irt: John Wolfenden, Tue, Feb 27, 1996 7:00 AM EST
I have not found an explicit connection between GST & SD, and Im not sure I
have really looked for one. (I have not seen the references our host
mentioned but will look for them). The connections that I continue to make
are based on reading between the lines and interpreting the implied meaning
of some of the initial writing of Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Kenneth
Boulding.
In reading Davidsons "Uncommon Sense: The life and Thought of Ludwig von
Bertalanffy" I found, and interpreted, the repeated references to fundamental
underlying structures, to be an implication equivalent to what I understood
the Archetypes to be.
As to how I got from Senge back to Bertalanffy, it may have been by way of
Checkland, and it may have been an accidental connection by simply searching
in the domain of systems.
As far as I know have never made any conscious attempt to denigrate the work
of any of great minds that have aided us in arriving at this stage of
understanding, yet I have attempted to put forth the connections I have found
meaningful. Some of these connections are rather intuitive and may be
difficult to support. For those things I have managed to misconstrue, I offer
my apologies.
Gene Bellinger
CrbnBlu@aol.com
General Systems Theory and SD
-
CrbnBlu@aol.com
- Senior Member
- Posts: 67
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
-
George Richardson
- Senior Member
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
General Systems Theory and SD
John Wolfenden asked about system dynamics and general systems theory.
Hes right that there is a lack of clarity (to say the least) about how
they relate and how they differ. The initial confusion comes from their
common use of the dreaded word "system." Confusion is compounded by
their common interest in looking at the world more or less
"holistically." But system dynamics and general systems theory have very
different aims and they come from very different origins.
System dynamics, we should remember, started out as "industrial
dynamics." Then we had "R&D dynamics," "urban dynamics" and "world
dynamics," and finally just "any old system" dynamics. The field
emerged from servomechanisms engineering, focusing on the dynamics
endogenously generated by efforts to control dynamic systems. The focus
has always been on solving management problems in dynamic systems, from
inventories to corporate growth to ecosystem management to problems of
governing (note that word) almost anything. Practitioners have often
tried to invent other names for what we study -- the most recent is
McKinsey & Companys coinage of the term "business dynamics" (practically
a reissue of Forresters original).
General systems theory started out as an effort to propose testable
principles applicable in general to "the whole range of systems," from atoms
and molecules to solar systems (and, by the way, human systems). The aim
was theory building, not problem solving, although one could argue that
the purpose of good theory is to get ready to solve problems. The
origins of GST were the writings of von Bertalanffy (biologist) and a
group of scientists centered originally at the University of Chicago.
The great reference is James G. Millers "Living Systems," published in
1978, after much of the systems theory movement had played itself out.
The discussions in GST focused on the implications of concepts like
"open" and "closed" systems, "equifinality," stability, the structure of
generic homeostatic mechanisms, and so on. The discussions in system
dynamics focused on the (stock-and-flow/feedback) structure underyling
dynamic behavior, management policies intended to improve problematic
dynamics, naturally ocurring structures that compensate or compound
imposed solutions, and so on. The purpose and the resulting discussions are
very different.
Looking back, some smart people have made some serious mistakes trying to
put the two fields (lets say theyre fields) into common context.
People have said feedback systems are closed systems, and since human
systems are open systems then feedback must not apply to human systems.
That false conclusion comes from a confusion of "closed" in the GST sense
(no exhange of anything with the environment) with "closed loop" in the
feedback sense and "closed (causal) boundary" in the system dynamicists
endogenous point of view. Almost no system dynamics model is a "closed
system" since the little clouds on the ends of the flows show that stuff
is exchanged with the systems invironment. But to see internally
generated dynamics, perhaps in response to imposed management policies,
we intentionally draw a closed causal boundary around the system under
investigation and let the internal dynamics vividly appear.
People have fought over whether the word "feedback" should apply to
natural systems, like, say, a predator/prey system. Some in GST wanted to
reserve the word for information that is deliberately "fed back" to
control a system. System dynamicists have ignored the controversy and
have tended to use the notion of a feedback loop to stand for all manner
of causal loops existing or thought to exist in all manner of systems.
The biggest current confusion between the aims of GST and system dynamics
seems to me to be our current efforts to create "archtypical" insightful
structures. We should recall that there have always been hints of such
archtypical interests in the field -- Forresters Urban Dynamics tried to
capture the structure and dynamics of ANY city in a limited area, not a
particular city. In his acerbic book on systems analysis, Dan Berlinsky
ridiculed that aim in both Forresters work and GST. But our archetypes,
and our efforts to understand generic structures appearing in a number of
dynamic systems, do make us sound like GST. We have to be careful about
that.
The difference, I think, is that there is a grounded, problem-solving
focus to good system dynamics work. There are clients (imagined or real),
an audience, a problem to solve or a set of policies to explore, a focus
on implementation [in the best work that focus exists from start to
finish], and a drive to capture "what is really going on" in terms
completely acceptable to those who know the most about the system. And
good system dynamics work must go way beyond identifying system archetypes
in a given problem area, for those are but a few of the commonly occurring
patterns and they need to be focused tightly on the particulars of a
given problem.
These thoughts are much like what Wolfenden is finding in current GST
system dynamics literature. Personally, I think the distinctions are most
easily understood from the origins of GST and system dynamics (you might
guess that bias from Feedback Thought). In their origins they have very
little in common. What we see today in common goals seems to come from
the sometimes corssing meanderings of different intellectual paths of
the two fields. It does not help me a bit that GST and system dynamics
have the same word in their names.
[As Bob Eberlein noted in his hosts note, theres a lot of this in
Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory, and a lot of good
stuff in the special issue of the System Dynamics Review, 10(2-3) (1994).
Please note that the book is "Feedback Thought in ...," not "Feedback
Though." I think several versions of the system dynamics bibliography
went out without the final T, and even the esteemed and knowledgeable
host of this list left it out.]
...GPR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy Phone: 518-442-3859
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 Fax: 518-442-3398
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hes right that there is a lack of clarity (to say the least) about how
they relate and how they differ. The initial confusion comes from their
common use of the dreaded word "system." Confusion is compounded by
their common interest in looking at the world more or less
"holistically." But system dynamics and general systems theory have very
different aims and they come from very different origins.
System dynamics, we should remember, started out as "industrial
dynamics." Then we had "R&D dynamics," "urban dynamics" and "world
dynamics," and finally just "any old system" dynamics. The field
emerged from servomechanisms engineering, focusing on the dynamics
endogenously generated by efforts to control dynamic systems. The focus
has always been on solving management problems in dynamic systems, from
inventories to corporate growth to ecosystem management to problems of
governing (note that word) almost anything. Practitioners have often
tried to invent other names for what we study -- the most recent is
McKinsey & Companys coinage of the term "business dynamics" (practically
a reissue of Forresters original).
General systems theory started out as an effort to propose testable
principles applicable in general to "the whole range of systems," from atoms
and molecules to solar systems (and, by the way, human systems). The aim
was theory building, not problem solving, although one could argue that
the purpose of good theory is to get ready to solve problems. The
origins of GST were the writings of von Bertalanffy (biologist) and a
group of scientists centered originally at the University of Chicago.
The great reference is James G. Millers "Living Systems," published in
1978, after much of the systems theory movement had played itself out.
The discussions in GST focused on the implications of concepts like
"open" and "closed" systems, "equifinality," stability, the structure of
generic homeostatic mechanisms, and so on. The discussions in system
dynamics focused on the (stock-and-flow/feedback) structure underyling
dynamic behavior, management policies intended to improve problematic
dynamics, naturally ocurring structures that compensate or compound
imposed solutions, and so on. The purpose and the resulting discussions are
very different.
Looking back, some smart people have made some serious mistakes trying to
put the two fields (lets say theyre fields) into common context.
People have said feedback systems are closed systems, and since human
systems are open systems then feedback must not apply to human systems.
That false conclusion comes from a confusion of "closed" in the GST sense
(no exhange of anything with the environment) with "closed loop" in the
feedback sense and "closed (causal) boundary" in the system dynamicists
endogenous point of view. Almost no system dynamics model is a "closed
system" since the little clouds on the ends of the flows show that stuff
is exchanged with the systems invironment. But to see internally
generated dynamics, perhaps in response to imposed management policies,
we intentionally draw a closed causal boundary around the system under
investigation and let the internal dynamics vividly appear.
People have fought over whether the word "feedback" should apply to
natural systems, like, say, a predator/prey system. Some in GST wanted to
reserve the word for information that is deliberately "fed back" to
control a system. System dynamicists have ignored the controversy and
have tended to use the notion of a feedback loop to stand for all manner
of causal loops existing or thought to exist in all manner of systems.
The biggest current confusion between the aims of GST and system dynamics
seems to me to be our current efforts to create "archtypical" insightful
structures. We should recall that there have always been hints of such
archtypical interests in the field -- Forresters Urban Dynamics tried to
capture the structure and dynamics of ANY city in a limited area, not a
particular city. In his acerbic book on systems analysis, Dan Berlinsky
ridiculed that aim in both Forresters work and GST. But our archetypes,
and our efforts to understand generic structures appearing in a number of
dynamic systems, do make us sound like GST. We have to be careful about
that.
The difference, I think, is that there is a grounded, problem-solving
focus to good system dynamics work. There are clients (imagined or real),
an audience, a problem to solve or a set of policies to explore, a focus
on implementation [in the best work that focus exists from start to
finish], and a drive to capture "what is really going on" in terms
completely acceptable to those who know the most about the system. And
good system dynamics work must go way beyond identifying system archetypes
in a given problem area, for those are but a few of the commonly occurring
patterns and they need to be focused tightly on the particulars of a
given problem.
These thoughts are much like what Wolfenden is finding in current GST
system dynamics literature. Personally, I think the distinctions are most
easily understood from the origins of GST and system dynamics (you might
guess that bias from Feedback Thought). In their origins they have very
little in common. What we see today in common goals seems to come from
the sometimes corssing meanderings of different intellectual paths of
the two fields. It does not help me a bit that GST and system dynamics
have the same word in their names.
[As Bob Eberlein noted in his hosts note, theres a lot of this in
Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory, and a lot of good
stuff in the special issue of the System Dynamics Review, 10(2-3) (1994).
Please note that the book is "Feedback Thought in ...," not "Feedback
Though." I think several versions of the system dynamics bibliography
went out without the final T, and even the esteemed and knowledgeable
host of this list left it out.]
...GPR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy Phone: 518-442-3859
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 Fax: 518-442-3398
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
jwolfend@metz.une.edu.au (John W
- Junior Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
General Systems Theory and SD
[Hosts note: The two obvious references for this are
Richardson, George P., "Feedback Though in Social Science
and Systems Theory," University of Pennsylvania Press 1991.
The Summer-Fall 1994 issue of the System Dynamics Review
Volume 10 No 2-3, themed - Systems Thinkers, Systems Thinking.]
As part of my present research, I am attempting to place the methodologies
of System Dynamics (SD) in the broader context of holism and General
Systems Theory (GST). Whereas SD and GST seem to have similar things to
say about the world, I am finding it difficult to pin down the
relationship.
Early writers on GST included Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Kenneth Boulding.
There is presently a society of GST practioners/theorists (International
Institute for General Systems Studies) - Gene Bellingers web pages point
to this.
However, when I read in the SD literature, I find only scant reference to
GST (although I have not read any articles from the Sys. Dyn. Review yet as
I am still trying to get them). Gene Bellingers web page titled "System
Dynamics: An Operational Guide to the Universe" makes passing reference to
von Bertalanffy and suggests that Senges Fifth Discipline extends some of
von Bertalanffys ideas in the concept of archetypes. However, when I
check the reference list in Senges book I can find no reference to von
Bertalanffy (since there is no bibliography I cant be 100% sure that he
does not make reference, only that I havent been able to find it).
Other books I have so far read on SD modelling also appear to ignore the
entire GST area.
With my research so far, I can make the following general comments. GST
has been described as "the transdisciplinary study of the abstract
organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial
or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common
to all complex entities, and the (usually mathematical) models which can be
used to describe them" (Heylighen and Joslyn, 1992). I also note the much
of the literature includes a good deal on the philosophy of the systems
approach, with both supporting and critical views presented.
On the other hand, SD as it is currently practised, seems to be a very
applied implementation of the systems approach. Whereas GST practisioners
might theorise about how the world is organised, SDers accepts as givens
the ideas of feedback and interdependence. With these givens, SD then
focusses on developing models of particular real situations with view to
assisting in problem understanding and (potentially) solution.
Since I wish to write definitively about how SD and GST relate, I would
appreciate your comments and ideas.
John Wolfenden, Centre for Water Policy Research (CWPR), University of New
England, ARMIDALE NSW 2351 AUSTRALIA;
Intl code +61 67 / Austn code 067 - Phone: 732420; Fax: 733237;
email:jwolfend@metz.une.edu.au
Richardson, George P., "Feedback Though in Social Science
and Systems Theory," University of Pennsylvania Press 1991.
The Summer-Fall 1994 issue of the System Dynamics Review
Volume 10 No 2-3, themed - Systems Thinkers, Systems Thinking.]
As part of my present research, I am attempting to place the methodologies
of System Dynamics (SD) in the broader context of holism and General
Systems Theory (GST). Whereas SD and GST seem to have similar things to
say about the world, I am finding it difficult to pin down the
relationship.
Early writers on GST included Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Kenneth Boulding.
There is presently a society of GST practioners/theorists (International
Institute for General Systems Studies) - Gene Bellingers web pages point
to this.
However, when I read in the SD literature, I find only scant reference to
GST (although I have not read any articles from the Sys. Dyn. Review yet as
I am still trying to get them). Gene Bellingers web page titled "System
Dynamics: An Operational Guide to the Universe" makes passing reference to
von Bertalanffy and suggests that Senges Fifth Discipline extends some of
von Bertalanffys ideas in the concept of archetypes. However, when I
check the reference list in Senges book I can find no reference to von
Bertalanffy (since there is no bibliography I cant be 100% sure that he
does not make reference, only that I havent been able to find it).
Other books I have so far read on SD modelling also appear to ignore the
entire GST area.
With my research so far, I can make the following general comments. GST
has been described as "the transdisciplinary study of the abstract
organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial
or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common
to all complex entities, and the (usually mathematical) models which can be
used to describe them" (Heylighen and Joslyn, 1992). I also note the much
of the literature includes a good deal on the philosophy of the systems
approach, with both supporting and critical views presented.
On the other hand, SD as it is currently practised, seems to be a very
applied implementation of the systems approach. Whereas GST practisioners
might theorise about how the world is organised, SDers accepts as givens
the ideas of feedback and interdependence. With these givens, SD then
focusses on developing models of particular real situations with view to
assisting in problem understanding and (potentially) solution.
Since I wish to write definitively about how SD and GST relate, I would
appreciate your comments and ideas.
John Wolfenden, Centre for Water Policy Research (CWPR), University of New
England, ARMIDALE NSW 2351 AUSTRALIA;
Intl code +61 67 / Austn code 067 - Phone: 732420; Fax: 733237;
email:jwolfend@metz.une.edu.au
-
saeed@ait.ac.th (Prof Khalid Sae
- Junior Member
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
General Systems Theory and SD
To add a few words to the very comprehensive response from George, GST
people now seem to make a distinction between "concrete systems" and
"abstract systems". Concrete systems are the panacea supposed to embody
some 20 or so functions considered common to all systems, abstract systems
are built around specific processes.
The systems we consider in system dynamics are definitely abstract systems
by these definitions. They are build around functions or problems manifest
in a "reference mode". They exist only to define the problem and are
irrelevant if the problem is not defined. By deduction, a model built
without first delineating a reference mode is largely an artifact with
little utility.
Khalid
saeed@ai.ac.th
Professor Khalid Saeed
Infrastructure Planning & Management
School of Civil Engineering
ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
G.P.O. Box 2754, Bangkok, THAILAND
phones: (66-2)524-5681, (66-2)524-5785; fax: (66-2)524-5776
people now seem to make a distinction between "concrete systems" and
"abstract systems". Concrete systems are the panacea supposed to embody
some 20 or so functions considered common to all systems, abstract systems
are built around specific processes.
The systems we consider in system dynamics are definitely abstract systems
by these definitions. They are build around functions or problems manifest
in a "reference mode". They exist only to define the problem and are
irrelevant if the problem is not defined. By deduction, a model built
without first delineating a reference mode is largely an artifact with
little utility.
Khalid
saeed@ai.ac.th
Professor Khalid Saeed
Infrastructure Planning & Management
School of Civil Engineering
ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
G.P.O. Box 2754, Bangkok, THAILAND
phones: (66-2)524-5681, (66-2)524-5785; fax: (66-2)524-5776