Systems theory is the
interdisciplinary study of
systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be
natural
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
or
human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structure, function and role, and expressed through its relations with other systems. A system is "more than the sum of its parts" by expressing
synergy or
emergent behavior
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Emergence ...
.
Changing one component of a system may affect other components or the whole system. It may be possible to predict these changes in patterns of behavior. For systems that learn and adapt, the growth and the degree of
adaptation depend upon how well the system is engaged with its environment and other contexts influencing its organization. Some systems support other systems, maintaining the other system to prevent failure. The goals of systems theory are to model a system's dynamics,
constraints, conditions, and relations; and to elucidate principles (such as purpose, measure, methods, tools) that can be discerned and applied to other systems at every
level of nesting, and in a wide range of fields for achieving optimized
equifinality
Equifinality is the principle that in open systems a given end state can be reached by many potential means. The term and concept is due to Hans Driesch, the developmental biologist, later applied by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the founder of general ...
.
General systems theory is about developing broadly applicable concepts and principles, as opposed to concepts and principles specific to one domain of knowledge. It distinguishes dynamic or active systems from static or passive systems. Active systems are activity structures or components that interact in behaviours and processes or interrelate through formal contextual boundary conditions (attractors). Passive systems are structures and components that are being processed. For example, a program is passive when it is a disc file and active when it runs in memory. The field is related to
systems thinking, machine logic, and
systems engineering.
Key concepts
*
System: a group of interacting,
interdependent
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
parts that form a complex whole.
[Montuori, A. 2011. "Systems Approach." Pp. 414–21 in ''Encyclopedia of Creativity'' (2nd ed.). Academic Press. .]
* Boundaries: barriers that define a system and distinguish it from other systems in an environment.
*
Homeostasis
In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...
: the tendency of a system to be resilient with respect to external disruption and to maintain its key characteristics.
* Adaptation: the tendency of a system to make the internal changes necessary to protect itself and continue to fulfill its purpose.
* Reciprocal transactions: circular or cyclical interactions that systems engage in such that they influence one another.
*
Feedback loop
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled c ...
: the process by which systems self-correct based on observations of their current state.
*
Throughput
Network throughput (or just throughput, when in context) refers to the rate of message delivery over a communication channel, such as Ethernet or packet radio, in a communication network. The data that these messages contain may be delivered ove ...
: the rate of
energy transfer
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat ...
between a system and its environment over time.
*
Microsystem: the system closest to the client.
* Mesosystem: relationships among systems in an environment.
* Exosystem: a relationship between two systems that has an indirect effect on a third system.
* Macrosystem: a larger system that influences clients, such as policies, administration of entitlement programs, and culture.
*
Equifinality
Equifinality is the principle that in open systems a given end state can be reached by many potential means. The term and concept is due to Hans Driesch, the developmental biologist, later applied by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the founder of general ...
: the way systems can reach the same goal through different paths.
*
Open and closed systems
* Chronosystem: a system composed of significant life events affecting adaptation.
*
Isomorphism: structural, behavioral, and developmental features that are shared across systems.
*
Systems architecture A system architecture is the conceptual model that defines the structure, behavior, and more views of a system. An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning about the ...
:
*
Systems analysis
Systems analysis is "the process of studying a procedure or business to identify its goal and purposes and create systems and procedures that will efficiently achieve them". Another view sees system analysis as a problem-solving technique that ...
:
Overview
Systems theory is manifest in the work of practitioners in many disciplines, for example the works of biologist
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...
, linguist
Béla H. Bánáthy, and sociologist
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in soci ...
; in the study of ecological systems by
Howard T. Odum
Howard Thomas Odum (September 1, 1924 – September 11, 2002), usually cited as H. T. Odum, was an American ecologist. He is known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology, and for his provocative proposals for additional laws of thermod ...
,
Eugene Odum
Eugene Pleasants Odum (September 17, 1913 – August 10, 2002) was an American biologist at the University of Georgia known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology. He and his brother Howard T. Odum wrote the popular ecology textbook, ''Fun ...
; in
Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...
's study of
organizational theory; in the study of
management
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includ ...
by
Peter Senge
Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning ...
; in interdisciplinary areas such as
Human Resource Development
Training and development involve improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as related to immediate changes in organizational effectiveness via organized instruction, while deve ...
in the works of
Richard A. Swanson; and in the works of educators
Debora Hammond and Alfonso Montuori.
As a
transdisciplinary
Transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. It applies to research efforts focused on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, such as research o ...
, interdisciplinary, and
multiperspectival endeavor, systems theory brings together principles and concepts from
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
, the
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...
,
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
,
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, and
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
, as well as
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
,
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
,
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
,
psychotherapy (especially
family systems therapy), and
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...
.
Systems theory promotes dialogue between autonomous areas of study as well as within
systems science itself. In this respect, with the possibility of misinterpretations, von Bertalanffy believed a general theory of systems "should be an important regulative device in science," to guard against superficial analogies that "are useless in science and harmful in their practical consequences."
Others remain closer to the direct systems concepts developed by the original systems theorists. For example,
Ilya Prigogine
Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.
B ...
, of
the Center for Complex Quantum Systems at the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, has studied
emergent properties
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Emergence ...
, suggesting that they offer
analogues for
living systems
Living systems are open self-organizing life forms that interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy and matter.
In the last few decades, some scientists have proposed that a general living syst ...
. The
distinction of
autopoiesis
The term autopoiesis () refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts.
The term was introduced in the 1972 publication '' Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living'' by Chilean biologists ...
as made by
Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana Romesín (September 14, 1928 – May 6, 2021) was a Chilean biologist and philosopher. Many consider him a member of a group of second-order cybernetics theoreticians such as Heinz von Foerster, Gordon Pask, Herbert Brün ...
and
Francisco Varela
Francisco Javier Varela García (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesi ...
represent further developments in this field. Important names in contemporary systems science include
Russell Ackoff
Russell Lincoln Ackoff (February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009) was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff was a pion ...
,
Ruzena Bajcsy
Ruzena Bajcsy (born 1933 in Bratislava, now Slovakia) is an American engineer and computer scientist who specializes in robotics. She is professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where sh ...
,
Béla H. Bánáthy,
Gregory Bateson,
Anthony Stafford Beer,
Peter Checkland
Peter Checkland (born 18 December 1930, in Birmingham, UK) is a British management scientist and emeritus professor of systems at Lancaster University. He is the developer of soft systems methodology (SSM): a methodology based on a way of syste ...
,
Barbara Grosz,
Brian Wilson,
Robert L. Flood,
Allenna Leonard,
Radhika Nagpal
Radhika Nagpal is an American computer scientist and researcher in the fields of self-organising computer systems, biologically-inspired robotics, and biological multi-agent systems. She is the Fred Kavli Professor of Computer Science at Harvar ...
,
Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...
,
Warren McCulloch
Warren Sturgis McCulloch (November 16, 1898 – September 24, 1969) was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician, known for his work on the foundation for certain brain theories and his contribution to the cybernetics movement.Ken Aizawa ( ...
,
Kathleen Carley
Kathleen M. Carley is an American social scientist specializing in dynamic network analysis. She is a professor in the School of Computer Science in the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University and also holds appointments ...
,
Michael C. Jackson
Michael Christopher Jackson OBE (born 1951) is a British systems scientist, consultant and Emeritus Professor of Management Systems and former Dean of Hull University Business School, known for his work in the field of systems thinking and mana ...
,
Katia Sycara
Ekaterini Panagiotou Sycara ( el, Κάτια Συκαρά) is a Greek computer scientist. She is an Edward Fredkin Research Professor of Robotics in the Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University internationally ...
, and
Edgar Morin
Edgar Morin (; ; born Edgar Nahoum; 8 July 1921) is a French philosopher and sociologist of the theory of information who has been recognized for his work on complexity and "complex thought" ( pensée complexe), and for his scholarly contributio ...
among others.
With the modern foundations for a general theory of systems following World War I,
Ervin László
Ervin László (; born 12 June 1932) is a Hungarian philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, originally a classical pianist. He is an advocate of the theory of quantum consciousness.
Early life and education
László wa ...
, in the preface for Bertalanffy's book, ''Perspectives on General System Theory'', points out that the
translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
of "general system theory" from German into English has "wrought a certain amount of havoc":
Theorie (or ''Lehre'') "has a much broader meaning in German than the closest English words 'theory' and 'science'," just as ''
Wissenschaft
''Wissenschaft'' is a German-language term that embraces scholarship, research, study, higher education, and academia. ''Wissenschaft'' translates exactly into many other languages, e.g. ''vetenskap'' in Swedish or ''nauka'' in Polish, but there i ...
'' (or 'Science').
These ideas refer to an organized body of knowledge and "any systematically presented set of concepts, whether
empirically
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
,
axiomatically
An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...
, or
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
ly" represented, while many associate ''Lehre'' with theory and science in the etymology of general systems, though it also does not translate from the German very well; its "closest equivalent" translates to 'teaching', but "sounds dogmatic and off the mark."
An adequate overlap in meaning is found within the word "
nomothetic", which can mean "having the capability to posit long-lasting sense." While the idea of a "general systems theory" might have lost many of its root meanings in the translation, by defining a new way of thinking about science and
scientific paradigms, systems theory became a widespread term used for instance to describe the interdependence of relationships created in
organization
An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is an legal entity, entity—such as ...
s.
A system in this frame of reference can contain regularly interacting or interrelating groups of activities. For example, in noting the influence in the evolution of "an individually oriented
industrial psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology), an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior in the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational ...
ntoa systems and developmentally oriented
organizational psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology), an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior in the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational ...
," some theorists recognize that organizations have complex social systems; separating the parts from the whole reduces the overall effectiveness of organizations.
This difference, from conventional models that center on individuals, structures, departments and units, separates in part from the whole, instead of recognizing the interdependence between groups of individuals, structures and processes that enable an organization to function.
László explains that the new systems view of organized complexity went "one step beyond the Newtonian view of organized simplicity" which reduced the parts from the whole, or understood the whole without relation to the parts. The relationship between organisations and their
environments can be seen as the foremost source of complexity and interdependence. In most cases, the whole has properties that cannot be known from analysis of the constituent elements in isolation.
Béla H. Bánáthy, who argued—along with the founders of the systems society—that "the benefit of humankind" is the purpose of science, has made significant and far-reaching contributions to the area of systems theory. For the Primer Group at the
International Society for the System Sciences, Bánáthy defines a perspective that iterates this view:
Examples of applications
In art
In biology
Systems biology is a movement that draws on several trends in
bioscience research. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based interdisciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in
biological system
A biological system is a complex network which connects several biologically relevant entities. Biological organization spans several scales and are determined based different structures depending on what the system is. Examples of biological syst ...
s, claiming that it uses a new perspective (
holism instead of
reduction).
Particularly from the year 2000 onwards, the biosciences use the term widely and in a variety of contexts. An often stated ambition of systems biology is the modelling and discovery of
emergent properties
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Emergence ...
which represents properties of a system whose theoretical description requires the only possible useful techniques to fall under the remit of systems biology. It is thought that
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...
may have created the term ''systems biology'' in 1928.
[1928, Kritische Theorie der Formbildung, Borntraeger. In English: Modern Theories of Development: An Introduction to Theoretical Biology, Oxford University Press, New York: Harper, 1933]
Subdisciplines of systems biology include:
*
Systems neuroscience
*
Systems pharmacology
Ecology
Systems ecology is an
interdisciplinary field of
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...
that takes a
holistic
Holism () is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book '' Holism and Evolution''."holism, n." OED On ...
approach to the study of
ecological systems
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
, especially
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
s; it can be seen as an application of general systems theory to ecology.
Central to the systems ecology approach is the idea that an ecosystem is a
complex system exhibiting
emergent properties
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Emergence ...
. Systems ecology focuses on interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems, and is especially concerned with the way the functioning of ecosystems can be influenced by human interventions. It uses and extends concepts from
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of th ...
and develops other macroscopic descriptions of complex systems.
In chemistry
Systems chemistry is the science of studying
networks
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics
...
of interacting molecules, to create new functions from a set (or library) of molecules with different hierarchical levels and emergent properties. Systems chemistry is also related to the origin of life (
abiogenesis
In biology, abiogenesis (from a- 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothes ...
).
In engineering
Systems engineering is an
interdisciplinary approach and means for enabling the realisation and deployment of successful
systems. It can be viewed as the application of engineering techniques to the engineering of systems, as well as the application of a systems approach to engineering efforts. Systems engineering integrates other disciplines and specialty groups into a team effort, forming a structured development process that proceeds from concept to production to operation and disposal. Systems engineering considers both the business and the technical needs of all customers, with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user's needs.
User-centered design process
Systems thinking is a crucial part of
user-centered design
User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or proc ...
processes and is necessary to understand the whole impact of a new
human computer interaction
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
(HCI)
Information System
An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...
. Overlooking this and developing software without insights input from the future users (mediated by user experience designers) is a serious design flaw that can lead to complete failure of information systems, increased stress and mental illness for users of information systems leading to increased costs and a huge waste of resources. It is currently surprisingly uncommon for organizations and governments to investigate the project management decisions leading to serious design flaws and lack of usability.
The
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers estimates that roughly 15% of the estimated $1 trillion used to develop information systems every year is completely wasted and the produced systems are discarded before implementation by entirely preventable mistakes. According to the CHAOS report published in 2018 by the
Standish Group
Standish Group International, Inc. or Standish Group is an independent international IT research advisory firm founded in 1985, known from their reports about information systems implementation projects in the public and private sector. The fir ...
, a vast majority of information systems fail or partly fail according to their survey:
In mathematics
System dynamics is an approach to understanding the
nonlinear
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many othe ...
behaviour of
complex systems over time using
stocks, flows, internal
feedback loop
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled c ...
s, and time delays.
[MIT System Dynamics in Education Project (SDEP)](_blank)
/ref>
In social sciences and humanities
* Systems theory in anthropology
* Systems theory in archaeology
Systems theory in archaeology is the application of systems theory and systems thinking in archaeology. It originated with the work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1950s, and is introduced in archaeology in the 1960s with the work of Sally R. Bin ...
* Systems theory in political science
Systems theory in political science is a highly abstract, partly holistic view of politics, influenced by cybernetics. The adaptation of system theory to political science was conceived by David Easton in 1953.
Overview
In simple terms, Easton's ...
Psychology
Systems psychology is a branch of psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
that studies human behaviour
Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. ...
and experience
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...
in complex systems.
It received inspiration from systems theory and systems thinking, as well as the basics of theoretical work from Roger Barker, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana Romesín (September 14, 1928 – May 6, 2021) was a Chilean biologist and philosopher. Many consider him a member of a group of second-order cybernetics theoreticians such as Heinz von Foerster, Gordon Pask, Herbert Brün ...
and others. It makes an approach in psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
in which groups and individuals receive consideration as systems in homeostasis
In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...
. Systems psychology "includes the domain of engineering psychology, but in addition seems more concerned with societal systems and with the study of motivational, affective, cognitive and group behavior that holds the name engineering psychology."
In systems psychology, characteristics of organizational behaviour
Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself".Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995) ...
(such as individual needs, rewards, expectations, and attributes of the people interacting with the systems) "considers this process in order to create an effective system."
In Informatics
System theory has been applied in the field of neuroinformatics and connectionist cognitive science. Attempts are being made in neurocognition to merge connectionist cognitive neuroarchitectures with the approach of system theory and dynamical systems theory
Dynamical systems theory is an area of mathematics used to describe the behavior of complex dynamical systems, usually by employing differential equations or difference equations. When differential equations are employed, the theory is called '' ...
.
History
Precursors
Systems thinking can date back to antiquity, whether considering the first systems of written communication with Sumerian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
to Mayan numerals, or the feats of engineering with the Egyptian pyramids. Differentiated from Western rationalist traditions of philosophy, C. West Churchman often identified with the I Ching as a systems approach sharing a frame of reference similar to pre-Socratic
Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...
philosophy and Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἡράκλειτος , "Glory of Hera"; ) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire.
Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrot ...
. Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...
traced systems concepts to the philosophy of G.W. Leibniz and Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic cardinal, philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Re ...
's ''coincidentia oppositorum
The unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense. ''. While modern systems can seem considerably more complicated, they may embed themselves in history.
Figures like James Joule
James Prescott Joule (; 24 December 1818 11 October 1889) was an English physicist, mathematician and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). T ...
and Sadi Carnot represent an important step to introduce the ''systems approach'' into the (rationalist) hard sciences of the 19th century, also known as the energy transformation. Then, the thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of th ...
of this century, by Rudolf Clausius
Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle ...
, Josiah Gibbs and others, established the ''system'' reference model as a formal scientific object.
Similar ideas are found in learning theories that developed from the same fundamental concepts, emphasising how understanding results from knowing concepts both in part and as a whole. In fact, Bertalanffy's organismic psychology paralleled the learning theory of Jean Piaget
Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemolo ...
.[ von Bertalanffy, Ludwig. ]968
Year 968 ( CMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* Emperor Nikephoros II receives a Bulgarian embassy led by Prince Boris (th ...
1976. ''General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications'' (rev. ed.). New York: George Braziller. Some consider interdisciplinary perspectives critical in breaking away from industrial age models and thinking, wherein history represents history and math represents math, while the arts and sciences specialization
Specialization or Specialized may refer to:
Academia
* Academic specialization, may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field in which a specialist practices
* Specialty (medicine), a branch of medical ...
remain separate and many treat teaching as behaviorist
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...
conditioning.
The contemporary work of Peter Senge
Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning ...
provides detailed discussion of the commonplace critique of educational systems grounded in conventional assumptions about learning, including the problems with fragmented knowledge and lack of holistic learning from the "machine-age thinking" that became a "model of school separated from daily life." In this way, some systems theorists attempt to provide alternatives to, and evolved ideation from orthodox theories which have grounds in classical assumptions, including individuals such as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
in sociology and Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants. In 1909, Taylor summed up ...
in scientific management. The theorists sought holistic methods by developing systems concepts that could integrate with different areas.
Some may view the contradiction of reductionism in conventional theory (which has as its subject a single part) as simply an example of changing assumptions. The emphasis with systems theory shifts from parts to the organization of parts, recognizing interactions of the parts as not static and constant but dynamic processes. Some questioned the conventional closed system
A closed system is a natural physical system that does not allow transfer of matter in or out of the system, although — in contexts such as physics, chemistry or engineering — the transfer of energy (''e.g.'' as work or heat) is allowed.
In ...
s with the development of open systems perspectives. The shift originated from absolute and universal authoritative principles and knowledge to relative and general concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by ...
ual and perceptual
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
knowledge and still remains in the tradition of theorists that sought to provide means to organize human life. In other words, theorists rethought the preceding history of ideas
Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual his ...
; they did not lose them. Mechanistic thinking was particularly critiqued, especially the industrial-age mechanistic metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
for the mind from interpretations of Newtonian mechanics by Enlightenment philosophers and later psychologists that laid the foundations of modern organizational theory and management by the late 19th century.
Founding and early development
Where assumptions in Western science from Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
and Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
to Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
's '' Principia'' (1687) have historically influenced all areas from the hard
Hard may refer to:
* Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture
* Hard water, water with high mineral content
Arts and entertainment
* ''Hard'' (TV series), a French TV series
* Hard (band), a Hungarian hard rock supe ...
to social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
sciences (see, David Easton
David Easton (June 24, 1917 – July 19, 2014) was a Canadian-born American political scientist. From 1947 to 1997, he served as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
At the forefront of both the behavioralist and post ...
's seminal development of the " political system" as an analytical construct), the original systems theorists explored the implications of 20th-century advances in terms of systems.
Between 1929 and 1951, Robert Maynard Hutchins
Robert Maynard Hutchins (January 17, 1899 – May 14, 1977) was an American educational philosopher. He was president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago, and earlier dean of Yale Law School (1927–1929). His& ...
at the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
had undertaken efforts to encourage innovation and interdisciplinary research in the social sciences, aided by the Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
with the university's interdisciplinary Division of the Social Sciences established in 1931.
Many early systems theorists aimed at finding a general systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science.
"General systems theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
" (GST; German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
: ''allgemeine Systemlehre'') was coined in the 1940s by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...
, who sought a new approach to the study of living systems
Living systems are open self-organizing life forms that interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy and matter.
In the last few decades, some scientists have proposed that a general living syst ...
. Bertalanffy developed the theory via lectures beginning in 1937 and then via publications beginning in 1946.[ von Bertalanffy, Karl Ludwig. 9671970. ''Robots, Men and Minds: Psychology in the Modern World'' (1st ed.), translated by H-J. Flechtner. Düsseldorf: Econ Verlag GmbH. p. 115.] According to Mike C. Jackson (2000), Bertalanffy promoted an embryonic form of GST as early as the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the early 1950s that it became more widely known in scientific circles.[ Mike C. Jackson. 2000. ''Systems Approaches to Management''. London: Springer.]
Jackson also claimed that Bertalanffy's work was informed by Alexander Bogdanov's three-volume ''Tectology
Tektology (sometimes transliterated as tectology) is a term used by Alexander Bogdanov to describe a new universal science that consisted of unifying all social, biological and physical sciences by considering them as systems of relationships and ...
'' (1912-1917), providing the conceptual base for GST. A similar position is held by Richard Mattessich
Richard Victor Alvarus Mattessich (August 9, 1922 – September 30, 2019) was an Austrian-Canadian business economist and Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of British Columbia, known for introducing the concept of electronic spread ...
(1978) and Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...
(1996). Despite this, Bertalanffy never even mentioned Bogdanov in his works.
The systems view was based on several fundamental ideas. First, all phenomena can be viewed as a web of relationships among elements, or a system. Second, all systems, whether electrical
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
, biological, or social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
, have common patterns
A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...
, behaviors
Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...
, and properties
Property is the ownership of land, resources, improvements or other tangible objects, or intellectual property.
Property may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Property (mathematics)
Philosophy and science
* Property (philosophy), in philosophy an ...
that the observer can analyze and use to develop greater insight into the behavior of complex phenomena and to move closer toward a unity of the sciences. System philosophy, methodology and application are complementary to this science.
Cognizant of advances in science that questioned classical assumptions in the organizational sciences, Bertalanffy's idea to develop a theory of systems began as early as the interwar period, publishing "An Outline for General Systems Theory" in the ''British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
''British Journal for the Philosophy of Science'' (''BJPS'') is a peer-reviewed, academic journal of philosophy, owned by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science (BSPS) and published by University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes ...
'' by 1950.
In 1954, von Bertalanffy, along with Anatol Rapoport
Anatol Rapoport ( uk, Анатолій Борисович Рапопо́рт; russian: Анато́лий Бори́сович Рапопо́рт; May 22, 1911January 20, 2007) was an American mathematical psychologist. He contributed to genera ...
, Ralph W. Gerard, and Kenneth Boulding
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (; January 18, 1910 – March 18, 1993) was an English-born American economist, educator, peace activist, and interdisciplinary philosopher.David LatzkoKenneth E. Boulding Commentsat personal.psu.edu. Accessed 24 April 200 ...
, came together at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social and ...
in Palo Alto to discuss the creation of a "society for the advancement of General Systems Theory." In December that year, a meeting of around 70 people was held in Berkeley to form a society for the exploration and development of GST. The Society for General Systems Research
The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is:
:"to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their ...
(renamed the International Society for Systems Science in 1988) was established in 1956 thereafter as an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), specifically catalyzing systems theory as an area of study. The field developed from the work of Bertalanffy, Rapoport, Gerard, and Boulding, as well as other theorists in the 1950s like William Ross Ashby
W. Ross Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not ...
, Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard C ...
, Gregory Bateson, and C. West Churchman, among others.
Bertalanffy's ideas were adopted by others, working in mathematics, psychology, biology, game theory, and social network analysis
Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...
. Subjects that were studied included those of complexity, self-organization
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suff ...
, connectionism
Connectionism refers to both an approach in the field of cognitive science that hopes to explain mental phenomena using artificial neural networks (ANN) and to a wide range of techniques and algorithms using ANNs in the context of artificial in ...
and adaptive systems. In fields like cybernetics, researchers such as Ashby, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
, and Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster (German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice ...
examined complex systems mathematically; Von Neumann discovered cellular automata
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
and self-reproducing systems, again with only pencil and paper. Aleksandr Lyapunov
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Lyapunov (russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Ляпуно́в, ; – 3 November 1918) was a Russian mathematician, mechanician and physicist. His surname is variously romanized as Ljapunov, Liapunov, Lia ...
and Jules Henri Poincaré worked on the foundations of chaos theory without any computer at all. At the same time, Howard T. Odum
Howard Thomas Odum (September 1, 1924 – September 11, 2002), usually cited as H. T. Odum, was an American ecologist. He is known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology, and for his provocative proposals for additional laws of thermod ...
, known as a radiation ecologist, recognized that the study of general systems required a language that could depict energetics, thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of th ...
and kinetics at any system scale. To fulfill this role, Odum developed a general system, or universal language
Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea of ...
, based on the circuit language of electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
, known as the Energy Systems Language
The Energy Systems Language, also referred to as Energese, Energy Circuit Language, or Generic Systems Symbols, is a modelling language used for composing energy flow diagrams in the field of systems ecology. It was developed by Howard T. Odum ...
.
The Cold War affected the research project for systems theory in ways that sorely disappointed many of the seminal theorists. Some began to recognize that theories defined in association with systems theory had deviated from the initial general systems theory view. Economist Kenneth Boulding, an early researcher in systems theory, had concerns over the manipulation of systems concepts. Boulding concluded from the effects of the Cold War that abuses of power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
always prove consequential and that systems theory might address such issues. Since the end of the Cold War, a renewed interest in systems theory emerged, combined with efforts to strengthen an ethical
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
view on the subject.
In sociology, systems thinking also began in the 20th century, including Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in soci ...
' action theory[Rudolf Stichweh (2011)]
Systems Theory
, in:y. and Niklas Luhmann
Niklas Luhmann (; ; December 8, 1927 – November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and a prominent thinker in systems theory.
Biography
Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Free State of Prussia, where his father's fa ...
's social systems theory. According to Rudolf Stichweh (2011):Since its beginnings the social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
s were an important part of the establishment of systems theory... e two most influential suggestions were the comprehensive sociological versions of systems theory which were proposed by Talcott Parsons since the 1950s and by Niklas Luhmann since the 1970s.
Elements of systems thinking can also be seen in the work of James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and li ...
, particularly control theory
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a ...
.
General systems research and systems inquiry
Many early systems theorists aimed at finding a general systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science. Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...
began developing his 'general systems theory' via lectures in 1937 and then via publications from 1946. The concept received extensive focus in his 1968 book, ''General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications''.
There are many definitions of a general system, some properties that definitions include are: an overall goal of the system, parts of the system and relationships between these parts, and emergent properties
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Emergence ...
of the interaction between the parts of the system that are not performed by any part on its own. Derek Hitchins defines a system in terms of entropy
Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...
as a collection of parts and relationships between the parts where the parts of their interrelationships decrease entropy.
Bertalanffy aimed to bring together under one heading the organismic science that he had observed in his work as a biologist. He wanted to use the word ''system'' for those principles that are common to systems in general. In ''General System Theory'' (1968), he wrote:
In the preface to von Bertalanffy's ''Perspectives on General System Theory'', Ervin László
Ervin László (; born 12 June 1932) is a Hungarian philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, originally a classical pianist. He is an advocate of the theory of quantum consciousness.
Early life and education
László wa ...
stated:[ László, Ervin. 1974. "Preface" in ''Perspectives on General System Theory'', by L. von Bertalanffy, edited by Edgar Taschdjian. New York: George Braziller.]
Bertalanffy outlines systems inquiry into three major domains: philosophy, science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
, and technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
. In his work with the Primer Group, Béla H. Bánáthy generalized the domains into four integratable domains of systemic inquiry:
# philosophy: the ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
, epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Epis ...
, and axiology of systems
# theory: a set of interrelated concepts and principles applying to all systems
# methodology: the set of models, strategies, methods and tools that instrumentalize systems theory and philosophy
# application: the application and interaction of the domains
These operate in a recursive relationship, he explained; integrating 'philosophy' and 'theory' as knowledge, and 'method' and 'application' as action; systems inquiry is thus knowledgeable action.
Properties of general systems
General systems may be split into a hierarchy of systems, where there is less interactions between the different systems than there is the components in the system. The alternative is heterarchy
A heterarchy is a system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non-hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways. Definitions of the term vary among the disciplines: in soci ...
where all components within the system interact with one another. Sometimes an entire system will be represented inside another system as a part, sometimes referred to as a holon. These hierarchies of system are studied in hierarchy theory Hierarchy theory is a means of studying ecological systems in which the relationship between all of the components is of great complexity. Hierarchy theory focuses on levels of organization and issues of scale, with a specific focus on the role of ...
. The amount of interaction between parts of systems higher in the hierarchy and parts of the system lower in the hierarchy is reduced. If all the parts of a system are tightly coupled
''Coupled'' is an American dating game show that aired on Fox from May 17 to August 2, 2016. It was hosted by television personality, Terrence J and created by Mark Burnett, of '' Survivor'', ''The Apprentice'', '' Are You Smarter Than a 5th G ...
(interact with one another a lot) then the system cannot be decomposed into different systems. The amount of coupling between parts of a system may differ temporally, with some parts interacting more often than other, or for different processes in a system. Herbert A. Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...
distinguished between decomposable, nearly decomposable and nondecomposable systems.
Russell L. Ackoff
Russell Lincoln Ackoff (February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009) was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff was a pion ...
distinguished general systems by how their goals and subgoals could change over time. He distinguished between goal-maintaining, goal-seeking, multi-goal and reflective (or goal-changing) systems.
System types and fields
Theoretical fields
* Chaos theory
* Complex system
* Control theory
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a ...
* Dynamical systems theory
Dynamical systems theory is an area of mathematics used to describe the behavior of complex dynamical systems, usually by employing differential equations or difference equations. When differential equations are employed, the theory is called '' ...
* Earth system science
Earth system science (ESS) is the application of systems science to the Earth. In particular, it considers interactions and 'feedbacks', through material and energy fluxes, between the Earth's sub-systems' cycles, processes and "spheres"— atmo ...
* Ecological systems theory
Ecological systems theory (also called development in context or human ecology theory) was developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner. It offers a framework through which community psychologists examine individuals' relationships within communities and th ...
* Living systems theory
Living systems are open self-organizing life forms that interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy and matter.
In the last few decades, some scientists have proposed that a general living sys ...
[Sinnott, J. D., and J. S. Rabin. 2012. "Sex Roles." Pp. 411-17 in ''Encyclopedia of Human Behavior'' (2nd ed.). Elsevier.]
* Sociotechnical system
Sociotechnical systems (STS) in organizational development is an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refer to coherent systems of human relatio ...
* Systemics
* Urban metabolism Urban metabolism is a model to facilitate the description and analysis of the flows of the materials and energy within cities, such as undertaken in a material flow analysis of a city. It provides researchers with a metaphorical framework to study ...
* World-systems theory
World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective)Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), "World-systems Analysis." In ''World System History'', ed. George Modelski, in ''Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'' (E ...
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the study of the communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
and control of regulatory feedback both in living and lifeless systems (organisms, organizations, machines), and in combinations of those. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) controls its behavior, processes information, reacts to information, and changes or can be changed to better accomplish those three primary tasks.
The terms ''systems theory'' and ''cybernetics'' have been widely used as synonyms. Some authors use the term ''cybernetic'' systems to denote a proper subset of the class of general systems, namely those systems that include feedback loops. However, Gordon Pask
Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask (28 June 1928 – 29 March 1996) was an English author, inventor, educational theorist, cybernetician and psychologist who made contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and ed ...
's differences of eternal interacting actor loops (that produce finite products) makes general systems a proper subset of cybernetics. In cybernetics, complex systems have been examined mathematically by such researchers as W. Ross Ashby, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
, and Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster (German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice ...
.
Threads of cybernetics began in the late 1800s that led toward the publishing of seminal works (such as Wiener's '' Cybernetics'' in 1948 and Bertalanffy's ''General Systems Theory'' in 1968). Cybernetics arose more from engineering fields and GST from biology. If anything, it appears that although the two probably mutually influenced each other, cybernetics had the greater influence. Bertalanffy specifically made the point of distinguishing between the areas in noting the influence of cybernetics:Systems theory is frequently identified with cybernetics and control theory. This again is incorrect. Cybernetics as the theory of control mechanisms in technology and nature is founded on the concepts of information and feedback, but as part of a general theory of systems.... e model is of wide application but should not be identified with 'systems theory' in general ... ndwarning is necessary against its incautious expansion to fields for which its concepts are not made.
Cybernetics, catastrophe theory, chaos theory and complexity theory have the common goal to explain complex systems that consist of a large number of mutually interacting and interrelated parts in terms of those interactions. Cellular automata
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
, neural networks, artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
, and artificial life
Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry ...
are related fields, but do not try to describe general (universal) complex (singular) systems. The best context to compare the different "C"-Theories about complex systems is historical, which emphasizes different tools and methodologies, from pure mathematics in the beginning to pure computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
today. Since the beginning of chaos theory, when Edward Lorenz
Edward Norton Lorenz (May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008) was an American mathematician and meteorologist who established the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and ...
accidentally discovered a strange attractor with his computer, computers have become an indispensable source of information. One could not imagine the study of complex systems without the use of computers today.
System types
* Biological
** Anatomical systems
*** Nervous
**** Sensory
** Ecological systems
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
** Living systems
Living systems are open self-organizing life forms that interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy and matter.
In the last few decades, some scientists have proposed that a general living syst ...
* Complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
** Complex adaptive system
A complex adaptive system is a system that is '' complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is '' adaptive'' in that the indiv ...
* Conceptual
** Coordinate
In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is sign ...
** Deterministic (philosophy)
** Digital ecosystem
** Experimental
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...
** Writing
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols.
Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...
* Coupled human–environment
* Database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
* Deterministic (science)
* Mathematical
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
** Dynamical system
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...
** Formal system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A form ...
* Economic
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
* Energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...
* Holarchical
* Information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
* Legal
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
* Measurement
** Imperial
** Metric
Metric or metrical may refer to:
* Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement
* An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement
Mathematics
In mathem ...
* Multi-agent
* Nonlinear
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many othe ...
* Operating
* Planetary
* Political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
* Social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
* Star
Complex adaptive systems
Complex adaptive systems (CAS), coined by John H. Holland, Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...
, and others at the interdisciplinary Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...
, are special cases of complex systems: they are ''complex'' in that they are diverse and composed of multiple, interconnected elements; they are ''adaptive'' in that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience.
In contrast to control systems, in which negative feedback dampens and reverses disequilibria, CAS are often subject to positive feedback
Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in th ...
, which magnifies and perpetuates changes, converting local irregularities into global features.
See also
Organizations
* List of systems sciences organizations
Systems science is the interdisciplinary field of science surrounding systems theory, cybernetics, the science of complex systems. It aims to develop interdisciplinary foundations, which are applicable in a variety of areas, such as engineering, ...
References
Further reading
* Ashby, W. Ross. 1956. ''An Introduction to Cybernetics.'' Chapman & Hall.
* —— 1960. ''Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behavior'' (2nd ed.)''.'' Chapman & Hall.
* Bateson, Gregory. 1972. ''Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology.'' University of Chicago Press.
* von Bertalanffy, Ludwig. 1968. ''General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications'' New York: George Braziller
* Burks, Arthur. 1970. ''Essays on Cellular Automata.'' University of Illinois Press.
* Cherry, Colin. 1957. ''On Human Communication: A Review, a Survey, and a Criticism''. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
* Churchman, C. West. 1971. ''The Design of Inquiring Systems: Basic Concepts of Systems and Organizations''. New York: Basic Books.
* Checkland, Peter. 1999. ''Systems Thinking, Systems Practice: Includes a 30-Year Retrospective.'' Wiley.
* Gleick, James
James Gleick (; born August 1, 1954) is an American author and historian of science whose work has chronicled the cultural impact of modern technology. Recognized for his writing about complex subjects through the techniques of narrative nonficti ...
. 1997. ''Chaos: Making a New Science'', Random House.
* Haken, Hermann. 1983. ''Synergetics: An Introduction - 3rd Edition'', Springer.
* Holland, John H. 1992. ''Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence''. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
* Luhmann, Niklas. 2013. ''Introduction to Systems Theory'', Polity.
* Macy, Joanna. 1991. ''Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems''. SUNY Press.
* Maturana, Humberto, and Francisco Varela
Francisco Javier Varela García (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesi ...
. 1980. ''Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living''. Springer Science & Business Media.
* Miller, James Grier. 1978. ''Living Systems''. Mcgraw-Hill.
* von Neumann, John. 1951 "The General and Logical Theory of Automata." Pp. 1–41 in ''Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior''.
* —— 1956. "Probabilistic Logics and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components." ''Automata Studies'' 34:43–98.
* von Neumann, John, and Arthur Burks, eds. 1966. ''Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata''. Illinois University Press.
* Parsons, Talcott. 1951. ''The Social System''. The Free Press.
* Prigogine, Ilya. 1980. ''From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences.'' W H Freeman & Co.
* Simon, Herbert A. 1962. "The Architecture of Complexity." '' Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' 106.
* —— 1996. '' The Sciences of the Artificial'' (3rd ed.), vol. 136. The MIT Press.
* Shannon, Claude, and Warren Weaver
Warren Weaver (July 17, 1894 – November 24, 1978) was an American scientist, mathematician, and science administrator. He is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of machine translation and as an important figure in creating support for scien ...
. 1949. '' The Mathematical Theory of Communication''. .
** Adapted from Shannon, Claude. 1948.
A Mathematical Theory of Communication
" ''Bell System Technical Journal'' 27(3):379–423. .
* Thom, René. 1972. ''Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: An Outline of a General Theory of Models''. Reading, Massachusetts.
* Weaver, Warren. 1948. "Science and Complexity." '' The American Scientist'', 536–44.
* Wiener, Norbert. 1965. '' Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine'' (2nd ed.). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
* Wolfram, Stephen. 2002. ''A New Kind of Science
''A New Kind of Science'' is a book by Stephen Wolfram, published by his company Wolfram Research under the imprint Wolfram Media in 2002. It contains an empirical and systematic study of computational systems such as cellular automata. Wolfram c ...
''. Wolfram Media.
* Zadeh, Lofti. 1962. "From Circuit Theory to System Theory." ''Proceedings of the IRE
The ''Proceedings of the IEEE'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The journal focuses on electrical engineering and computer science. According to the ''Journa ...
'' 50(5):856–65.
External links
Systems Thinking
at Wikiversity
at Principia Cybernetica Web
Introduction to systems thinking
- 55 slides
Organizations
International Society for the System Sciences
New England Complex Systems Institute
System Dynamics Society
{{Authority control
Emergence
Interdisciplinary subfields of sociology
Complex systems theory
Systems science