OK.
I wanted to take some time today (while I've got it) to do a diary on Systems Science.
This is a blog and by definition the computationally literate abide here. Thus, many will already be familiar with Systems Science.
For others, I hope this is enlightening. I think Systems Science is one of those "ontologically" fundamental/underlying understandings that our children's children's children will just carry around. But maybe we can get the ball rolling a little faster? Maybe we can be as creative and inventive as our forefathers were and actually Save the World... with Systems Science?
Granted, science is a scary word for many Bush voters. But it's interesting that Systems Science or Systems Theory as it's sometimes called, is actually all about Synthesis; the synthesis of disciplines, the synthesis of Philosophy and Science, of even Religion and Science.
Many of the greatest writers on Systems Science are Religious men. Sure, they often look to ancient Wisdoms such as Buddhism or Native Religions, but there are also Christians... many of them. These wise-men know that Wisdom Systems (Religion) and Science are symbiotic parts of our primal understandings. Both are addressed in many writings on Systems Science. Even many "intelligent design" folks will find some comfort in the kinds of ideas Systems Science proposes... (a unifying order in how things are organized/related probly exists at some level and who's to say where it came from...?) but it will also make it impossible for them to deny the real Ecological Science.
In truth, Systems Science is no less than a total Paradigm shift to everything that Western Science and Western Philosophy has become. Some say it started with the first computers and Claude Shannon's mathematical definition of "information." Some say it really got legs with bearded environmentalist profs at Berkely and such in the 70's. Fundamentally, Systems Science looks to Synthesis rather than Analysis for understanding. It looks to understand the nature of the connections and relationships between ecologically connected parts... rather than finding Truth in the fundamental nature of the part itself. When you think about it, that's a big shift in thinking for Western Scientists and Philosophers.
I think this is Wisdom. I think this is taking the best of the East and merging it with the best of the West... and starting a real Global Culture. I think this has already been going on for a long time in computer science and in the organization of Large Corporations.
Wolfowitz and his brand have actually abused Systems Science in some ways to promote their agendas. If anyone wonders why the GOP seems so "organized," my suspicion is that it's because most of these guys are CEO's and big business has been using Cybernetics and Systems Science for 30 years now to make big bucks. They understand it... probly even more than us liberal environmentalists do.
CEO's have been pimping Synergy for years now. They don't really understand what they're saying... but the people telling them to say it do... and they know the power of the thinking. Thus far, Cybernetics and Systems Theory have made a lot of people a lot of money. But it's high time the rest of us were let in on the secret.
If we follow Science and Philosophy over the past 50-100 years, we see Einstein and Quantum Physics. We then see the search for a Grand Unified Theory between the two. Now we see String Theory and M-Theory as the first really significant stabs at a GUT. The complexity at the base of String thoery would be impossible without Cybernetics and Systems Science. Now that we've got the Math, we just need to figure out what the hell it's trying to tell us...
As for Philosophy we've seen Foucault and Derrida... Deconstruction and general Postmodernist memes about diversity. We've seen Hegel's horizontal (cybernetic) organizations. Systems Theory looks at it all and proposes a Scientific convergence with Philosophy??? Egads! Fascinating...
For a great summary, check this website.
Here is a snipet:
Cybernetics and Systems Science (also: "(General) Systems Theory" or "Systems Research") constitute a somewhat fuzzily defined academic domain, that touches virtually all traditional disciplines, from mathematics, technology and biology to philosophy and the social sciences. It is more specifically related to the recently developing "sciences of complexity", including AI, neural networks, dynamical systems, chaos, and complex adaptive systems. Its history dates back to the 1940's and 1950's when thinkers such as Wiener, von Bertalanffy, Ashby and von Foerster founded the domain through a series of interdisciplinary meetings.
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Many of the concepts used by system scientists come from the closely related approach of cybernetics: information, control, feedback, communication... Cybernetics, deriving from the Greek word for steersman (kybernetes), was first introduced by the mathematician Wiener, as the science of communication and control in the animal and the machine (to which we now might add: in society and in individual human beings). It grew out of Shannon's information theory, which was designed to optimize the transmission of information through communication channels, and the feedback concept used in engineering control systems. In its present incarnation of "second-order cybernetics", its emphasis is on how observers construct models of the systems with which they interact (see constructivism).
In fact, cybernetics and systems theory study essentially the same problem, that of organization independent of the substrate in which it is embodied. Insofar as it is meaningful to make a distinction between the two approaches, we might say that systems theory has focused more on the structure of systems and their models, whereas cybernetics has focused more on how systems function, that is to say how they control their actions, how they communicate with other systems or with their own components, ... Since structure and function of a system cannot be understood in separation, it is clear that cybernetics and systems theory should be viewed as two facets of a single approach.
So, what do you think or know about Systems Science? Is an ontological shift to an Ecological (look up "Ecology") view of Reality what is needed... particularly in America? I say so.