The dynamics of belief: continuously monitoring and visualising complex systems

We develop a theoretical framework for thinking about systems in complex human contexts and the problem of explaining their behaviour. Structurally, systems are made of modular and hierarchical components that we abstract in a general system model using notions of modes and mode transitions . A mode is an independent component of the system with its own objectives, monitoring data, and algorithms. The behaviour of a mode, including its transitions to other modes, is determined by functions that interpret each mode’s monitoring data in the light of its objectives and algorithms. We show how these belief functions can help explain system behaviour by quantifying and visualising their evaluation of monitoring data as trajectories in higher-dimensional geometric spaces. These ideas are formalised mathematically by abstract and geometric simplicial complexes . We offer three techniques—a framework for design heuristics, a general system theory based on modes, and a geometric visualisation—and apply them in examples of three types of human-centred systems.