"Formal Versus Functional Systems Frameworks"

Unlike natural systems that can be said to be inherently self organizing, human systems of application, i.e., functional systems, are in a sense predetermined and human organized. In other words, they do not happen by themselves, but take work and effort to organize and maintain. This presents a level of problem in applied systems frameworks that doesn't occur in natural systems, except perhaps in areas of methodological application and developmental extension in for instance engineering.

Formal systems frameworks (i.e, generalized, conceptual symbolic systems) are necessary for theorization and heuristic exploration--we always start with models that are more or less formalized and abstracted representations of the realities we wish to understand--but it is functional systems that get the job done. Functional systems are rarely if ever actually articulated or organized on formal principles, at least not in their epiphenomenal states of actual occurrence. Principles of functional organization are based upon efficacy and efficiency of available technology and know-how/will-how of human actors. Functional systems are in other words real working systems and we know well by now the inherent limitations of real working systems.

I have learned in the past year that often it would be nice in the design of systems that we could dispense with formalities altogether and stick strictly to the functional diagrams of flow and control. But we do not have the luxury of dispensing completely with formal models of systems--formal models are at the outset and in the course of development of real working systems necessary for the purposes of heuristic exploration and guiding thinking about systems. No human system can be free of aspects of symbolic formalization that take place as a consequence of our behavioral interaction with our environment and our efforts to shape the environment in deliberate ways.

There is another reason not to completely dispense with formal matters of representation in systems when attempting to understand or to design or articulate a system in real working terms, and this is other than the human factor reason. It has to do primarily, in a fundamental way, with the design principles inherent to any system, and the formal attempt to understand these design principles, and, more importantly, how they are demonstrated by the action or pattern of any particular phenomena we may be observing. And this, in a proverbial nutshell, has been the entire basis of all theoretical science that deals with any form or level of natural system.

It would be interesting to come up with a theory of functional systems. I do not know off hand if this is even possible, or if it is something oxymoronic and self-contradictory. It is not that functional systems are a-theoretical necessarily, but the kind of theories found in functional systems are what are termed "lower level" theories, working theories, that apply not generally but specifically. The kind of knowledge we associate with functional systems is what can be termed "expert knowledge" and this knowledge is derived from specialized training, focus and experience on specific problem sets presented in particular areas of the application of knowledge.

The greatest challenge of attempting to design and then implement in real terms a comprehensive meta-systems framework has been to devise a functional framework for the organization and utilization of knowledge that can be truly inter-disciplinary and that can allow a generalized form of expertise that can cross-specialize or maintain multiple specializations at the same time. This is far easier said than done, especially if we are looking at qualitative factors of refinement in systems rather than loose and somewhat sloppy indicators. In a sense I daily confront and deal with this challenge. The answers I've devised for meeting and resolving this challenge are mainly heuristic devices, like multi-tasking, hot-spotting, etc, rather than formally defined theoretical solutions.

Solutions I've found at functional levels of application have typically been those kinds of streamlining and organizational solutions that pertain to a specific problem set, rather than generally to a range of different kinds of problems. I occasionally hit upon an "aha" kind of solution to a particular problem set that may spill over somewhat to other problem areas I'm dealing with. So far, much of this has been in planning and organizational areas any way, and planning systems effective in one area or for one problem set often have residual value as a design template in other problem sets.

The difficulty to me has been to be able to systematically generalize on the basis of precepts and paradigms, from one kind of solution set that appears to work for a particular problem set, to other or any other kinds of problem-solutions. Applied systems theory largely depends upon being able to do this in a meaningful, non-trivial manner.

The bottom line is that functional systems are working systems in real time. They are not the information dancing across the computer screen, but the computer and monitor that produces that pattern on the screen. It requires work to make working systems work, and work always comes in finite amounts and leads to inefficient, less than perfect, results. Just as there occurs an information bottleneck in the processing of the information explosion that is the consequence of large and complex search-solution spaces, so also there is what can be called a "working" or resource bottleneck in the organization and implementation of working systems when their is an organizational explosion as the consequence of large-scale or broad problem solution spaces.