Definitions of systems LO28143

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 04/03/02


Replying to LO28115 --

Dear Organlearners,

Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net> writes in reply to

>>So does anyone have a neat list. I want them to be
>>as diverse (and hopefully contradictory) as possible.
>
>Hmm. That's a tall order. Just about 30 years ago,
>John A. Beckett attempted a fairly comprehensive
>listing in his 1971 book, Management Dynamics: The
>New Synthesis, part of the old McGraw-Hill series
>in management. The first bunch below is from that
>book (pp. 26-29):

Greetings dear Fred,

Thank you for the fine list of definitions. It reminds me of my research
career in the chemistry and physics of soils more than thirty years ago.

After a year of literature research I came deeply under the impression
that a soil is a very complex system, far beyond the description
capacities of the disciplines in physics and chemistry. One of the things
which I did, was to make a study of definitions of systems. Some were very
attractive, but none were useful to get a handle on soils.

A soil is distributed over mother rock with some specific geological
composition. This influences a soil decidedly. A soil is also in contact
with the atmosphere above which includes rain and sometimes even
irrigation water. This also influences a soil decidedly. From the sides it
is in contact with different soils (or even a river) which also have an
important influence. In the soil are microorganisms and bigger critters
like bugs and worms. The roots of various plants and trees have also be to
taken into account as part of the soil. A soil is not merely an inorganic
conglomerate of solid particles of various sizes.

Worst of all, and in those days I had little literature to guide me, is
that a soil is subjected to many ordinate bifurcations which leads to
either a constructive emergence or a destructive immergence. For example,
some clays are very susceptible to too much sodium ions. When a soil with
such a clay in it is irrigated with water rich in sodium ions, the
porosity of the soil collapses so that the soil becomes permanently water
logged. To recover such a soil requires much knowledge of clay chemistry
and much patience which many farmers do not have.

I did not find a definition of a system in all literature suitable to a
soil. But in 1969 I studied a book which helped me to form a curious
definition of a system, one which proved to be of immense help in the
complexity of soils. It is George Spencer's Brown "Laws of form". (In
those days I still worked with definitions, a point which I will clarify
in my reply to Daan Joubert and his topic "The GR and the 7Es".) As a
result of this my definition for any system changed into "A system SY is
any permeable partition in the universe UN through which it has to
interact with its the surroundings SU".

This definition suited me perfectly to describe the complexity of a soil
as a system. When I gave up my career as a soil scientist to follow my
calling as a teacher, this curious definition stayed with me, making even
more sense as I taught and pupils learned. School is a much greater
complexity than a soil. I was part of the pupils' environment SU and not
their system SY. If I wanted success, I had to make their surroundings SU
more fertile. I had much success, never trying to enforce rote learning on
these pupils, but always by trying to provide them with an environment
conducive to authentic learning.

In the middle eighties I discovered the 7Es (seven essentialities of
creativity). Soon it became clear to me that the very articulation of a
system stems from my tacit knowledge of the essentiality openness
("paradigm-open"). To say that a system consists of entities ("beings")
and the relationships ("becomings") between them is to proceed from this
openness to liveness. To say that a system consists of subsystems, is to
proceed from openness to sureness. To say that a system interacts with
several systems in its environment, is to proceed from openness to
wholeness.

Almost suddenly, i.e within less than a year, I realised that I can
describe a system with any or more of the six 7Es (liveness, sureness,
wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness and otherness). Should I use only one,
I am in danger of having a one-sided view of the system. Thus I ought to
use the rest too. But this would make the definition too bulky for
practical purposes, apart from the difficulties in formulating all the 7Es
together.

I decided to think of the system merely in terms of that which allows me
to think of it, namely openness. Openness involves a permeable boundary, a
wall neither completely open nor completely closed. Allow me to explain it
as follows. If the system is either completely open or completely closed,
either the system SY or its surroundings systems SU become conceptually
redundant. What usually happens is one of two things. Firstly, the thinker
may extend the boundary of the system far into the surroundings as if it
is part of the system. This "superiority" thinking will sooner or later
cause imperialistic conflicts. Secondly, the thinker may shrink the
boundary of the system, thus giving up some of its vital parts. This
"inferiority" thinking will also sooner or later cause affirmative
conflicts.

Although the 7Es (except for openness) are not reflected in the
"definition" of a system, they all play crucial roles in the subsequent
elucidating of the system. It is as if each shines its own colour of the
colour spectrum on the system. Think of a colourful picture in the
darkness. Shine red light on it. The red parts become visible while the
rest stays in darkness. Change the red light to a yellow light. The red
parts disappear into darkness, the yellow parts become visible while rest
still remains in darkness. Only when all seven colours shine to produce
white light, the picture with all its colours can be seen.

One of the serious issues in systems thinking is whether to
incorporate bifurcations (with emergences or immergences as
outcomes) in the definition. This will then involve words like
"more than" or "in excess". For example, Jan Smuts defined
holism for the OED as "the whole is more than the sum of its
parts". This definition consists of two concepts:-
* the whole is the sum of its parts
* more than
The latter hints at emergences, the constructive outcomes of
bifurcations. The former hints at one of the conditions necessary
to have emergences, namely wholeness.

See how Smuts' definition gets a new meaning when it is
changed into "the whole is less than the sum of its parts". Here we
have the two concepts:-
* the whole is the sum of its parts
* less than
The latter hints at immergences, the destructive outcomes of
bifurcations. The former still hints at one of the conditions
necessary to have emergences, namely wholeness. Since this
condition seems to hold, the only way in which the immergence
can happen is for another condition which is not mentioned, not
to hold. This then brings all the other six 7Es into the picture.

Fred, let us shift from Smuts' holism to Michael Polanyi's tacit
knowing. He "defined" it by writing "we know more than we
can tell". Is it possible that we may also here have the two
concepts:-
* we know we can tell
* more than
Does the first one not refer to formal knowledge, that which
emerges within us when we create information outside us?
Does the second one, the emergence, not beg us to think of
that from which the formal knowledge emerges -- that which
Polanyi called tacit knowing?

Let us to do to Polanyi's description what we have done to Smuts'
description. Let us change it into "we know less than we can tell". Is
this nonsense, or does it make sense? For me it makes sense because it is
of the ways in which I can describe rote learning. A person memorise a lot
of information ("we know we can tell") which has no inner grounding ("less
than") in tacit knowing. It is "forced in knowledge" without any
intelligence ("in-"=in, "tellus"=earth, ground). Intelligence is to give
ground to information and that ground is tacit knowing.

Intelligence is also to know that the flow from tacit knowing to formal
knowing is not an easy matter since it involves emergences and thus the
7Es. If one or more of the 7Es are impaired, then tacit knowing cannot be
told. I have been rushing to end with the following. If openness is
impaired, then we cannot tell what we know tacitly. How can openness
become impaired? By making our mental boundary too closed or too open. Is
this not happening when a learner is subjected to a deluge of formless
information during learning?

I think it has become high time for a learner to know where the exact
border (partition) of his/her knowledge is and how that border has to
function. Knowledge is a precious system of the personality which we
cannot allow to become deteriorated any further.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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