Structural Thinking
The Structural Thinking Research Initiative is an interdisciplinary effort with two core missions: to understand how thinking emerges from structure across biological, human, and artificial systems, and to guide the design of the emerging Agentic Mesh—a world of interconnected thinking systems. By bringing together insights from cognitive science, biology, systems theory, artificial intelligence, and the social sciences, the initiative seeks to establish the principles for building more capable, adaptive, and responsible thinking structures.
What Is Structural Thinking?
What if thinking is something structure can produce? Watch this short introduction to the framework and its implications for humans, organizations, and AI.

Video can’t be displayed
A New Definition of Thinking
Structural Thinking proposes that thinking happens when learning occurs within internal differentiation and delayed resolution, such that learning reshapes action before output. It offers a common framework for studying biological systems, humans, organizations, artificial intelligence, and systems formed by humans and machines together.
Structural Thinking
William Ammerman | October 2026 | Draft 1
The foundational white paper proposes a structural definition of thinking, introduces the five-dimensional Structural Thinking Profile, and outlines an interdisciplinary program to test the theory and instrument.
A Structural Account of Thinking Across Scales and Substrates
Suggested Citation:
Ammerman, W. (2026). Structural Thinking: A Structural Account of Thinking Across Scales and Substrates. Technical Report ST-2026-01. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Structural Thinking Research Initiative.
A Research Program Open to Inquiry
The Initiative seeks to develop, test, challenge, and refine Structural Thinking. Our research asks which structural conditions enable thinking, how they can be measured, and how they change when humans and AI work together.