The best way to make acquaintance with the ideas of Creative Systems Theory is to see them see in application. Their practical usefulness both helps make them understandable and offers a persuasive argument for their importance. Particularly if you are new to CST, I encourage you to go first to the Patterning in Time section of this site. CST Patterning in Time concepts are where the theory started and also where the theory’s basic approach is most readily grasped.
But there is another way of coming at CST’s contribution that is necessary for really in-depth understanding. CST’s formulations represent not just new ideas, but new kinds of ideas. It helps in getting started to appreciate just how they are new and just what makes this new kind of understanding possible. This section includes a series of short excerpts that provide this kind of theoretical foundation.
Systems Thinking and the Dilemma of Differentiation examines the new kind of systemic understanding questions of all sorts increasing require.
Cultural Maturity’s Cognitive Reordering looks at the cognitive changes that make such new understanding possible.
Intelligence and Creative Process examines how the more conscious relationship with the multiple aspects of intelligence that comes with this cognitive reordering both supports this new kind of understanding and points directly toward the potential power of applying a creative frame.
Polarity and Creative Process looks at the role of polarity in human understanding and how it follow from the way creative processes work.
Creative Truth looks at how truth all along has been creative and how a more conscious appreciation for truth’s creative underpinnings helps us think with greater nuance and sophistication.
“Crux” truth and “Multiplicity” Truth examines how Cultural Maturity’s cognitive changes alter not just specific truths, but the basic categories and kinds of truth that become important.