by Hugh M. Lewis

I address in this main article a simple question. Why "Systems?" 

Doctoral work a decade and a half ago taught me that "systems" models are themselves something of eidetic, reified symbolic structures. Then, why all the fuss?

Or, in layman's terms, "from the cup to the lip, there is many a slip." 

Or, in those old, by-gone Marxist articles of bad faith, if you should meet a "mode of production" (or any other kind of "mode") on the road of life, then kill it before it does any further harm to anyone. 

Or, in a more elegant Zen Koan, the only real system is the teacher rapping the dizzy, sleepy student on top of the head with a big book. 

Or, as a devote Taoist, the simple unthinkable system, or, in Orwellian double-think newspeak, "UN-SYSTEM."

Or, as the Great Anthropology Guru Gregory Bateson may have put it: "Making Muddles of our Models" (Thanks Neville Dyson-Hudson)

But back to my main point, why all the fuss about "Systems?"

I would only say, in answer to this, that Systems are naturally and logically good for human being's to think about. Our own knowledge is systematically structured, at multiple levels, or otherwise it is simply chaotic and hence meaningless. We certainly bring the sense of order to our experiences of nature and natural patterning, but this sense is itself derived from the experience of order that is innate or inherent to this patterning in the first place.

To put it concisely, if all of nature is patterned, and this pattern "makes sense" then it is structured by implicit, or imputable rules, and therefore all nature can be called in some minimal manner "systematic" in its patterning. This includes as well our own natural presence in this world, and our own "systematic" and patterned understanding of the world and our place in it.

I will try to rationalize my answer to this question in the following way:

1. Our understanding of reality, or of our life-world, is based upon recognition of patterns that we discover and seek to reflexively understand in our phenomenological life world. I would say this is what separates a human from a dog, but I'm not sure a dog doesn't come to know its own life-world in a very similar manner.

2. Our world-view, or our way of looking at the world, is constrained in fundamental ways by the experiences we selectively interpret and the patterns we come to know and impose upon our experiences, as well as upon the conditioned responses and habits that we form in reaction to our received experiences.

3. Our worldview, our perception, our language, our behavioral reactions and initiatives, our social relations, and all our knowledge and understanding, is essentially structured upon a cognitive level by symbolism and symbolic constructive processes.

4. The very manner in which we perceive, understand and respond to the world is structured in a patterned way that is inextricably tied to the same patterns of the world of which it is an intrinsic part and with which it interacts. Our ability to comprehend and see structured order in natural patterning is a consequence of the natural patterning of our own sense of order in our conscious awareness.

Digital computing has made possible the information revolution. The main consequence of this new semi-conducting technologies is the tremendous increase in information storage and processing capacities. New supercomputing architectures, coupled with rapid, revolutionary advances in micro-chip miniaturization, have permitted for the first time the modeling of complex systems in a realistic and representative manner. We are for the first time in human history capable not only of imagining complex systems, but of actually representing them, not in an oversimplified manner, but in a way that is faithful to the actual reality, or the plausible or possible reality. Thus, for the first time, we are capable of almost completely modeling by digital information extremely complex systems, such as advanced aircraft or cars, in a manner that we can then systematically replicate and reproduce technologically, with performance variables remaining true to the original models and calculations.

The main trend in the development of alternative, human based systems is towards increasing distributed integration of otherwise independent systems, coupled with the increasing intensification of systems in terms of their sophistication and intra-structural complexity. This trend will continue into the indefinite future, and there are no foreseeable boundaries to our horizon in this regard. 

How we continue to define ourselves, and our own role, in relation to the operation of these systems, as well as to the tremendous knowledge fund that they represent and depend upon, is our own choice to make, both individually and collectively. We have the choice to decide whether to define our relationship with the systems of our own creation as generalists or as specialists, or, preferably, as both generalist/specialist or some combination of general specialist or specialized generalist. But it will make a critical difference in terms of the structural patterning of the social order we end up with, and the outcomes of this patterning in terms of the increasing or decreasing quality and quantity of our lives in a global, collective context.

Another way of putting all of this is to state that Systems are not only a good and natural way to think about the world, but provide us a common framework of understanding, a common ground, and a common language, in which to relate a broad range of interests and areas of knowledge together. Such a framework is essentially non-ideological in the sense that symbolic ideology usually demands some sense of terminological closure and a leap of faith concerning basic tenets of received truth that may or may not be real. Systems thinking carries with it the inherent reference to information and knowledge that is connected to the larger world, and that is intrinsic to this world, because systems are based upon the understanding of the structures implicit to the patterning of all natural phenomena, and, in the larger scheme of things, all possible phenomena.

General Systems Essays, Vol. I