Self-organization and emergence,
especially when expressed by what appear to humans to be the laws of nature,
have caused perceived patterns, cycles, and synergies to come into being. These
patterns, cycles, and synergies are defined by certain regularities of
operation involving specific kinds of objects, interacting in such a way as to
form an identifiable, definable phenomenon. We have briefly examined such
phenomena already. Now, we will take a broader view. When we step back from particular
sorts of regular phenomena, we begin to see patterns of patterns, cycles of
cycles, and synergies of synergies. When we broaden our view out to its maximum
extent, we see that all of these phenomena form a unified whole, a world
comprised of components which, in various ways, can be described as systems. The world is therefore, from
one perspective, a system of systems, or more accurately, a set of interrelated
systems. It is by the operation of these systems that our world seems to
function, and it is these systems that both surround us and incorporate us. We
are ourselves systems within the web of systems, inextricably linked, to
varying degrees, with virtually all of them.
Definition of the Term System; General Characteristics of Systems
What do we mean when we refer to
something as a system? We mean any phenomenon that includes within itself a
number of distinct parts or elements which work more or less in concert with
each other in a regular, reasonably (but not entirely) predictable way to maintain
the phenomenon in approximate equilibrium. Of crucial importance are the facts
that a system is capable of modification and evolution over time, and can be
seriously disrupted or even destroyed, although the degree of vulnerability
systems have varies tremendously. A system, therefore, is not simply a
collection of objects or processes. It is the entire set of relations and interactions between and among objects and processes in a
particular area over time. In the emerging discipline of systems science, there
is a consensus forming that systems primarily exist as percepts of human
consciousness. We perceive a system because our brains are evolved to make
distinctions among things in our environment, and to see relationships based on
those distinctions. This viewpoint is known as the constructivist view of reality. As systems scientist George
Klir puts it:
The constructivist view, at least from my perspective, is not an
ontological view (concerned with the existence and ultimate nature of reality),
but an epistemological view (concerned with the origin, structure, acquisition,
and validity of knowledge)…Every system is a construction based upon some world
of experiences, and these, in turn, are expressed in terms of purposeful
distinctions made either in the real world or in the world of ideas.1
Systems in nature do not present
themselves in neat, clearly demarcated form. Their existence (in human
perception) requires careful examination and the ability to discern
relationships in a context which at first seems chaotic. Thinking of and seeing
the world as an interrelated system of systems is to understand that
reductionism is insufficient for an understanding of the world, the realization
that the phenomena of the world cannot be understood in isolation. They can only be understood (to the incomplete extent
that humans are able to understand anything) by examining the ways in which
they interact with all the other phenomena of the world. Of course, when we
express it in this way, we are brought up against the limits of human
consciousness in a rather stark manner. The implication is clear: if a real grasp of reality depends on
comprehending it as a whole, then we will never truly comprehend it. Even
if we confine ourselves to our own diminutive world, we will struggle to grasp
more than a fraction of its reality. We will only be able to understand the
whole in the broadest and most general sense, which means that our
understanding will, by definition, be an inaccurate and incomplete one.
One of the founders of modern
systems theory was Ludwig von Bertalanffy. In his classic work
on the subject, he identified the basics of the system concept. A system, he
says, is characterized by interacting elements, what he calls “organized
complexity”. In his view system theory is concerned with applying quantitative
analysis to this complexity. 2 He points out that the elements that
comprise a system are distinguishable according to their number, their species,
and their relations to each other. A
complex set of equations can be used to describe these relationships.
Bertalanffy points out that isomorphisms (similarities of function or
structure) exist among the laws that describe various aspects of reality.
Applying systems concepts to explain these isomorphisms therefore clarifies
them, letting us see commonalities among the physical laws as they relate to
various fields, the unity of science, and the broad principles by which
physical reality operates.3
There are the exclusively
internal workings of a system and those points in space-time where the system
is in interaction with another system, its interface (to use an inelegant
term). A system may have interfaces with a number of different systems, which
means that its internal workings may be the sum of all the effects these
influences have on them. The ability of a system to recover from a disruptive
event may be termed the degree of its system
resiliency. If the patterns, cycles, synergies, feedback loops, energy
inputs, and interactions the system has with other systems are of such a nature
that they help the system restore its equilibrium quickly, then we would say
that the system has a high degree of resiliency. We could also say that such a system
is highly adaptable.
Systems researchers Peter Fryer
and Jules Ruis have identified the following features of what they term complex adaptive systems:
1. Emergence,
the result of the interaction of agents within a system that produces an
unexpected level of organization.
2. Co-evolution.
A system is changed by the environment in which it operates and in turn changes
the environment itself.
3. Sub-optimal
[organization]. As Fryer and Ruis put it, “A complex adaptive system does
not have to be perfect in order to thrive within its environment. It only has
to be slightly better than its competitors…”
4. Requisite
Variety. The more internal variety a system has, the stronger it is, as
complex adaptive systems “use contradictions to create new possibilities to
co-evolve with their environment.”
5. Connectivity.
How the agents within a system interact with each other.
6. Simple
Rules. Although systems may exhibit
tremendously complex patterns, they tend to be founded on very fundamental principles.
The examples Fryer and Ruis cite are water systems, which although they form an
intricate variety of patterns, are governed by the simple rule that water tends
to seek its own level.
7. Iteration.
The formation of feedback loops that can cause simple structures to grow
tremendously in size.
8. Self-Organizing,
a property that results from the action and interaction of the system’s various
feedback loops and emergent properties.
9. Edge of
Chaos. A system that is too stable cannot respond quickly to changes in the
environment in which it exists. A system that is excessively chaotic
disintegrates and loses its status as a system. A successful system lives on
the edge between stability and chaos, where it can exploit changing
circumstances and create new possibilities.
10. Nested Systems. Systems are mostly embedded within a network of
other systems with which they interact, and may in fact be subsystems of a
larger, overall system.4
When we examined feedback loops,
we noted the presence of hysteresis, the time lag between a cause and the
effect stemming from that cause. We must assume that in highly complex systems
there can be many points at which hysteresis manifests itself, and we must
further assume that the cumulative effect of these points of hysteresis on the
system’s functions can be considerable.
Systems scientists differentiate
between a closed system, i.e., one
which lacks any apparent interface with any other, and open systems, which obviously can have a wide number and variety of
interfaces with other systems. (It is my view that there is no truly closed
system, for although a system may have no direct
interaction with any other, it forms a part of a whole nonetheless, occupying
space-time and energy-matter that would otherwise help comprise other systems.)
Within a system itself, the following variables may be in operation:
--The elements of the system may
interact at variable rates of speed or frequency.
--The individual elements of the
system can undergo changes in composition, or even disappear altogether (an
aspect of evolutionary systems, as we will see in the next section of this
work).
--The elements of the system may
interact at different durations, degrees of intensity, or varying degrees of
reciprocity.
--The system itself may be
subjected to wide fluctuations of energy from outside the system, which may
have the effect of altering the system’s internal functions. Different elements
within the system may have greater or lesser sensitivities to such external
influences. Variables in purely physical systems caused by outside influences
can include such things as temperature, pressure, gravitational effects,
interference caused by electromagnetic fields, degrees of humidity, rainfall or
the lack thereof, or the actions of external objects physically interacting
with objects inside the system, among others.
--In systems involving the
actions of humans, the multitudinous unpredictable variations in human
consciousness will add a layer of uncertainty to the operations of the system,
as we will see in much greater detail later.
In the human perspective, the
first systems were obviously completely natural ones. The patterns, shapes, and
cycles of the Universe in general and the Earth in particular, acting by means
of synergies and feedback loops, comprise the systems through which physical
reality operates. The Universe itself may be thought of as a system, although
its various component parts usually have very little interaction with each
other outside of a limited area, affecting each other primarily by the
exceedingly weak gravitational pull they exert. The same is true of the Local
Group (as we refer to it) of which the Milky Way galaxy is a part. The Local
Group is a system only in the broadest sense, its interactions restricted to
gravitational attraction. (But perhaps I have spoken too soon—after all,
Andromeda and the Milky Way will begin colliding in about 3 billion years.) The
solar system operates within the massive distortion of space-time caused by the
local star, and its movements have a regularity that helped shape the minds of
our ancestors.
The Sun’s interactions with the
surface of the planet and the actions of thermals rising from the land and
water (and the variations in these caused by the features of the Earth’s
surface), the interaction of the atmosphere and the world’s bodies of water,
the wind patterns in the air and the pattern of currents in the ocean brought
about by these interactions, can all be thought of as subsystems or nested systems
within the overarching world climatic system. As we will see, this climatic
system has undergone frequent and enormous changes throughout the Earth’s
history.
Living things are systems. Even
the simplest one-celled organisms are basic systems evolved to obtain
nutrients, expel waste products, and reproduce. Eukaryotic cells especially are
amazingly complex, systematically behaving chemical factories. Moving up the
ladder of organic complexity, modern plants have evolved elaborate systems that
allow them to produce nutrients for themselves and spread their genetic
material. The whole of the interaction between plants and the atmosphere can be
considered an enormous system. Multicelled animals are a collection of systems
which act in concert to facilitate (or try to facilitate) the survival (and
reproductive chances) of the animal. An example near and dear to us is the
human body, in which the various cell-based organs are organized into systems
that in turn interact with other systems of organs to comprise an overall
system, one that maintains the dynamic equilibrium of the individual. If we
stand back from it and view it in its totality, the world ecosystem is the sum
total of all the interconnected, energy-matter cycling local ecosystems that
exist on, above, or below the Earth’s surface, the ultimate biological system
of systems, and one which exists not only spatially but is the product of all
the systematic behaviors and characteristics of all the living things that have
ever existed over the last 3.5 to 3.8 billion years.
Human-Devised Systems
Human-organized systems are also
at work, often at cross purposes. In fact, the world is overlaid deeply with
systematic human ways of doing things, systems which are generated inside human
cerebral cortices, (usually) laid out in some symbolic form, and then acted
upon with the goal of achieving certain outcomes. Humans try to devise ways of
doing things that will maximize the efficiency of the overall operation and
take full advantage of the natural and human resources that will be devoted to
the systems. The test of a human system is simple and straightforward: does it meet the test of reality? Does
it in fact achieve its stated purposes in the most efficient and advantageous
way possible? (We will, for now, set aside the issue of whether the system’s
goals are achievable at all, or rational, or clearly defined, or ethical, or
desirable.)
Human systems operate on vastly
differing scales, ranging from an individual organizing their work more carefully
to entire culture-wide systems that encompass hundreds of millions of
individuals. Human systems are subject to the same general rule to which all
systems are subject: the more intricate the system’s “structure”, the more
elements it contains, and the more variables affecting it, the more vulnerable
it is to a variety of disruptions. In one sense, the use of the term system is
misleading because it seems to suggest a process that performs flawlessly. We
sometimes think that if something is being done in a systematic way that the
outcomes we derive from it will be exactly what we want. The word system also
implies isolation, or self-containment, a process unaffected by external
factors. No human systems, even the very smallest ones ever achieve such a
status. We sometimes forget that all human-devised systems are vulnerable to
intrusions from outside the system (such as truly unpredictable events or
particularly bad natural disasters), random breakdowns in either people or
parts or processes within the system, and the emergence of unforeseen negative
synergies. The best systems are not those which function “perfectly”—an
unattainable goal. They are systems that show sufficient flexibility to absorb
disruptions, repair their effects, and get the main processes back on track as
quickly as possible. Systems that are inflexible and dependent for their
success on 100% flawlessness of operation at all times are doomed to failure.
Human devised systems include all
the phenomena we typically call institutions,
which we will examine in some detail in a subsequent volume. Institutions are
the large sets of procedures and norms by which major tasks are regulated
and/or carried out, such as the legal system, the political system, the
institution of marriage, the educational system, and so forth. Institutions are
usually the product of a long process of what might be called social evolution,
a term that is somewhat ambiguous. By social evolution I mean the ideas that
are passed from brain to brain via the media of communication existing in a given
culture at a given time, ideas which are understood differently by different
people and which are very often modified by changing external circumstances or
popular attitudes. As we will see, institutions have a specific objective, but
the means by which that objective is achieved may change enormously over the
centuries. An example of this is the transformation of many legal systems from
ones that used such methods of “justice” as trial by ordeal or trial by combat
to ones based on rules of evidence, jury systems, systems of due process
rights, and detailed, prescribed police and court procedures.
The Interface Between Natural and Human-Devised Systems
All human systems are ultimately
embedded in the natural world, even those systems which are nothing more than
agreed upon abstract ideas (another subject we will examine in a subsequent
volume). Human systems reflect the internal neurological processes specific to
our subspecies, and have all the advantages and limitations arising from them.
For example, many humans are extraordinarily good at classification and
organization, capabilities their brains give them, but exceptionally poor at
calculating the various long-term consequences that will arise from their
systems, which is also a feature of our intellects. Naturally, human systems
are adapted to human sensory apparatuses and must conform themselves to human
physical capabilities and needs. Complicating the picture further, human
systems must be built (to some degree at least) in conformity with the purely
natural systems within which they operate. It could be argued, I suppose, that
the objectives of science and technology are, in part, to give human-based
systems greater leeway in this regard, to allow humans to flourish in
particular regions of the globe that to our ancestors might have seemed
uninhabitable. But it needs to be pointed out that expenditures of human time,
effort, and resources rise precipitously the more difficult the natural system
humans wish to live in. The ultimate example might turn out to be the attempt
to move human systems of life into the utterly hostile and exceedingly
difficult conditions of outer space.
Human systems, therefore, are
still subject to strong natural influences. They can be disrupted by massive changes
in climate, tectonic activity in the Earth’s crust, changing patterns of animal
migration, and many others. Humans in turn can wreak havoc on natural systems
they either incompletely understand or are indifferent to. They can destroy
ecosystems with deadly effectiveness, often by polluting atmospheric and
hydrological systems to appalling degrees. They can over-fish the oceans and
over-hunt the land, drive species into extinction, and transmit viral
infections across the planet. Humans, by virtue of their incomplete
understanding of their own powers, can disrupt natural systems vital to their
own survival, yet another subject we will examine in detail later.
The systems view of the world is
an attempt to see reality in a holistic fashion, an attempt to comprehend the
whole by analyzing the operation of the parts so as to understand how the world
we experience emerged from them. In human perception, systems permeate the
physical world and the intellectual worlds that have sprung from the physical world.
Humans themselves are systems embedded in systems, devising still further
systems through the exercise of their conscious abilities. Systems do not
operate with machine-like perfection, even machine-based systems. Most of the
purely natural and human-devised systems in which we are immersed are deeply
interconnected and seem to be inherently open to change, the consequences of
which we will emphasize strongly in the next chapter. We will see that although
the world is thick with systems, that it is a world on the brink of disaster at
any given moment: a world in profound disequilibrium.
1. Klir, Facets of Systems Science, pp. 12-13
2. Bertalanffy, General System Theory, pp. 19,
34
3. Bertalanffy, pp. 55-56, 83-86
4. http://www.fractal.org/Fractal-systems.htm
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