book-msg.prev

# Book Messages
by Brendan Fong <br>
Minor edits by Priyaa Varshinee Srinivasan

## Potential messages

**Key Idea:** RELATIONAL / SYSTEMS THINKING

- Explicitly identifies the structure of composition, separate from the notion of part/data
    - eg. functorial semantics
    - eg. separation of operad and operad algebra
    - eg. schema and instances

- A system is composed of parts
    - Parts are interconnected
    - These interconnections have a structure — it’s important to pay attention to this
    - This defines different notions of system

- Systems/synthetic thinking is hierarchical
    - You can have systems of systems
    - You can abstract systems to black boxes

- Composite systems have formal structure that can be manipulated
    - This can be globally or locally
    - eg. Pushouts (glueing systems together)

- Relational thinking contextualises models in a space of possibilities, which allows reasoning about variation 

- Relational thinking allows one to think about the different ways parts can be assembled/allows reuse/recontextualisation of parts
    - Example: springs in series or parallel

- Describes the world in terms of objects and their relationships

- Calling two things the same is important in any method for thinking. In relational thinking this can be expressed through gluing

- Is a good idea! (at times — see benefits)
    - How do recognise when it’s a good idea?
    - Because the object of modelling feels system-y
    - Because when you thinking relationally it feels ‘right’ — ie. things are clean and elegant

## Benefits of Relational thinking

- Systems perspectives often provide a clean and elegant approach (that does not have complicated edge cases to handle) to things that are inherently systemic

- is efficient because it allows reuse of ideas and code, across contexts