System.

While the other senses gather information, system makes meaning from it.

If each of the other seven helps you perceive the world, taste, scent, touch, sight, sound, space, and time, then system is the sense that helps you understand it.

Most people optimize what they can see or feel: a better process, a cleaner design, a smoother routine. But systems thinkers look for the invisible: the feedback loops, dependencies, and rules that make those visible things possible in the first place.

That’s what makes System unique. It is meta-perceptual, revealing the architecture behind perception itself.

“Examples of human systems include: Party, Lecture, Meeting, Family, Friendships, School, Village, Society, Organization, Company, Industry, Administration, Traffic, Internet, Language, Parenthood, Global economy, etc.” (SI)

What began as curiosity became a kind of practice, balancing exploration with structure, asking how feedback and incentives shape behavior.

And beyond that are the meta-systems that define our shared experience:

• Personal Systems → How we manage focus, energy, and decision-making.

• Organizational Systems → How incentives, culture, and workflows shape creativity and alignment.

• Geographical & Cultural Systems → How cities, economies, and traditions form the conditions for what we call progress or possibility.

System intelligence is, at its core, the art of noticing how everything connects.

To see systemically is to understand that everything you touch, taste, or build participates in something larger.

How System Connects to the Other 7

TASTE → “Fresh” or “seasonal” represents the system behind it: agriculture, logistics, even climate.

SCENT → Invisible branding. Hotels, bakeries, and clothing stores code emotion through air.

TOUCH → The weight of a door handle or softness of a hoodie signals intention, cost, care.

SIGHT → What you see is what someone designed you to notice.

SOUND →Chimes, alerts, silence. Sound systems structure behavior.

SPACE → Layouts decide how people meet, move, and focus.

TIME → How you manage time, what you prioritize or delay, reveals your operating system.

Embodying Systems Intelligence

These aren't sponsorships, just examples:

Technology & Infrastructure:

• Apple

• Notion

• OpenAI

Supply Chain & Logistics:

• Shopify

• Etsy

Urban & Infrastructure:

• Uber / Lyft

• Copenhagen bike infrastructure

• Tokyo transit

Culture & Media

• Netflix

• Airbnb