity exhibited by social systems. Language, markets, customs, public opinion, and online communities are often not planned uniformly by some authority, but rather naturally form order through long-term interaction. Once established, these orders in turn constrain individual behavior, producing a stable and lasting impact even without explicit coercive force.

In such a system, conflict is almost inevitable. Individual freedom and collective interest, efficiency and equity, development and risk, are always pulling at different levels. Society does not operate by eliminating contradictions, but rather, through institutional, cultural, and power structures, maintains contradictions within a “tolerable” range. This balance is not perfect, but it allows the system to keep functioning.

When I re-examine society through a systems perspective, one fact gradually becomes clear:Society does not guarantee “rationality”; it only maintains “operability.”

This also allows me to re-understand the individual's position in society—we are both components of the social system and constantly trying to influence the system's direction with our own judgment; while the system, through feedback, incentives, and constraints, continuously shapes our choices. Many times, we think we are changing society, but in reality, it is just the social system completing its own adjustments through our actions.

In this sense, the social system is not a simple transition between technology and nature, but rather an existence with greater tension:A complex system composed of countless living systems, yet not centered on the will of any single life.

Supplementary Note: Systemic Characteristics of Social Systems

If we describe society structurally from a systems perspective, the social system likewise exhibits a series of stable and typical systemic characteristics:

• Wholeness: Society is not a simple collection of individuals, but rather a whole composed of institutions, culture, and relational networks.
• Dynamism: Population, economy, ideas, and rules continuously evolve, shaping the state of society.
• Hierarchical: Individuals, organizations, nations, and the international system are nested layer by layer and influence one another.
• Self-organization: Markets, language, customs, and community governance often naturally form order through interaction.
• Balance: Society maintains a dynamic balance amidst conflict through institutional and cultural mechanisms.
• Purposefulness or Regularity: Society is driven by human goals, but is also constrained by history, resources, and structural laws.

From a systems perspective, society is not the product of an “ideal design,” but rather a complex system that operates continuously and constantly self-adjusts under multiple constraints.

6 When Systems Begin to Participate in “Expression”

Art is often regarded as a realm of sensibility, intuition, and inspiration, seemingly opposed to rationality, structure, and rules. But if viewed from a systems perspective, art is not an “anti-system” existence; on the contrary, it isa highly condensed form of presentation of the system at the sensory level。

According to the definition given above:A system is a whole composed of interdependent parts and relationships, which operates under certain rules or purposes, is capable of self-generation and evolution, and constantly forms a dynamic balance between the whole and its parts.

Under this framework, many art forms can be clearly understood as systems.

以Melodies in musicas an example: a melody is not a stack of isolated notes, but rather an orderly organization of pitch, rhythm, duration, and accent on a timeline. A single note itself does not possess complete meaning; only when it is placed within a specific mode, rhythmic structure, and overall direction does the melody “hold true.” Here, notes are the parts, the melody is the whole, tonality and rhythm constitute the rules, and auditory tension and release embody dynamic balance.

Look again atpoetry and classical literature: poetic lines are not randomly arranged words, but are constrained by metrical patterns, tonal patterns, antithesis, rhythm, and imagery relationships. The position of a character in a line is both restricted by linguistic structure and serves the formation of the overall artistic conception. The “introduction, elucidation, transition, and conclusion” in poetry is, in essence, a structural unfolding and tension regulation in the operation of a system.

This also explains a frequently overlooked fact: truly mature art forms are often accompanied by a clear consciousness of structure; while so-called “free expression” is not detached from the system, but rather achieves a higher level of coordination and balance within the system.

Therefore, in the systemic perspective of this article, art is not an exception, but rather a special and important illustration—it shows that:even in the most sensory domains, systems still exist in the form of structures, relationships, and order。

Art allows us to see that systems do not only belong to technology, nature, or society; they are equally deeply embedded in human perception, expression, and aesthetics.

Supplementary Note: Systemic Characteristics of Art Systems

If we describe art structurally from a systems perspective, the art system likewise clearly exhibits the general characteristics of a system:

• Wholeness: A single note, word, or image only possesses aesthetic meaning within the overall structure.
• Dynamism: Music flows in time, poetry unfolds in reading and recitation, and meaning does not exist statically.
• Hierarchical: Note—phrase—passage—whole; word—line—chapter—artistic conception, nested layer by layer.
• Balance: Tightness and looseness, density and sparseness, tension and release, constitute dynamic stability in aesthetics.
• Regularity: Mode, rhythm, metrical patterns, and aesthetic experience provide internal rules for creation and understanding.

From this perspective, art is not the negation of rules, but ratherthe expression of rules at the level of perceptionThe reason art can be understood, inherited, and repeatedly performed is precisely because of the perceptible and reproducible system structures within it.

5 How Systems Thinking Enters Everyday Experience

The previous chapters mainly answered the question “What is a system?”: systems exist in technology, nature, life, society, and expression. But if systems thinking only remains at the level of understanding, it will seem abstract, even like a beautiful concept that is hard to put into practice. The real turning point was when I began to look at my own learning, emotions, and interpersonal relationships through a systems perspective—suddenly, I found that even my judgments and actions began to change quietly.

In learning, my previous approach was very linear: patch up wherever I was weak, and reinforce wherever I made a mistake. Whether writing code, practicing singing, or playing an instrument, I always focused stubbornly on single problem points. However, when I began to look at problems with systems thinking, I found myself no longer in a hurry to fix local parts, but instead stopping to observe first—where this problem is located in the overall structure, what prerequisites it depends on, and which links it will affect. Many times, the problem is not that “this point is not good enough,” but rather that the entire system structure itself is unreasonable, or a key node has been ignored for a long time.

Take singing training, for example. Pitch, timbre, resonance, breathing, emotion... they do not exist independently. When I tried to practice pitch in isolation, the results were always minimal. Only later did I realize that the real problem might lie in breathing imbalance, physical tension, or even unstable auditory reference. A systems perspective taught me to look at the whole first, and then adjust the structure, rather than simply “patching holes.” The focus of judgment shifted from “where am I falling short” to “where is the main point of imbalance in the system now.”

In emotion management, the change is even more direct. In the past, I often treated anxiety or low moods as “bad thoughts” or states that must be eliminated. But systems thinking made me understand that these emotions are just signals, a reflection of the state of the entire system. They do not appear out of thin air, but are rather the result of the accumulation of sleep, stress, cognitive habits, physical states, and environmental factors. Therefore, I am no longer in a hurry to “solve emotions”, but rather first look at which nodes are controllable: breathing, physical tension, and attention distribution. Regulating these small points is often more effective than self-persuasion in one's mind. Practice is no longer a confrontation, but rather a continuous regulation: observation → feedback → fine-tuning → re-observation.

In daily life and interpersonal relationships, systems thinking also brings changes. Previously, when conflicts occurred, I easily fell into the binary thinking of “who is right and who is wrong.” Now, I will first ask myself: Is there a long-term imbalance in this interaction structure itself? In families, teams, or collaborations, the problem is often not a certain person's personality, but rather that something has gone wrong with role allocation, communication paths, and feedback mechanisms. When responsibilities are unclear, feedback is delayed, and goals are vague, conflict is almost inevitable. Systems thinking makes me focus on structure, rather than the superficial accusations of emotion. The same goes for problems with time management, energy allocation, and life rhythm; relying on willpower to push through is often of no avail, and only by first adjusting the system structure can life be made a bit smoother.

When systems thinking truly integrates into daily life, it is no longer a “method” deliberately used, but rather a naturally triggered judgment tendency: when encountering a problem, first look at the whole; when encountering fluctuations, first look for relationships rather than immediately defining them; when facing complex situations, prioritize looking for feedback loops and key nodes. It will not make life simple, but it will make judgments more stable. Problems still exist, but are no longer chaotic; choices are still difficult, but no longer blind. Systems thinking is not a master key, but rather a cognitive way to make problems visible and structures emerge, making experience no longer fragmented and actions closer to the overall rhythm. This natural, continuous habit of judgment is the sign of it truly entering daily life.

6 Where I Stand: Looking at the World Through a Systems Perspective

Coming to this point in the entire article, what ultimately needs to be answered is not “what a system is,” nor “how a system is used,” but rather a more fundamental question:When I no longer understand the world as a collection pieced together by isolated objects and scattered events, where exactly do I stand to look at all of this?

This means that I no longer understand the world as a collection pieced together by isolated objects and scattered events, but rather as a whole composed of relationships, structures, feedback, and evolution. Individuals do not exist apart from the whole, and local changes never remain solely within the local. Whether it is nature, society, or individual behaviors and choices, they are all embedded and operating within a larger system.

Under such a perspective, humans do not stand outside the system. We are neither pure designers nor complete onlookers, but rathera part of the systemWe participate in it, are influenced by it, and at the same time, through every choice and action, generate feedback to the system. This sense of position determines that systems thinking does not lead to an absolute desire for control, but rather points to a more restrained and sober way of understanding.

The system perspective has made me gradually realize that many problems do not stem from a single wrong decision, but ratherare the naturally generated results of existing structures in long-term operation; many dilemmas are also not solved by local patching, but require a re-examination of the configuration, relationships, and constraints of the system itself. This does not mean that everything can be “optimized”; on the contrary, it reminds us:Not all systems can be designed, and not all evolution can be anticipatedUnderstanding systems is sometimes for action, and sometimes for stopping.

Therefore, systems thinking is to me more like a stance, rather than a set of all-purpose tools. It does not guarantee that every judgment is correct, but it can help me avoid simplifying complex problems into a single cause and effect; it cannot eliminate uncertainty, but it can allow me to retain a perception of structure amidst change; it cannot replace value judgments, but it can make me realize that every judgment produces a chain reaction in the system.

When we look at the world from a system perspective, the world does not become simple because of it, but it becomes clearer. Clarity does not mean controllability, but rather means: I know where I am, what I am influencing, and what I might be shaped by in turn. In a highly complex, rapidly evolving reality, this sense of position itself is an important cognitive order.

And precisely because of this, when I look back at this blog itself, much of the initial anxiety has instead disappeared—the reason it looks increasingly “miscellaneous” is not because I am constantly deviating from the direction. But rather because my focus is no longer staying within a specific field, but is gradually shifting to thosecross-domain, recurring structures, relationships, and operational logicsTechnology, body, sound, practice, and society seem far apart from each other, but on a system level, they constantly point to the same kind of problem: how the local and the whole constrain each other, how stability is maintained amidst change, and how actions produce long-term consequences within a structure.

From this perspective, the divergence of content is not disorder, but rather a natural result of the change in perspective. When the focus shifts from “techniques within a certain field” to “common laws between different things,” writing itself can no longer be accommodated by a single classification. It therefore naturally continues to grow in this way that seems cluttered but actually unfolds around the same set of problems.

This is not a writing path from “technology” to “philosophy,” but rather a path starting fromconcrete problems and constantly converging toward more general lawsof the path. And “system” is just the most honest way of description I can find at present.

And it is precisely starting from here that I truly realized:“Everything is a system” is not a philosophical slogan, but rather a conclusion that is almost unavoidable when I repeatedly face these concrete problems.

PS: This article is indeed quite different from my past content—it is more abstract, and feels more like “thinking about things” rather than “teaching methods.” The reason is simple—this is a self-organization of my thoughts on “systems” and “cognition.” I am trying to sort out the common structures scattered across different fields, rather than staying within the specific technologies themselves. So it reads a bit like thinking notes, even somewhat experimental. If you didn't find directly usable techniques in it, that is normal—what it provides was never meant to be answers, but rather a way of looking at problems.