Feedback loops are a core concept of system dynamics.

And so what we want to do is explain them

through a very simple example.
And so what we'll do is we'll start with the complex system
known as chickens and eggs.
Now, instead of arguing which came first,
let's just assume they're both here.
We want to understand how this system interacts.
Well, we know that the more eggs we have,
probably the more chickens will be produced.
So what we can do is draw something
known as a causal link.
Causal links have a polarity indicated with either a plus
or a minus sign.
The plus, or the positive, link indicates
that as the cause-- in this case, eggs-- as they
increase, so will the effect, in this case, the chickens.
Now, they'll increase above what it would have been otherwise.
And this is also under the condition of all
else being equal.
In other words, nothing else changes, or what's
known as ceteris paribus.
So it's a common assumption.
So in lieu of anything else happening, if I have more eggs,
I will increase the number of chickens
that I would have above what would have normally been there.
And so you can also think of this
as going the opposite direction.
A decrease in the cause would lead
to a decrease in the effect.
Now, we also have a positive link for the number of chickens
would generally lead to an increase in the number of eggs,
because that's where the eggs come from, obviously,
so another positive causal link.
Now, putting these together, what I've created
is a reinforcing, or positive, loop,
in that it will produce an increase in both chickens
and eggs over time.
So what this would look like over time, both the chickens
and the eggs, chickens in blue, and the eggs are in red,
would be an exponential growth in both over time,
because there is nothing balancing them out.
So let's look at another example and introduce
a different set of feedbacks.
And this is involving chickens again, but with their nemesis
now, the road.
We all know that chickens love to cross a road.
We're not sure why, but we know that they do.
So the more chickens we have, the greater the number of road
crossings that we'll see.
Again, this is a positive causal link.
More chickens leads to more road crossings
than we would see otherwise.
It's because we know, however, that the more road crossings
we have, the fewer chickens we'll have,
because chickens rarely look both ways when
crossing the street.
And this is a negative link.
And in this case, we indicated with that negative sign.
And it means that the cause increases--
when the cause increases, the effect decreases below what
it would have been otherwise.
So more road crossings means less chickens.
So it's just working in the opposite direction
of what a positive loop does.
Now, if I put these together, I will form
a balancing, or negative, loop.
This means that over time, the number of chickens,
if more are not introduced, will eventually drive to some value
or target, because what these do is that these drive down
to a number.
So over time, you'd have something like this.
So it would drive it down to a set number.
Now, we can look at the difference
between the positive, or reinforcing, loops
and the negative, or balancing, loops.
The reinforcing loops create exponential growth.
There's nothing restraining them.
The balancing ones, so the negative loops,
lead to a balance at some level.
We'll talk more about that when we get into more details.
But we can put these together, and we can form a system
with two loops, right?
And this is how the eggs, chickens,
and the road crossing interact.
Now, all systems, regardless of their complexity,
consist of causal links that connect to form,
either positive, reinforcing, or negative, balancing loops.
The dynamics come about from the way in which
they interact with each other.
Causal loops are the building blocks
for all these system dynamics.
And the underlying structure of the system,
as defined by these feedback loops,
generate the overall behavior.
Look at the patterns of growth that we saw.
When it was just a reinforcing loop,
we had exponential growth.
There was nothing limiting it.
When we had that balancing loop, we
saw that they decreased down to a level.
Now, if we put these together, what would it look like?
Well, we can think there'd be some kind
of exponential growth, but then you'd
probably have some oscillation going on,
as things would go back and forth.
And it's really a function of what is this rate of the road
crossings?
And we've talked about getting more detailed into the modeling
here.
But the idea, what you're doing with these feedback loops
is capturing the dynamics of the different elements of a system.