 Process thinking is a way of interpreting events in terms of the processes of change that create them. It focuses on the nonlinear dynamics of change over time that create certain patterns out of which events emerge. Process thinking involves considering phenomena dynamically, that is to say concerning their movement, activity, events, change and temporal evolution. Ludwig von Berzelanffy noted how systems theory related to Heraclitus' perception of Panta re, meaning everything flows. He wrote, from the Heraclitian and systems view structure is a result of function and the organism resembles a flame rather than a crystal. Such an approach to the understanding of phenomena draws its inspiration from process philosophy. Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that this dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any comprehensive account to how the world works. This paradigm draws on a tradition of thinkers from Heraclitus to 20th century process philosophers such as William James, Henry Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead and many more who all in various ways viewed reality in terms of ceaseless change, flux and transformation rather than a stable world of unchanging entities. Process thinking is a central part of the systems paradigm. Systems thinking is process orientated in nature where the world is perceived in terms of processes of change instead of static events. It adopts a more process based ontology meaning that within the systems paradigm objects are not seen to create change through direct cause and effect discrete interactions but instead processes are seen to have internal patterns that generate and condition individual events. This is an inversion of our traditional conception that sees objects as having precedence over processes of change. And thus process thinking can be contrasted with our more static way of thinking that sees events as generated by linear cause and effect relations between a systems component parts. Even though we experience the world as continuously changing, the modern analytical paradigm has long emphasised describing reality as an assembly of static events whose dynamic features are taken to be ontologically secondary and a derivative of the interactions between the elementary parts. The analytical process of reasoning that breaks systems down to understand their individual parts leads to a detailed description of a systems constituent components and a static understanding of its structural properties. Systems thinking is focused on open systems within the context of their environment. A key consideration is how systems change with respect to the changes within their environments. This leads to the idea of adaptation and evolution where changes in the environment feed back to affect the system which must then adapt to these changes. In this way the system can be continuously evolving to meet the changes within its environment. The analytical approach in contrast is focused on closed systems with limited regard for the system within its environment. A closed linear system can only change by generating different configurations of its internal parts. With a limited amount of interacting parts there is a finite number of possible future states. In a closed linear system there is limited possibility for emergence and thus the future can be said to resemble the past. The future can be modeled and understood as some permutation of the past. With a small number of interacting elements in a closed system sooner or later the system will have cycled through every possible permutation of its internal parts and then the future will involve revisiting previously experienced states. Linear thinking sees events happening through cause and effect interactions. One thing causes another within a discrete event. Nonlinear closed loop thinking skills leads one to see causation as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. Events feed back on themselves meaning that the history of past events matter as they feed in to shape current and future events within overarching processes of change. These feedback loops over time form reoccurring patterns what are called systems archetypes. As such how things come to be constituted, reproduced, adapted and defined through ongoing processes is seen to be central. Issues are always seen to be relative to time and framed in terms of patterns of behavior over time. Events then are not seen simply as the product of discrete cause and effect interactions at any given time but are the product also of larger patterns, the archetypes that condition the context within which these interactions take place. Process thinking encourages people to use the historical trajectory for stimulating and guiding inquiry into understanding the relationships that produce events. The idea of synergies and nonlinearity makes possible a conception of emergence. The idea that interactions between the parts may create something new. Emergence describes a universal process of development whereby many parts interact in a nonlinear fashion to create something that is more than the sum of their parts. In fact it typically produces novel, unpredictable and unexpected phenomena. The internet revolution would be a good example. One cannot have fully understood how when we connected all these computers together we would get the emergence of social networking, the app economy, cloud computing and all the innovations that are still to be built on top of it. When we talk about emergence as a process it really describes the process of becoming. The emphasis within the systems paradigm is on the process through which new entities become formed rather than the analysis of the structure to what already exists. Linear systems such as the pendulum are not in a state of becoming. They have a finite amount of interacting components that cycle through a predetermined state of stages. By understanding its structure we can understand the states the system would exhibit in the future. However more complex nonlinear systems such as a bird go through a constant process of becoming whose end point is not determined yet but which sets the context for current events. The analytical paradigm is based on a substance metaphysics which goes back to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmedides. Substance metaphysicians claim that the primary unit of reality called substances must be static, they must be what they are at any instance in time. In contrast process philosophy sees becoming as well as ways of occurring as central to any inquiry.