Chapter Ten

Alternative Human Design Systems

I have undertaken this work on alternative design systems in human development concurrently with the work that has been on-going in relation to the development of natural systems theory and metasystems science methodology. The operational approaches in the former area of involvement leads logically to an interest and development of related ideas concerning metacultural design and the practical challenges of its actual implementation. Because all knowledge is human knowledge all systems that are based upon knowledge can be said to be human constructions and therefore evince the problem of anthropological relativity in their conceptualization and actual articulation. This "White Book" of Metacultural systems is intended as a primer upon the general and special problem sets of redesigning and achieving alternative development in the world that fulfills certain criteria: 1. It is consonant with human nature, culture and interest and it leads to greater human fulfillment and development; 2. It is consonant with the global ecosystem and promotes the evolution of natural ecosystems rather than their social circumscription and destruction; 3. It is compatible with the current dominant pattern of global development and modernization in the sense that it poses no threat to this patterning or the vested interests that lie behind it, but at the same time it complements and reinforces this patterning with alternative frameworks that provide added value and productivity to the larger system and yet serve to eliminate or counter some of the ill side-effects that are the product of the dominant system of development.

This white book has been written alongside a central book upon metasystems as well as a companion blue-book, the designs and content of which are largely proprietary to an actual metasystems framework. The designs, strategies and information/knowledge offered in this book are those intended for the promotion of alternative development alongside of and beyond the boundaries of a corporate metasystems institution, and are based upon the prospects of disseminating and transmitting the knowledge, building extensive networks at multiple levels of engagement of applied metasystems, and the defining of problem sets and issues in ways accessible to people and allowing what can be called a "project based" approach to be implemented at different levels of organization.

There are of course special considerations in the area of metacultural blue-book design and implementation that must be broached that do not occur in other metasystems frameworks. At the same time, it is apparent that much of the possible development to be achieved by such a metacultural framework runs outside of the normal structure of most if not all systems that occur, and will frequently abrade these systems and run across or against the grain of normal "development processes." In such instances, it is clear that such operations will be shoe-string, boot strap style and largely rely on self-organization and self-help improvisation by people who are committed and are willing to devote themselves fully to the achievement of such a design. This is much to ask of people in the world. It at least entails that the metacultural framework can be articulated in contexts that are free of the pervasive and subversive influence of corruption and social authoritarianism, predominant structures in underdeveloped regions of the world that consistently impede and frustrate genuine development efforts. It is imaginable that there may even be instances for organized resistance to such authoritarianism or to attempts to interfere destructively with the projects entailed by a metacultural framework, and hence these contingencies must be dealt with in a systematic and sufficient manner along with all the other components of such an approach. It must be noted that a completely pacifistic approach, in the manner of passive resistance, is probably not a realistic option in the case of extremely authoritarian and anti-democratic systems, and even though a metacultural approach must be based upon pacifistic principles, there is a point at which people must not only defend their freedoms, but take up arms to fight in order to liberate themselves from the bonds of social servitude. To do so does not fly in the face of a form of active pacifism that defines the achievement of a pacifistic world state based upon a grand value strategy as long-term goal worthy of human  sacrifice.

It is clear that the ultimate success of a global metacultural system will depend upon many different people from many different backgrounds and directions coming together upon a common platform and cooperating together to build a system that is larger than any single individual or group interests. It is clear that such success must be built upon individual sacrifice and dedication beyond narrow self-interest as well as individual achievement and fulfillment within the larger metacultural framework. It becomes imperative therefore in the beginning stages that the design of a metacultural approach can be made conceptually clear enough and translated into terms that many people can apprehend and comprehend without too much effort or trouble. Though the main object of this work is to inform and not to persuade, the problem of being not only credible but desirable for people to want to accept and adopt its terms is automatically an intrinsic part of this work.

I have developed an applied metacultural system that represents the expression of a metasystems approach to human knowledge. The applied metasystems provides a comprehensive frame of reference for the contextualization of all forms of human knowledge and for all areas of articulation of this knowledge. Within this framework of a "total system" there is no knowledge that cannot be somehow contextuallized, even multiply contextualized, in a manner as to "make sense" within a metasystems perspective. At the same time it provides a strategic frame of reference for decision making and action based upon informed understanding. It allows us to choose for instance between important and essential areas of involvement and less important or less critical areas of interest. 

Similarly, it permits systematic prioritization and selection among alternatives and trade-offs, especially in complex situations where choices are not very obvious or easily self-evident. Knowledge systems can be devised in relation to a metasystems framework, and knowledge organized according to this framework can not only be contextualized by this framework in a consistent manner, but in a sense "simplified" in relation to its position and identity within a larger knowledge systems framework. No knowledge is completely free of context or "stands alone" independently of its relationships to the world by which such knowledge achieves validation, or apart from other forms of knowledge to which it may be related. But generally the contextualization of knowledge invites its own set of problems concerning the definition and sufficiency of contextual forms of knowledge--how much is enough and when does it become just so much trivia? There are no simplifying or straight-forward solutions to this  kind of paradox, but there are solution-optimization or streamlining strategies that can be adopted that allow us to decide in a relatively non-arbitrary manner when and where context begins and ends in our models of reality.

This system has been developed as an alternative corporate organizational framework that incorporates 25 separate and different working subsystems in an integrated manner, that are grouped into seven main sets or areas. Many of the designs offered in this work are divided by and organized by these seven sets and their 25 subsystems of the applied metasystem as I have developed it., event though these subsystems are mainly a proprietary part of the blue-book rather than this white-book metacultural system. Therefore the main focus is upon the level of the seven main groupings or areas, and there are in addition the peripheral and supplemental  considerations pertinent exclusively or mainly to the implementation of a metacultural systems approach.

It has been the system as a whole that I have been concerned with primarily, and this helps to define the relationships of the parts to the whole. In this sense, the applied metasystem can be considered to be what is happening naturally with integration as this has been mostly self-organizing in an historical sense, and providing a deliberate and design oriented approach to facilitating and promoting this integration to replace the natural processes and to avoid the mistakes that come about as a result of willy-nilly, short-sighted and misguided application strategies that comes about by the preoccupation of the parts over the whole.

The challenge of effectively implementing such a design metasystem therefore becomes the trade-off between achieved expertise and experience that results from super-specialization in an exclusive area, and the problem of integration between specialized areas of application. Preserving the knowledge base, and even extending this knowledge base in terms of achieved expertise through cross-over training and transference between areas of application, and by intra-structural support systems, becomes a principle challenge of constructing such a design metasystem.

The concept of metaculture has been forged as the product of experience and involvement in anthropological research relating to the central problems of the contemporary human condition. Anthropological perspectives in human systems theory can no longer afford the venerable neutrality and idealistic objectivity of the academic armchair, divorced from the consequences of human knowledge and action. Social scientists bear an increasing and increasingly unmet normative responsibility not only to understand the world, but to offer viable solutions that would result in making the world a better place.

A metacultural perspective is forged from a basic philosophy about human nature and the role and function of human culture and society in the organization and shaping of this nature. Humankind is indeed inherently prone to violence and human psychological and symbolic pathology usually does become expressed in terms of social relationships and interactions. Therefore, the main principle of a metacultural perspective is that of transcendence, of which human beings are also capable, especially under the best of circumstances, but even, with true  courage, under the worst of conditions.

The aim of metacultural systems engineering therefore is centered upon the human subject as the central actor, knower, shaper and controller of one's world. Its aim is generally to create new systems by intentional design that foster human development and higher order normative achievement that permits and promotes a greater prevalence of human social transcendence of situations that result in violence and unnecessary suffering in the world. The emphasis therefore in metacultural systems design is the prevention and reduction of the frequencies of human violence, primarily by means of the maximization of the achieved realization of human rights and responsibilities, broadly defined. Secondly, its interest is in providing alternative designs for those minimal control structures that can effectively treat the problems of violence, and the pathological conditions that result in violence, when it does occur.

It has been a lesson well learned in my own life that opportunity structures and screens of opportunities can be either facilitating or frustrating if they do not allow us to get to where we want to go in life, or rather if they stand in the way of social mobility, especially for the masses. We should include a definition of negative opportunity as well as that of positive opportunities to stress that not only are not all opportunities equal, they all do not have the same consequences for the people they were intended to serve. Furthermore, it has been my conclusion that most opportunity structures, however open, tend to be limited, such that if we define a select group with favorable positive opportunity, we are almost automatically also designating a default group whose lives will become defined, in a kind of Mathew effect, by negative opportunities.

As alternative systems, it is apparent that the design of these different projects are to be achieved outside of the conventional status-quo of the way modern systems have developed. It becomes imperative for the success of such systems that they follow these guidelines:

1. They are human subject centered

2. They are practical and efficacious in a human economical framework.

3. They are socially and ecologically responsible and limited.

4. They are productive in producing both basic and derivative resources that give greater good to humankind with greater control over and return upon their lives.

5. They are contextually definable within a larger metasystems framework that is consonant with the grand design strategy that this entails.

Though the focus is upon the problematics of fostering and constructing a foundation in a human centered world, metacultural systems invariably lead to heuristic and applied designs in physical, biological and alternative systems, and to the hybridization of these  designs in practical projects that span the entire range of information and knowledge relating to resources necessary not only for human survival, but for the survival of life upon earth and the extension of these systems beyond the boundaries of the earth.

The point of view of a metacultural perspective is therefore not only a critical perspective of the present, or an understanding perspective of the past, but a future envisioning prospective of the possible realities yet to unfold fifty years or a century hence. We must ask of ourselves in the heuristic consideration of such alternative systems what kinds of revolutionary developments might and can occur  within the next century, and more importantly, what kinds of steps we can take now, both collectively and individually, to achieve such new developments.

A metacultural approach is a project-centered and problem oriented approach. Whatever grand philosophy we may wish to impose upon our common future, it is clear that only a practical plan of action can get us to that point if that plan overcomes the obstacles that stand in our path. And anytime the word practical comes to bear upon a problem we must begin an accounting system to decide between trade-offs and relative ratios of costs and gains. Behind this is a clear understanding of what our priorities and our values should be, and therefore also of our most important set of interests in the world, those by implication being connected to our notion of values, whether these are explicit or not. In other words, we must formulate a budget for a working system that is designed to get us from where we are at, to where we think we want to go in the future. This budget must include all kinds of assets and deficits that play a part in our world, human and natural, artificial and potential.

I am a great proponent of practical, improvised self-help strategies. I am also  a proponent  of paralegal structures and collectivities that arise when political systems fail by contradiction to solve the basic issues and problems that beset people in their lives. But I am also not an opponent of big business, industrialization or modernization, nor necessarily of free markets and open capitalist systems. But I am a proponent of the need for responsible government that is the only entity in the world capable of mustering, organizing and mobilizing the kinds and levels of resources in the manner that will be necessary to solve, in a collective sense, the major problems that confront humankind today. All the independent action in the world will come to little if governments cannot eventually jump on the band wagon and effectively enact measures that will foster alternative human development in the world.  And though I think that large scale capitalist institutions are important and probably necessary to the future integration of the world, I realize by hard won experience as well as by reason that such institutions are rarely self-governing and fundamentally lack any sense of responsibility to the collective interests of humanity--it is therefore the role and job of the government and the people whom the governments are supposed to look after, to police such institutions and to set limits to their actions and their profits.

Price control is a necessary feature of many third-world governments, and of first-world governments under times of stress, that seems to have been largely forgotten in the modern era of Brave New Capitalism. Hence prices are allowed generally to spiral higher and higher beyond even hidden market governing devices, and as prices escalate, the number of people able to participate in such market systems without incurring substantial debt becomes narrower and increasingly selective in favor of the elite "haves." Increasing human population and demand, coupled with decreasing job-markets, tend to have the effect of squeezing people into a divisive and cut-throat scramble competition at the bottom, in systems closed by interference competition at the top marked by administrative authoritarianism and bureaucratic systems of obfuscation and encapsulation.

There are particularly areas of basic development, in housing, food, and energy costs, where under the long-term tutelage of a responsible government, prices should be expected to consistently fall as resource availability grows and increases, rather than to escalate and spiral out of control as demand grows and availability diminishes. I would include the cost of government with these basic expenses, felt in a variety of forms but especially in terms of taxes and in terms of the hidden costs of reduced corruption and inefficiency of efforts. Again, a responsible government should be expected to stream-line itself and its program base, to minimize its bureaucratic overhead through  improvement of efficiency, and to eliminate redundancy  in control structures by abbreviating the decision-making control hierarchy rather than telescoping this out to multi-tiered levels. It can accomplish this through the farming out of control and the effective delegation of responsibility upon private citizens and the people.

The increasing burden of government is especially troublesome and onerous when it falls unevenly and unfairly more heavily upon the shoulders of some than of others, but the promulgation of double-standards that serve to promote and justify corruption and inequalities under the law.

Though I am an American and write primarily from the standpoint that is critical of contemporary American society, I find the changing domestic situation in American social life to be largely homologous to the international situation between countries and analogous to the domestic situations in other foreign countries. There is no modern nation-state today that is entirely free of a substantial amount of corruption, class-stratification, nepotism and chronyism, and administrative authoritarianism, false consciousness otherwise about multiculturalism or democracy or patriotic duty notwithstanding. In a multi-trillion dollar economy, the stakes of playing the game are far to high to tolerate a naïve log-cabin ethos about Lincolnian integrity. I do not draw a sharp distinction therefore in the world system between the first and third world, as I believe that global stratification cross-cuts to a great extent ethno-national situations, modernization makes equal victims of us all, even and sometimes especially in countries like the US and Great Britain and Western Europe.

The design solutions I have offered in this work are therefore intended not just for an American setting or audience, but for a global framework, including of course what would be best for wealthy countries like the US and Great Britain. There is a basic sense that optimal solutions are good for everyone, especially if it helps to make the world a more stable and potentially  less destructive and violent place, and real positive development hurts no-one in the long run. I attempt to offer the design for an alternative platform for development that is fundamentally non-exploitative, either socially or environmentally, and that realizes greater return for basic resources to achieve a higher order civilization.

Applied Meta-systems

I have taken a step away from conceptual issues relating to systems-based thinking, philosophy and general/natural systems theory, to focus on applied aspects of the concept I have called "meta-systems" with the idea of highlighting concerns that may seem more concrete, immediate in relevance and therefore available to the average readership.

I have defined a "meta-system" in several different ways, and have used it in even more ways. In general a "meta-system" is a system of systems, but it is also the theoretical system found within all "systems" or the abstract general system we purport to exist within and underlie the operation of complex phenomena. Meta-systems may also be those mixed, heterogeneous systems that tend to occur in the real world, in which the boundaries of one system, at one level, tend to overlap with and play a part within other systems, often at multiple levels. 

I have also defined as "meta-systems" an operational methodological approach to experimental, empirical and functional systems theory dealing primarily with engineering applications, but also with other forms of application that are not as analytically defined as in engineering, as in human construction processes, human production processes, human communications, human relations, human behavioral and social organizational systems. I would include in this a scientific methodological approach to the study of both natural and artificial systems, or real systems, as well as ideal systems, that is describable in terms of a form of applied mathematics.

I hope to be able to present below, in this special presentation of applied meta-systems, key points and areas of interest that I have identified as being important to the comprehension of this paradigm. I have sought of focus on those projects that we have been planning, or upon those key concerns that relate somehow to the application of meta-systems in real working contexts. In this edition, I have sought primarily to introduce main points and projects to the reader, with the idea of following up in greater detail to these introductions in later, more detailed project summaries.

Applied Systems Frameworks & Why Applied Systems

The real challenge in the implementation of Lewis Works has been so far in developing working systems and platforms/frameworks for working systems on the ground in a consistent and organized manner. These working systems are grouped as articulation frameworks into several main areas represented as 'departments' of the Lewis Works framework, and include: consulting/troubleshooting, scientific laboratory & field research, writing & publication, art and aesthetic media productions, business development services, organizational systems, non-profit programs/projects, construction and educational systems. The lack of resources has exacerbated this problem of building working systems on the ground floor and slowed the development process overall. So also has been the general closure and recalcitrance of American society in particular, and the resistance and prejudice demonstrated by most Americans toward alternative developmental frameworks. In spite of these challenges, we have managed over time to aggregate capital resources and to slowly push forward our front-line application frameworks across the board.

Applied systems generally concern engineering types of problems, but within a meta-systems framework we need to define engineering in a broader sense than is conventionally used for this term, to encompass a more general range of human constructive capacities and possibilities that are created by knowledge and human intentionality. We can consider art and media production as an extension of these interests, as well as education, organization, and even commerce. Almost any area of human productive activity can be functionally classified and analyzed in this way. It is common in sports for instance to do a fine analysis of motor-skeletal patterns of movement to determine how to refine the performance of an athlete.

It is also important to answer in a clear way the unasked question of why applied systems, and why systems frameworks in the first place? The answer to this question is manifold: 1. the way things are now, and continue to be, are simply not good enough, and upon certain levels and in certain areas, are simply not doing the job that needs to get done if we seek a successful adaptive solution for the long run. 2. most importantly, I think it is important to emphasize the increasing role that systems will play in our collective life, and they are by design open and available to all people, hence they tend to empower all people in an equal way, even if they are not deliberately deployed for that purpose. 3. systems are not only humanly good to think, but they are in the long run good to do. They provide the contexts which will facilitate the acquisition  of knowledge and build capacities in people that they did not previously have. Before the invention of the airplane, flight was just a fantasy for all people, and unrealistic for many. Now, because of well developed aeronautical systems, flight is facilitated for many people in the world, more so now than ever before, but even the aeronautical systems now are far from perfect in many different ways.  Systems facilitate and make possible what was previously impossible without them. When they are constructive they enhance and enlarge our shared reality. We therefore need systems, perhaps more than ever now that we are reaching our global carrying capacity.

Applied Systems Convergence & Global Equi-finality

Streamlining represents the tendency for the development of an applied system to reach a stable equilibrium characterized by the optimization of functional design and articulation of parts in relation to the whole. Different systems can begin under very different starting conditions, and reach very similar equi-final states in response to similar kinds of conditions. It is for this reason that so many convergent and analogous structures recur in the adaptation of different biological systems to similar kinds of conditions, as for example the achievement of flight by bats, birds and ancient pterosaurs. Streamlining can be said to represent an optimum solution state in a complex search-solution space that is characterized by the design of a system. Such convergent evolution based upon functional streamlining confers to the evolution of species a kind of teleological quality that some interpret as a sign of progressive or intentional design. In fact such teleology is a natural function of complex systems exploring through continuous variation a complex search-solution space and eventually arriving at the most optimum design for a given set of functions, whether this is flying, swimming, talking or walking.

I propose that applied human systems will eventually be reaching a state of optimal design development that I would prefer to call global equi-finality. Such global equi-finality will be characterized by the streamlining of the design development of different systems accompanied by the increasing degree of integration of different system into a larger meta-systemic framework. Automobiles, and to a lesser extent, modern transport aircraft, represent fitting examples of the concept of applied systems streamlining and convergence. The system of transportation, supply and service that supports the automobile and automobile traffic has grown increasingly sophisticated and complex. At this time, such an orientation like permaculture seems to be not well received on a broad scale, but appears to be only well received by a small but diverse and interesting network of individuals and organizations.

As different nations develop and modernization moves different kinds of people forward towards a more affluent life-style, it becomes increasingly obvious that the number of similarities and commonalities between different groups of people, less the cultural and symbolic baggage, are far greater than the number of differences and variations of pattern that serve to distinguish people and set them apart from one another. Human nature is relatively similar, in spite of cultural and psychological differentials and patterns of variation, such that most normal people want and expect the same kinds of things from life. Thus, a system designed in a manner that can fulfill these needs for as many people as possible, is the kind of system that is the most desirable, compared to one for instance that serves primarily to restrict or hurt people's interests, or that carries forward a few individuals to levels of extreme and absurd affluence, at the potential expense of so many more who are frustrated in their dreams and expectations of achievement.

Neither too should affluence alone become the primary goal or set of values to be achieved through development. Relative affluence can only be measured as a material index, one of several alternatives, and is tied ultimately to a sense of well-being, if not happiness, security, satisfaction and success in the realization rather than the frustration of one's goals. The goals of development of a system is the creation of a system with a relative large carrying capacity that can serve its population in a sufficient and satisfactory manner for the long term, without destructive breakdown of the ecological and environmental relationships (including social) that tends to occur in the long run with saturated systems. 

There may be many different ways to design alternative systems to achieve such a set of goals, infinite in number and possibility in fact, but it appears that any such system, to be successful in the long run for as many people as possible, must necessarily lead more or less to the same general place. The key question of course becomes ultimately one of control and power in such a system, and the distribution of power to a field of players in a fair and equitable manner. The tendency in human nature is to try to maximize and monopolize power and control, even and especially at the expense of others. This was largely based upon a premise of a world of limited good. It was a world in which one person's success is almost automatically construed as another's failure. It is possible, for instance, to design a system that is based, if not on unlimited good in an absolute sense, at least unlimited good in a more restrictive and relative way. Of course, differentials of power and control over resources will always exist, and as long as they do so there will always be a sense of corruption and unfairness built into the system.  Conflict of interest and the need for conflict resolution and requirement for apparatus to effect such resolution in a fair and non-destructive manner will always remain, and in some ways is greater now perhaps than it has ever before been. But the means to finally build a kind of system that would allow us to do so seems to be finally at hand, minus the kind of symbolic knowledge needed to put such a system on the ground.

Applied Systems & Development Dilemmas

For every particular problem, there is a single ideal solution, no matter how complex, even though in reality an ideal solution can never be absolutely achieved. For any general class of problem sets, there is some general class of ideal type solutions specific to that class, no matter how complex and even though in reality such ideal solutions cannot ever be achieved. The problem of fitting solutions to problems, of defining problems and then designing solutions to address to such problems, represents the realm of applied systems. 

From a human standpoint, the primary function of any applied system is to serve the adaptive or alternatively the reproductive success of human beings, in the structure of the long run. This sets up a strange dilemma of long-term objectives and possible alternative strategies defining and constraining the development of applied systems--for it is entirely possible that a relative, "local" solution may work for a specific problem or kind of problem in the immediate term, but not represent the best possible or most optimal solution for the general class of problems represented in the larger frame of reference. We must therefore admit a certain systems based relativity of application, that the value of any solution must be measured ultimately by standards that are contextually defined by a larger frame of reference, and not by standards that are relatively defined by the immediate context of application. We would admit for instance that killing the last remaining pair of deer on earth might save ourselves from immediate starvation if we were snowbound on a mountain top, but that in the larger frame of reference of the extinction of an entire species, our own acquiescence to our cold fate on the mountain top might be a small sacrifice to pay for the good of the larger good of biological systems, knowing that there would be many other humans to replace us, but no other deer to replace the ones we would eat.

All human development issues, whether we are talking about global political-economic development, or we are talking about social and individual human development, remains centrally in the realm and strategic/tactical focus of applied systems theory and practice. Approaching the general problem of development therefore, as a cross-disciplinary academic concern, leads us invariably to the problematics of applied systems and the application of general or specific systems to diverse kinds of problem sets.

From a general systems standpoint, we might approach the problem as attempting to understand what common factors and issues arise in the resolution of a broad range of problem sets, and trying to distill from such an inventory a common structure of systems pattern in the application of general solutions to general problems.

I define applied systems as a subclass of alternative or artificial systems, or those systems that are human-made or that are constructions or products of our construction efforts. There are various kinds of applied systems, but we may say in general that they tend to be heterogeneous and they tend to the solution of certain specific kinds of problem sets at whatever level of their functional engagement in the larger scheme of human systems. As artificial systems these applied systems tend to be complex, to tackle problems without finite or clear solutions, and to function in the manner of all working systems, to obtain to some level of optimal operational efficiencies that are permitted by their design.

I would not now claim that all applied systems are isomorphic with all artificial or human-made systems. Artificial systems are a subset of a broader range of applied or alternative systems, and these encompass other possibilities than just human-made ones. One can make the argument for instance that biological systems are strictly speaking "applied" systems, and that evolution provides alternative systems to the general problems of the survival and reproductive success of living systems. The intentionality structures and deliberateness of such natural systems is obviously lacking, unless one posits the existence of a divine creator, but it is clear they are following an inherent logic and a form of informational transmission (genetic, environmental) that results in the creation of new systems previously unknown or non-existent. Certainly the primates alone would be enough to test our convictions about the exclusive human prerogative over applied systems.

Thus applied systems are by definition almost developmental systems that are subject to growth and possibly regeneration, whether or not they are self-organizational or deliberate. Just as real system are subject to change and eventual termination, so are applied systems, as longer-term frameworks featuring succession and replication, subject to comparable constraints of change and eventual extinction of types coinciding with the creation of new types.

We may stratify applied systems on the basis of their functionality and relative specificity of focus, as well as upon the basis of the level at which they are intentionally operational. An automobile engine is a kind of applied system, and serves as a archetypical model of such an applied system. 

At another level we have the car itself, including the engine, as an applied system at a different level of consideration or functional application. If we back away by one more degree, we see that the car that travels on roads, containing a driver and so many passengers, constitutes part of a larger system of highways and roads that is occupied by numerous cars. We may look at each of these systems as nested within the other, and as occurring at different levels of pattern and analysis. Within the framework of a larger highway system, the individual car, and the engine that is central part of the car, constitute subsystems at their respective levels of analysis, and we know well from experience that a network as large as a highway system contains multiple, indeed a myriad, of subsystems and sub-subsystems.

All applied and real systems exhibit non-random pattern or order that permit some level of operational efficiency to occur on a regular basis. Such a system obtains a state of dynamic equilibrium with its environment when it is said to be functioning normally at its own levels of relative efficiency.

Applied systems may be defined, therefore, as alternative real systems that deal in a functional manner with delimited problem sets, with the application system serving as a partial or imperfect but reasonable solution to such a problem set.

Each applied system, seen from the standpoint of the problem set it is intentionally designed to resolve, may be said to have an ideal prototype that represents the most optimal solution, the single best solution, to the problem set in consideration, if not in a specific sense, then in a general sense of the larger problem set that an individual problem or situation represents and stands for. Therefore all improvements to applied systems to certain delimited problem sets may be said to be developmentally streamlined towards the single best, most optimal solution set that is ideally applicable to that kind or type of problem set. It is predicted therefore that as applied systems develop and become developmentally streamlined over time, different instances or kinds of applied systems dealing with the same general kinds of problem sets will tend towards evolutionary or developmental convergence to a common prototypical form that represents such an optimal solution set.

Because of the complexities involved in all systems, even seemingly simple ones, neither the problem nor the solution set may be said to be simple to define, and thus are themselves complex at a level that may be said to be "infinitely complex." There are two outcomes of this general constraint. First, no matter how much development is involved in an applied systems framework, no matter how much streamlining and developmental convergence that may be achieved in the form and function of an applied system to a particular kind of problem, no perfect or one ideal solution will ever be obtained that will be sufficient for a particular kind of problem, much less for all variants of the general problem set. Secondly, the developmental trajectory of any particular design pathway will tend to achieve some optimal equilibrium state in adaptation to the problem set, that will be the average efficiency that is realizable by that particular problem set over the long run.

The problem of applied systems leads us automatically to consider the process of the developmental elaboration and increasing differentiation of such systems, which is complementary to the process of the developmental convergence of different systems upon a common streamlined prototype. Convergence and developmental divergence through differentiated elaboration are fundamentally, dialectically contraposed processes of all applied systems.

Differentiation must be considered a natural outcome of all applied systems development, since no two real systems are ever exactly alike, and there is a continuous process of reproduction of systems leading to variation of form and function. This can be considered to be inherent to the underdetermined complexity of such systems that permits multiple variation to occur within the same form and framework.

Alternative Functional Systems

There is much more to systems thinking and systems-based frameworks than being systematic about what we think or do. It is sometimes difficult to define things from a new point of view when so much of what we know or think about, or how we know and talk, seems steeped in some other way of looking at the world. Systems frameworks demand holism and comprehensiveness as well as analysis and synthesis. It is to me, in hindsight, a completely different way of approaching, framing and solving problems than we are conventionally used to.

Ideally, an applied alternative systems framework would permit us a means of systematically exploring a full compass of possible solution sets to complex problems, and to dramatically foreshorten development cycles leading to successful solutions that are otherwise based upon somewhat short-sighted and serendipitous processes of blind research and "working in the dark." We seek systems that can not only explore the search-solution spaces of very complex problem sets in a systematic and hopefully efficient manner, but that can actually adapt changes internally and externally to its own pattern and select alternatives based upon certain criteria or standards of success (i.e., working efficiencies, simplicity, functional efficacy, cost, etc.)

The process of discovery and knowledge seems overall to be blind and to proceed one step at a time in a discontinuous manner. Flight, once again, was an alternative system which, once basic principles of lift and drag were figured out, which took a very long time, then developed at a very rapid rate. In principle, there is no reason that the ancient Greeks could not have worked out the principles of aeronautics a long time ago, if they understood fully the dynamics of air flow. In part, systems development in any one area must await sufficient development of knowledge relating to systems in many areas, and to the development of what can be called a meta-systems context in general.

One would think that there would be a premium placed upon the systematic exploration, discovery and development of new systems of all kinds. In fact, in my own narrow range of experience, just the opposite seems to be the case. There seems to be built in resistance, upon many levels, to any form of alternation. This exists psychologically and symbolically as resistance to change, as well as socially and culturally in resistance of the structural status quo. It exists in most knowledge areas, as unquestioning acceptance of paradigmatic norms and beliefs. It is for this reason I think that alternative systems so often come out of far right field, by people who are marginal to the normal order of things in their contemporaneous world.

If I were to offer a definition of an alternative functional system, I would call it the range or paradigm of alternative solution sets applicable to a specific problem. This implies variation of design of systems along multiple dimensions, with the idea that there is some minimum standard of goodness of fit of the whole design to a problem set. Many alternative systems will be insufficient by such criteria, but there will always tend to be multiple alternative optimal solution sets, that comprise a range of trade-offs between conflicting sets of factors.

In the course of development of this meta-systems framework, the realization of various types or kinds of applied alternative systems have come to my attention as integral to the problem of systems based application in general. Recognition of the basic types and differences, and their implications, have become important to the organization of this meta-systems framework, and without their differentiation and integration, this framework would not be successfully articulated.

What I seek in this brief article therefore, is an explanation of alternative functional systems by way of example. I would describe a kind of teleological sense of order to alternative functional systems development. All applied systems have a development life-cycle, and these life-cycles all share certain facets in common.

I present this in the form of an expanded Alternative Systems scheme:

What is most important about this scheme, in my mind at least, is not the differentiation of specific functional kinds or areas of alternative systems, but the relationships between these possible areas and especially the feedback loops that may develop between them.

Practical Systems Frameworks

From the cup to the lip, there is many a slip. The fact that applied meta-systems frameworks are as yet largely unrealized and exist primarily upon paper as ideas in waiting, does not mean that practical efforts cannot be undertaken to implement frameworks, or parts of frameworks, with the idea that unsuitable or undeveloped parts of the whole cannot eventually be substituted by better designs.

The practical implementation of frameworks may even proceed a-theoretically, and can prove to be heuristically productive of new theoretical and applied insight not to be gained by structured, top-down approaches. In fact, most solutions are practical solutions, and meta-system frameworks that cannot be rendered practical and efficacious, cannot be successful as proposed solutions to problems.

Practical systems must be regarded in the main as shoe-string and boot-strap solutions, as usually except in the most coveted of worlds (and excepting the US military and NASA), ends usually far exceed the means to accomplishing them. Thus making due with what one has, and making the most of a little bit, becomes the operating standard.

Practical frameworks provide us, informally at least, a set of standards by which we can finally judge the success of any undertaking or systems project. Practical frameworks are functional frameworks par-excellence, and standards used to gauge the success of working systems of all kinds, like achieved efficiency, longevity, etc., are standards that can be used to guide the development of such practical frameworks in the long run and short-term. We refer generally to such development as functional streamlining--the achievement of an optimal solution to a complex  multivariate problem, including maximum possible efficiencies in functioning. Applied systems tend toward "equi-final" convergence in terms of streamlined functional solutions to practical problems to be met by such systems. I would argue that however blind natural evolutionary development may be, most evolution has occurred in terms of such adaptive streamlining of biological systems to specific environmental conditions.

Practical systems can be thought of therefore as controlled experiments--the control usually being the inherent limits and constraints set upon the development of such systems. They are thus to be seen as the best tools for hands-on learning and teaching. This learning may be formal and informal in terms of hands-on, experiential knowledge and expertise that comes with close working association with systems. We would probably trust an automobile mechanic who has 20 years of successful experience working with a certain car, more than we would trust one who received his diploma in an auto mechanic school a year before with certification in that same kind of car.

Indeed, it is practical solutions that count most in the world, and until a solution can be had in real terms, all the plans and designs on paper don't amount to much. People probably debated the possibility and practicality of human flight  centuries before someone actually achieved the practical feat of flying a machine. But once that happened, the aircraft and aeronautical industry never looked back and is today, less than a century later, shooting past the moon.

It is evident that rules of practice that people engage in everyday, hands-on problem solving, are fundamentally different from formal rules of form and theory that are often alleged to guide human behavior. A simpler way of saying the same thing is to remark that ultimately it does not matter how something is done, so long as it is done, and done well. Like typing or bicycle riding, or the composing of an symphonic masterpiece, we cannot always conveniently or adequately explain how things get done--we just know that they do by terms of their results. In fact, we do not really need to know necessarily the theory of what it is we are supposed to be doing, so long as we know how to do it and the job gets done.

I would suggest that practical applications of frameworks rely upon different capacities and more non-analytical methodologies and faculties of the brain, than formal or formalized frameworks. I would also suggest that practical application systems lend themselves more readily to a broader range of adaptation and capacity and to more human differences than frameworks that are more formally designed and organized. The challenge becomes of course marrying the formal with the functional, and the proper with the practical.

I can offer no prescription for the development of practical frameworks--each must work within a model of organization that best suits themselves in their own life-world. What can be said is that many tasks can be rendered more efficient in organization through routine-operationalization, but this should never come at the expense of or in lieu of development and new project focus. Thus, there seems always to be a trade-off and a balance to be effected, between doing things in a tried and true "time-tested" way and trying to learn to do things in a new way. We must always meet the world head one with a sense of openness to learning new things, and a sense of adaptive creativity in how we respond to things we encounter and implement new designs. But at the same time, sense of organization and operational management is important to achieve and maintain, if not compulsively, then at least punctually.

Human Systems

by Hugh M. Lewis