Tag: system theory

Gaia theory, named after the Greek Earth goddess, is a combination of hypothesis about the planet as a self-regulating living system. James Lovelock is credited with the publication of the first modern scientific article on the Gaia hypothesis in the New Scientist, he also recently published an article in The Independent where he speaks of his latest book The Revenge of Gaiaand warns of the danger of global warming. The philosophical predecessors to Gaia theory include Lewis Thomas, Teilhard de Chardin, Buckminster Fuller. The most common criticism of Gaia theory is the charge that it is teleological.

Although Gaia theories may seem controversial, the study of the inter-relationships between various life forms and their environment (ecology), homeostasis, and emergent properties are established and accepted.

The attempt to grasp the inter-relationships that exist among all of the components of the biosphere, oceans, geosphere and the atmosphere as an Earth ecosystem is a challenge for the human mind, but the need for scientific hypotheses is evident in an age when we attempt to take responsibility for our effect on the planet.

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from Mar 30, 2006 ]

The concept of systems intelligence has been described by Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen, researchers at the Systems Intelligence Research Group, Systems Analysis Laboratory of the Helsinki University of Technology. It is an attempt to formulate an applied systems thinking.

Esa Saarinen and Raimo P. Hämäläinen, argue that systems intelligence is a set of higher-level cognitive capacities, that are not explained by Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, or Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence. Gardner provided others that are not explained: common sense, metaphorical capacity and wisdom. Saarinen and Hämäläinen define systems intelligence as

“ intelligent behaviour in the context of complex systems involving interaction and feedback. A subject acting with Systems Intelligence engages successfully and productively with the holistic feedback mechanisms of her environment. She perceives herself as part of a whole, the influence of the whole upon herself as well as her own influence upon the whole. By observing her own interdependence in the feedback intensive environment, she is able to act intelligently. source: Systems Intelligence – Discovering a hidden competence in human action and organizational life (PDF)”

Systems Intelligence as described here seems to me to be an attempt at an industrial application of the Buddhist doctrine of dependent co-arising, Pratītyasamutpāda, the belief that “phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect”.

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from Jan 10, 2007]

Ludwig von Bartalanffy ponders on the difficulties in trying to apply the 2nd law of thermodynamics to living biological systems. This law implies that entropy increases over time in physical systems.

Biological systems, however, are recognized as maintaining a continual state of flux. Never stationary or fixed in chemical or thermodynamic equilibrium, its components are constantly altered by metabolic events.

A system compensates for its deterioration by importing and processing energy. It attains dynamic equilibrium– between its own improbable state and the surrounding environment (Bertalanffy, 1968b, pp. 46-48; General Systems Theory. New York: George Braziler, 1968.)

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from Jun 20, 2006  ]