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SYSTEM THEORY

Systems theory is an interdisciplinary field that studies the properties of systems as a whole. It was founded by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, William Ross Ashby, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and others in the 1950s , particularly during discussions at the Macy conferences. Systems theory brought together theoretical concepts and principles from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, biology and engineering and later found applications in numerous fields including geography, sociology, political science, organizational theory, management, psychotherapy (within family systems therapy) and economics among others. Cybernetics is a closely related field. In recent times systems science, systemics and complex systems have been used as synonyms.

TIMELINE
  • 1945-55 General Systems Theory (proposed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and others)
  • 1948–55 cybernetics (W. Ross Ashby, Norbert Wiener) Mathematical theory of the communication and control of systems through regulatory feedback. Closely related: "control theory"
  • 1970 catastrophe theory (René Thom, E.C. Zeeman) Branch of mathematics that deals with bifurcations in dynamical systems, classifies phenomena characterized by sudden shifts in behavior arising from small changes in circumstances.
  • 1980 chaos theory (David Ruelle, Edward Lorenz, Mitchell Feigenbaum, Steve Smale, James A. Yorke) Mathematical theory of nonlinear dynamical systems that describes bifurcations, strange attractors, and chaotic motions.
  • 1990 complex adaptive systems (CAS) (John H. Holland, Murray Gell-Mann, Harold Morowitz, W. Brian Arthur, ...) The "new" science of complexity which describes emergence, adaptation and self-organization, all of which are basic system principles, was established mainly by researchers of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and is based on agents and computer simulations and includes multi-agent systems (MAS) which have become an important tool to study social and complex systems. CAS are still an active field of research.

Contents

Overview

Systems theory focuses on organization and interdependence of relationships. A system is composed of regularly interacting or interdependent groups of activities/parts the emergent relationship(s) of which form the (a) whole.

Part of systems theory, system dynamics is a method for understanding the dynamic behavior of complex systems. The basis of the method is the recognition that the structure of any system — the many circular, interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships among its components — is often just as important in determining its behavior as the individual components themselves. Examples are chaos theory and social dynamics. It is claimed that in some cases it is not possible to explain the behavior of the whole in terms of the behavior of the parts.

Systems theory has also been developed within sociology. The most notable scholar in this area is Niklas Luhmann (see Luhmann 1994). The systems framework is also fundamental to organizational theory as organizations are complex dynamic goal-oriented entities. The systems approach to organizations relies heavily upon achieving negative entropy through openness and feedback.

In recent years, the field of systems thinking has been developed to provide techniques for studying systems in holistic ways to supplement more traditional reductionistic methods. In this more recent tradition, systems theory is considered by some as a humanistic extension of the natural sciences.

Significant and far-reaching contributions have been made by Bela H. Banathy who argued, along with the founders of the systems society, that "the benefit of humankind" is the purpose of science. His last book, Guided Evolution of Society: A System View presented a cultural evolution of concepts and ideas which explores "The Journey from Evolutionary Consciousness to Conscious Evolution."

General systems theory as an objective of Systemics

Early systems theorists aimed at finding a General systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science. The term goes back to Bertalanffy's basic work General Systems Theory. Sociologists like Niklas Luhmann also worked towards a general systems theory, but as of today no systems theory can live up to this claim. However, there are general system principles which are found in all systems. For example, every system is an interaction of elements manifesting as a whole. [citation needed]

History

In von Bertalanffy's foundational text on General Systems Theory he traced the history of the systems concept back to the 1600s philosophy of G.W.v.Leibniz and even Nicholus of Cusa and his Coincidentia Oppositorum. Subjects like complexity, self-organization, connectionism and adaptive systems had already been studied in the 1940s and 1950s, in fields like cybernetics through researchers like Norbert Wiener, William Ross Ashby, John von Neumann and Heinz Von Foerster. Lacking modern tools, they examined complex systems using mathematics, pencil, and paper. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson also had extensive dialogue to bring interdisciplinary principles of systems theory such as positive and negative feedback, into the social sciences. John von Neumann discovered cellular automata and self-reproducing systems without computers, with only pencil and paper. Aleksandr Lyapunov and Jules Henri Poincaré worked on the foundations of chaos theory without any computer at all. At the same time the radiation ecologist, Howard T. Odum recognised that the study of general systems required a language that could depict the energetics and kinetics at any system scale. He developed a general systems, or Universal language based on the circuit language of electronics to fulfill this role. This language has become known as the Energy Systems Language. Ilya Prigogine, Prigogine Center for Studies in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Systems, University of Texas at Austin, has studied "far from equilbrium systems" for emergent properties, suggesting that they offer analogues for living systems. The theories of Autopoiesis of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana are a further development in this field.

Cybernetics, catastrophe theory and chaos 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 (CA), neural networks (NN), artificial intelligence (AI), and artificial life (ALife) are related fields, but they 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 now. Since the beginning of chaos theory when Edward Lorenz 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 computers today.

References

See also

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Edit General subfields and scientists in Cybernetics
K1 Polycontexturality, Second-order cybernetics
K2 Catastrophe theory, Connectionism, Control theory, Decision theory, Information theory, Semiotics, Synergetics, Sociosynergetics, Systems theory
K3 Biological cybernetics, Biomedical cybernetics, Biorobotics, Computational neuroscience, Homeostasis, Medical cybernetics, Neuro cybernetics, Sociocybernetics
Cyberneticians William Ross Ashby, Claude Bernard, Valentin Braitenberg, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, George S. Chandy, Joseph J. DiStefano III, Heinz von Foerster, Charles François, Jay Forrester, Buckminster Fuller, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Francis Heylighen, Erich von Holst, Stuart Kauffman, Sergei P. Kurdyumov, Niklas Luhmann, Warren McCulloch, Humberto Maturana, Horst Mittelstaedt, Talcott Parsons, Gordon Pask, Walter Pitts, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Robert Trappl, Valentin Turchin, Francisco Varela, Frederic Vester, John N. Warfield, Kevin Warwick, Norbert Wiener