GENERAL SYSTEMS

Introduction: The Foundations of a Cybernetic Discourse

ANNOTATING:
|...| Ludwig Von Bertalanffy: The History and Status of General Systems Theory
|...| Lawrence S. Bale, Gregory Bateson, Cybernetics, and the Social-behavioural Sciences

Von Bertalanffy and general systems

This annotation will discuss particular aspects of Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory insofar as it bears a relation to Gregory Bateson’s cybernetic epistemology and criteria of mind as they developed after WW II.

This annotation will give an overview of General Systems Theory itself along with a brief examination of three particular elements that articulate General Systems Theory:

1. open systems, in which the division between organism and system is understood as arbitrary;
2. morphogenesis which is the expression of increased order within a system and
3. homology which allows for a structural understanding of systems of different scales and nature.

The general systems theory developed by Ludvig Von Bertalanffy recognised structural relations existing across different systems. In common with the cybernetic epistemology proposed by Gregory Bateson it was anti-cartisian, non-linear, non- teleological and recognised feedback as a central agent of organisation.

The theory opposed “The analytical, mechanistic, one-way causal paradigm of classical science” , the generally accepted Aristotilian, Thomian position, which held that the whole can be understood as the sum of its parts and that the nature and function of an organism can be comprehended through its reduction to its material externally observable components. General Systems Theory opposed the presumption that all causes can be traced back to definable initial conditions.
General systems theory rather considered the whole as system. Although Von Bertalanffy acknowledged that great advances had been achieved by classic science it had failed to offer answers to basic questions of organisation: plan, teleology and purpose. In an entropic universe, how do organisms change and survive?; how can an organism heal?; how can a system increase in complexity?
In situations which displays more than two variables (in which case the relationship between one thing and another thing can be explained) one runs into difficulty explaining the whole (system) – one remains in the sphere of elementary parts and processes.

Von Bertalanffy: “[The method of classic science]worked admirably well insofar as observed events were apt to be split into isolable causal chains, that is, relations between two or a few variables. It was at the root of the enormous success of physics and the consequent technology. But questions of many-variable problems always remained. This was the case even in the three-body problem of mechanics; the situation was aggravated when the organization of the living organism or even of the atom, beyond the simplest proton-electron system of hydrogen, was concerned.”

For Bertalanffy the classic scientific epistemology produces two outcomes: the clockwork universe (order is a product of design) and the chaotic universe (order is a product of chance). The first is epitomized by Descartes' bete machine, (later formulated as the homme machine by Lamettrie). The second, for Von Bertalanffy, is expressed by the Darwinian idea of natural selection.

Descarte’s design: can be questioned (principally) on three levels (1) its metaphysical basis: it presupposes the hand of the deity as the prime mover; (2) complexity, the most rudimentary cell is far more complex than the most sophisticated wrist watch; (3) decay: the introduction of the second law of thermodynamics makes the case for the bete machine untenable: what force maintains the entropic system?

Darwin’s natural selection also has a fundamental problem: a self-maintaining system must come into existence before it can enter into completion, which the second law of thermodynamics mitigates against .

Von Bertalanffy would also reject the vitalism of Henri Bergson which described evolution in systematic terms but reverted to metaphysics in relation to system’s first cause and its maintenance. Bergson posited ‘life-force” as a generative agent – again, sidestepping the fundamental problem of entropy within system (See Vibrations).

Overall, classic scientific epistemology directs us to cause and effect and the particular properties of an entity – in which case (and in every case) we witness entropy. Classic scientific epistemology structures attention, directing us toward specifics and away from system. The true character of system is lost unless the fully integrated interdependence of the parts within the whole (system) it is not recognised. This interdependence is a level of abstraction above the particular as it reveals the imminence of system. In system we see morphogenesis, order, symmetry and organisation, the task of General Systems Theory was to account for such phenomena without recourse to metaphysical explanation or handing over the entire problematic to chance.

General Systems – Open Systems

Open systems organise and sustain themselves by exchanging matter, energy and information with their environment . It is this process of exchange itself which constitute the life systems. Von Bertalanffy coined the terms Fließ-Gleichgewicht ("flux-balance”) and steady state, to describe the process of exchange and transformation, which occurs in states of “inflow and outflow” (which in cybernetic parlance can be translated as feedback). In this way system is maintained in flux. “Never stationary or fixed in chemical or thermodynamic equilibrium [system’s] components are constantly altered by metabolic events.” Individual organisms will not survive perpetually within system, but they do pass on information to subsequent generations which preserves their pattern. Which is to say, elements within system deteriorate in accordance with the law of entropy but deterioration is compensated for as pattern is duplicated and grows increasingly complex.

General Systems – Morphogenesis

Morphogenesis is embodied within system and expresses negentropic or anti-entropic tendencies. – in cybernetic parlance imminent to system. I will outline the notion of negetropy in the next section, but suffice to say, morphogenesis is the expression of increased order and complexity, and the maintenance of order and complexity, within the prevailing thermodynamic drift.
Morphogenesis actually utilises these disintegrative forces through a two-fold approach:

1. self-stabilisation (or homeostasis) which maintains the continuity of system’s pattern 2. complexification which moves the system toward greater variety

The move toward greater variety, however, begs improbability and possible inviability. This risk is counterbalanced by an increase in system’s flexibility, which increases the capacity of system to process information and adapt.

General Systems – Homology = (the isomorphic relation between systems)

General Systems theory, in the first instance, concerned itself with the commonality between different biological systems, but was later expanded to encompass systems in general: economics, social; biological &c… A biological system might be structured in the same way as a social or physical system. One system might behave like another. In General Systems Theory such relations are not analogous, one does not serve as an illustration of the other, they are rather homology = they are different systems structured in a similar way, insofar as they organise information, conserve order and allow adaptation.