Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV!larry From: larry@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Philosophy: Critique of Systems Theory Message-ID: <19880718040738.0.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 18 Jul 88 04:07:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 72 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 16:55 EDT From: larry@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV Subject: Philosophy: Critique of Systems Theory To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu X-ST-Vmsmail-To: ST%"AIList@ai.ai.mit.edu" -- Using Gilbert Cockton's references to works critical of systems theory, over the last month I've spent a few afternoons in the CalTech and UCLA libraries tracing down those and other criticisms. The works I was able to get and study are at the end of this message. I also examined a number of introduc- tory texts on psychology and sociology from the last 15 years or so. General Systems Theory was founded by biologist Ludwig von Bertallanfy in the late '40s. It drew heavily on biology, borrowed from many areas, and promised a grand unified theory of all the sciences. The ideas gained momentum till in the early '70s in the "humanics" or "soft sciences" it had reached fad proportions. Bertallanfy was made an honorary psychoanalyst, for instance, and a volume appeared containing articles by various prominent analysts discussing the effects of GST on their field. After that peak, interest died down. Indexes in social-sciences textbooks carried fewer references to smaller discussions. The GST journal became thinner and went from annual to biannual; the latest issue was in 1985. Interest still exists, however, and in various bibliographies of English publications for 1987 I found at total of seven new books. What seems to have happened is that the more optimistic promises of GST failed and lost it the support of most of its followers. Its more success- ful ideas were pre-empted by several fields. These include control theory in engineering, taxonomy of organizations in management, and the origins of psychosis in social psychology. For me the main benefit of GST has been a personally satisfactory resolution of the reduction paradox, which follows. Because of the limits of human intelligence, we simplify and view the universe as various levels of abstraction, each level fairly independent of the levels "above" and "below" it. This gives rises to arguments, however, about whether, for instance, physics or psychology is "truer." The simple answer is that both are only approximations of an ultimately unknowable reality and, since both views are too useful give up, their incompatibility is inevitable and we just have to live with it. This is what many physi- cists have done with the conflict between quantum and wave views of energy. The GST view is that each higher level of organization is built on a previous one via systems, which are new kinds of units made from binding together more elementary units. New kinds of systems exhibit synergy: attributes and abilities not observed in any of their constituent elements. But where do these attributes/abilities come from? I found no answer in the writings on system theory that I read, so I had to make my own answer. I finally settled on what interaction effects. Two atoms bound together chemically affect each other's electron shrouds, forming a new shroud around them both. This gives the resulting molecule a color, solubility, conduc- tivity, and so on that neither solitary atom has. Similarly, two people can cross a wall neither can alone by one standing on the other's shoulders to reach the top, then pulling the bottom partner up. A "living" machine can repair and reproduce itself. And consciousness can arise from elements that don't have it -- memories, processors, sensors, and effectors -- though no amount of study of individual elements will find life or consciousness. They are the result of interaction effects. _System Analysis in Public Policy: a Critique_, I. Hoos, 1972 _Central Problems in Social Theory_, Anthony Giddens, 1979 _System Theory, System Practice_, P. B. Checkland, 1981 _On Systems Analysis_, David Berlinski, 1976 _The Rise of Systems Theory_, R. Lilienfeld, 1978 The last two are reviewed in _Futures_, 10/2, p. 159 and 11/2, p. 165. They also contain criticisms of system theory which, they complain, Berlinski and Lilienfeld overlooked.