Miller and the General Living Systems Theory

James Miller, an American psychologist and psychiatrist, became one of the most prominent scientists within systems science after the publication of his book Living Systems in 1978. The General Living Systems theory or GLS theory presented in the book is concerned with a special subset of all systems, the living ones. It is general,

Beer and the Viable System Model

The Viable System Model (VSM) was first presented in 1972 by Stafford Beer in his book Brain of the Firm. The VSM, a model just as complicated as its prototype the human body, consists of elements analogous to extremities, backbone, nerves, nerve centres and brain. These counterparts are the five managerial subsystems. As a

Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis

In 1972, James Lovelock and his co-worker Lynn Margulis introduced a hypothesis regarding the earth as a living superorganism. This hypothesis was later given the name of Gaia by the Nobel literature prize- winner William Golding, who recognized the parallel between the mother earth of Greek mythology and Lovelock’s idea. A further development of

Teilhard de Chardin and the noosphere

Already in the 1920s, the impact of the growing state of knowledge and consciousness in humanity on the planet was the subject of an advanced discussion. For the first time in history, due to technical progress, large fractions of humanity experienced the same events, and shared the same emotions at the same time. Participators

Taylor and the Geopolitic Systems Model

Geopolitics as a discipline tries to explain the influence of geographical factors behind sociocultural organization and politics. Many models have been conceptualized within the area. One of the least specialized and easiest to understand was introduced by Alastair Taylor, a professor of geography and political science at Queen’s University in Canada (Taylor 1973). The

Klir and the General Systems Problem Solver

According to George Klir his taxonomy of systems is intended to provide a pragmatically founded classification useful within various disciplines and engineering modes. It was first presented in his book Architecture of Systems Problem Solving in 1985. The empirical application demonstrated in this work, the General Systems Problem Solver, GSPS, is a computer- based

Laszlo and the Natural Systems

Ervin Laszlo, a Hungarian philosopher, has written a number of books covering systems philosophy. In one from 1972, Introduction to Systems Philosophy, he presents his concept of Natural Systems. Like so many other philosophers, he turns first to metaphysics to acquire the answers to questions concerning the ultimate nature of reality. Laszlo states that,

Cook and the Quantal System

Norman Cook, a researcher in the area of neurosurgery, presented in 1980, his version of the Natural Systems in the book Stability and Flexibility. His theory describes how the functional duality of flexibility/stability influences five main levels of natural organization in our surrounding world. Together these levels are called the quantal by Cook. These

Checkland and the Systems Typology

Peter Checkland, a British professor in systems science, published his book Systems Thinking Systems Practice in 1981. With this book he joins the scientists who have launched natural systems hierarchies, in his case called the Systems Typology. According to Checkland, the absolute minimum number of systems classes necessary to describe the existing reality is

Jordan and the Systems Taxonomy

In an essay from 1968 published in Themes in Speculative Psychology an American psychologist, Nehemiah Jordan, presented his Systems Taxonomy. As a non-hierarchial structure it will only in part fulfil the conditions for being a general systems theory (see p. 53). Systems taxonomy has three basic organizing principles which enable an observer to define

Salk and the categories of nature

Jonas E. Salk (1914-1995), immunologist and father of the Salk vaccine against polio, has proved himself to be a true natural philosopher in his book Anatomy of Reality (1983). Here, Salk presents a number of conceptual maps showing how evolution as the primary cosmic force creates the order visible in the different categories of

Powers and the Control Theory

As a psychologist and cybernetician, the American researcher William Powers had for many years pondered the question: ‘Why does the same disturbance sometimes result in different responses?’ The classical stimulus/response view and behaviourism had apparently failed to give an explanation. Powers himself gives the answer in his book Behavior: The Control of Perception (1973).

Namilov and the organismic view of science

Vasilii Namilov is a Russian researcher and philosopher of science. In 1981, he presented, in Faces of Science, a cybernetic approach to the phenomenon of science. In the book, the society of science is regarded as a metaphoric or abstract system, residing within the biosphere. As such it has the properties of a macroorganism

Bowen and Family Systems Theory

The concept of a natural system assumes that systems exist in nature independently of man’s creating them. Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory was derived from the study of one type of natural system, the human family. It is a particular kind of natural system and viewed as an emotional system (Kerr/Bowen 1988). As such,

Jaques and the Stratified Systems Theory

With the Canadian-born psychoanalyst and management expert Elliott Jaques, a comprehensive body of insights that explains organizational behaviour was produced under the name of Stratified Systems Theory or SST (Jaques 1976). This is a general theoretical construction of how organizations and human nature affect each other with special reference to bureaucracy. Among other things,

Introduction to the Communication and Information Theory

Communication and information theory was first formulated in telegraph and telephone engineering, which makes it natural that its benefits were first exploited by engineers in this field. Both areas are closely interlinked as the identification of information separated from its context is not possible. It is only idenftifiable as part of a communication situation with

Basic concepts of communication theory

The theoretical problem of communication is possible to define as: to make a representation in one place of a presentation already existing in another place. This formulation is, however, not complete as the communication process often is used to disinform or deceive a receiver. To get a total definition the words trustful or misleading

Interrelations between time, place and channel of communication

In reality, time and place influence all other parameters of a commu- nication situation. If these concepts are combined, an arrangement like Table 4.2 can be created and some different situations of communication defined. From the table with its comments it is possible to see how environmental factors and needs determine choice of and

Shannon’s classical theory of communication

In his paper from 1948, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, Claude Shannon presents the foundation of classical communication theory and differentiates between three conceptual levels: the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. As we will see, these levels can be adapted to all main concepts within information theory, such as noise, redundancy, etc. The syntactic level,

Basic concepts of information theory

Information theory is concerned with the problem of how to measure changes in information or knowledge content. It is based on the fact that we can represent our experience by the use of symbols like the alphabet, pictures, etc. Generally, we only need information when faced with some kind of choice. If you know