Program design could be thought of as creating a causal graph of blockers and hypotheses about how to mitigate those blockers

Causal Loop Diagrams

Stock and Flow Models

What is SpecTechs Edge?

What is the relationship between a causal graph, affordances, and constraints?

# Causal Loop Diagrams
A way of modeling a system - very much a systems-thinking mental model
1. Draw which parts of a system affect which other parts
2. Annotate whether the link increases (+) or decreases (-) the part
3. You can simplify links in series with the following rules
	1. Two of the same signs in series => (+)
		1. To write out the logic here: if A increases B which increase C, A increases C. If A decreases B which decreases C. A increases C. 
	2. Two of the opposite signs in series => (-)
		1. If A increases B which decreases C, A decreases C.
		2. If A decreases B which increases C, A decreases C
4. Look for loops 
	- opposite signs are “balancing” which are the same concept as [[Negative feedback loops]] in [[Control Theory]] and [[Circuit Diagrams]]
	- The same sign are “reenforcing” which are the same concept as [[Positive feedback loops]] in [[Control Theory]] and [[Circuit Diagrams]]
Parts connected in series roughly act like [[And operators]] in [[Formal Logic]] which also acts like parts in series in [[Circuit Diagrams]].
## Related
[[Control Theory]]
[[Circuit Diagrams]]
[[Formal Logic]]
## References
[[Causal Loop Diagrams]]

                        

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Most roadmaps suck

What are the properties of maps?

Maps help you figure out possibilities

Maps are multi-scale

# Maps help you understand the state of something
If you don’t understand the state of something better after looking at a map, it’s not doing its job.

Maps are always an abstraction ([[The Map is not the Territory]]) so there is always something about the state of the thing being mapped that the map will not capture. However, this is not always a bad thing! You can think of a map as compressing and structuring knowledge similar to how [[Jargon is a mechanism for compressing information]]. 

The compression mechanism means that a map is always going to be opinionated about what is signal and what is noise. Therefore, the design of a map should never be independent of its audience. [[More context can decrease the signal to noise ratio of communication for people who already have that context]].

A [[Stock and Flow Models]] *can* be a map, if it reflects the state of reality, but is not necessarily a map. 

### Related
- [[Structuring knowledge is expensive]]
- [[Maps are multi-scale]]
- [[Maps help you figure out possibilities]]



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Maps help you understand the state of something

woodFunctionalBasisEngineering2002

# Stock and Flow Models	
# Stock and Flow Models	
A way of modeling a system - very much a systems-thinking mental model
1. Stocks - amount of a thing - stocks can only be inliuenced by flows
2. Flows - thing/time - flows can be influenced by stocks, other flows, and converters
3. Converter - either something from outside the system or part of the system - can be influenced by stocks, flows or converters
4. Connectors - 
5. Sources/Sinks - things outside the system
Can be derived from 
[[Causal Loop Diagrams]]
[Stock and flow - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_and_flow)

                    

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Stretchable Actuators Questioning Doc

# woodFunctionalBasisEngineering2002
Functional model is a way for representing the function of an artifact
A functional basis is a formal representation of different functions
Examples at the end of the paper composed of 
- Flow definitions
- Function Defintions
	- Functions operate on a flow

### Published
2/2002
## Questions
## Thoughts
## Related
[[Stock and Flow Models]] 
## Authors
## Link

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Benʼs working notes

Stock and Flow Models

Stock and Flow Models

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