Post by Tamrin on Nov 8, 2008 5:50:18 GMT 10
Systems Theory: the transdisciplinary study
of the abstract organization of phenomena,
independent of their substance, type, or spatial
or temporal scale of existence. It investigates
both the principles common to all complex
entities, and the (usually mathematical) models
which can be used to describe them.
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of the abstract organization of phenomena,
independent of their substance, type, or spatial
or temporal scale of existence. It investigates
both the principles common to all complex
entities, and the (usually mathematical) models
which can be used to describe them.
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Systems theory was proposed in the 1940's by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy (: General Systems Theory, 1968), and furthered by Ross Ashby (Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956). von Bertalanffy was both reacting agaInst reductionism and attempting to revive the unity of science. He emphasized that real systems are open to, and interact with, their environments, and that they can acquire qualitatively new properties through emergence, resulting in continual evolution. Rather than reducing an entity (e.g. the human body) to the properties of its parts or elements (e.g. organs or cells), systems theory focuses on the arrangement of and relations between the parts which connect them into a whole (cf. holism). This particular organization determines a system, which is independent of the concrete substance of the elements (e.g. particles, cells, transistors, people, etc). Thus, the same concepts and principles of organization underlie the different disciplines (physics, biology, technology, sociology, etc.), providing a basis for their unification. Systems concepts include: system-environment boundary, input, output, process, state, hierarchy, goal-directedness, and information.