A Functional Crosswalk for System Dynamics: Translating Control-Theoretic Constructs Across Governance, Clinical, AI, and Crisis Domains

This publication presents a disciplined cross-domain mapping of system dynamics terminology grounded in established cybernetic and control-theoretic foundations. Rather than proposing a new theory, the paper constructs a translation layer that aligns recurring functional constructs across five domains: control systems, organizational governance, clinical decision environments, artificial intelligence evaluation, and crisis response. Drawing explicitly on prior art in cybernetics and control theory (e.g., Wiener, Ashby, Kalman, Åström & Murray), the paper identifies a stable functional architecture common to these domains: measurement and observation, model/state representation, filtering, feedback gain, error generation, corrective pathways, constraint fields, observability, controllability/reversibility, delay, threshold calibration, and system identification. Domain-specific terminology—such as path dependence, diagnostic momentum, alignment drift, proxy substitution, and institutional inertia—is treated as rediscovery or aliasing of formally established control-theoretic constructs. The analysis distinguishes clearly between: Mechanisms (process-level system operations) Modifiers (parameter conditions affecting mechanism performance) Trajectories (macro-level patterns of system evolution) Across domains, system evolution resolves into three structural trajectory families: destabilizing drift, stabilizing correction, and generative reorganization. Apparent alternatives (e.g., oscillation, stagnation, collapse) are shown to arise from modifier interactions rather than requiring additional macro-class categories. The contribution is not novelty of mechanisms but interoperability. By providing a portable functional lexicon anchored in established technical vocabulary, the paper reduces terminological fragmentation and supports cross-domain communication in research, audit practice, governance design, and interdisciplinary education. The work is explicitly non-normative and non-causal. It does not replace domain-specific expertise nor reproduce mathematical control formalisms. Instead, it offers translation infrastructure: a function-level grammar for describing how systems process signal, drift under constraint, correct when correction remains structurally viable, and reorganize when governing variables change. . Ψ(x) = ∇ϕ(Σ𝕒ₙ(x, ΔE)) + ℛ(x) ⊕ ΔΣ(𝕒′) — C077UPTF1L3 Licensed CRHC v1.0