GeneralSystemsThinking

As part of AYE 2007, I led a session on General Systems Thinking. In the session I referred to a 20+-page set of notes I had. I promised to put those notes on the wiki.

HERE THEY ARE

They are rough notes. Maybe with time I will edit them here so they make a little more sense.

DwaynePhillips 2007.11.08

The Notes

My GST Comments

Creativity doesn't make sense' (my comment).

People are part of any system we build. People are people; they are not machines, and we cannot attribute closed systems machine-like behavior to people. People are not as reliable and predictable as machines. Some people consider things to be funny that are not funny to me. Some people consider things heroic that are not heroic to me. I am often surprised by what people do. Since I cannot control people, I need to consider their unique nature when building systems. Don't try to build systems that eliminate the human nature of humans. Instead, try to understand people and rely on their unreliability.

There is great value in learning and observing for the systems engineer.

The Rethinking book talks much about the analyst and observing. This is key to the systems engineer when doing requirements and asking questions.

Purity is the enemy of learning. p. 286 General Principles of System Design Don't try to be perfect. It is a waste of time. And on top of that, if things are perfect you won't learn much.

General Principles of System Design also talks much of observing.

Weinberg's Laws of Twins p. 3 General Principles of System Design

First Law - Among all births, twin births are pretty rare, and triplets rarer still.
Second Law - Births themselves are almost infinitely rarer than no births at all.

Hence, the vast majority of the time nothing happens.

Remember this when observing, regulating, and working with systems.

Boulding, Kenneth Boulding and the Iron Laws of social organizations:

Malthusian Law of Population Principle of Population
Law of Optimum Size of Organizations Here is one paper from 1967. Looks pretty good. "Hierarchical Control and Optimal Firm Size" by Oliver E. Williamson from The Journal of Political Economy.
Cycles
Oligopoly Law of Oligopoly If there are competing organizations, the instability of their relations and hence the danger of friction and conflicts increases with the decrease of the number of those organizations.
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An oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers (oligopolists). 
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Comments on Boulding's work.

Closed System A system considered to be isolated from its environment.

Differentiation From p. 211

Differentiation is transformation from a more general and homogeneous to a more special and heterogeneous condition
Wherever development occurs it proceeds from a state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic order

Entropy A natural trend toward maximum disorder, prevailing in the inanimate world.

Equifinality A fundamental characteristic of open systems, by which the same goal is reached from different starting points and in different ways.

from Checkland book

Equifinality is an aspect very characteristic of the dynamic order of organismic processes.

Processes occurring in machine-like structures follow a fixed pathway. Therefore the final state will be changed if the initial conditions or the course of processes is altered.
In contrast, the same final state, the same "goal," may be reached from different initial conditions and in different pathways in organismic processes.
We can stipulate two interesting theoroms:

If open systems attain a steady state, this has a value equifinal or independent of initial conditions.

A closed system cannot be equifinal.
This is from p. 132 of Bertalanffy book.

False Precision from Rethinking book p. 157

John von Neumann - There's no sense being precise about something when you don't even know what you're talking about.
ME My use of a slide rule when estimating project costs.

False Start The system is heading for steady state, but its initial movement is in the wrong direction. It corrects and eventually reaches steady state.

People as individuals and people working on projects do this.

Feedback Feedback means that from the output of a machine a certain amount is monitored back, as "information," to the input so as to regulate the latter and thus to stabilize or direct the action of the machine.

A thermostat on an air conditioner.

General Systems Theorists from Rethinking Book - Anyone who claims to be a general systems theorist cannot be one, for there is no such thing. p. 31

General Systems Thinking from Rethinking book p. 8

...what has worked best when dealing with unmastered complexity is a combination of:
Learning from analogous situations outside the present situation
Learning how people think and combining that thinking with facts and preconceptions to determine action.
the study of these things is what we call general systems thinking... 

Gestalt Gestalt psychology

Hierarchic Order see Hierarchy A key model of general systems thought, depicting reality as a hierarchical architecture of organized entities.

The principle according to which entities meaningfully treated as wholes are built up of smaller entities which are themselves wholes...and so on. In a hierarchy, emergent properties denote levels.

Holism Any viewpoint that focuses on the whole as well as the parts, because the whole displays characteristics that are not present in the isolated parts. This is a very useful term that unfortunately has been exploited in recent years by purveyors of questionable healing products and practices.

Homeostasis Those processes through which the material and energetical situation of the organism is maintained constant. Like temperature in warm-blooded animals.

These regulations are governed, in a wide extent, by feedback mechanisms.

Law of Large Numbers from Rethinking book p. 90 In the end, though, there are so many copies that the Law of Large Numbers begins to work against those variations.

Law of Oligopoly If there are competing organizations, the instability of their relations and hence the danger of friction and conflicts increases with the decrease of the number of those organizations.

An oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers (oligopolists).

Law of Requisite Variety The variety of a regulator must equal that of the disturbances whose effects it is to negate. from Ashby, William Ross, "An Introduction to Cybernetics," 1956.

Man as the Individual The ultimate precept, see the bottom of page 52 up into page 53.

Here the main tenet will be:

Man is not only a political animal; he is, before and above all, an individual. The real values of humanity are not those which it shares with biological entities, the function of an organism or a community of animals, but those which stem from the individual mind. 
Human society is not a community of ants or termites, governed by inherited instinct and controlled by the laws of the superordinate whole; it is based upon the achievements of the individual and is doomed if the individual is made a cog in the social machine. 
This, I believe, is the ultimate precept a theory of organization can give: not a manual for dictators of any denomination more efficiently to subjugate human beings by the scientific application of Iron Laws, but a warning tha the Leviathan or organization must not swallow the individual without sealing its own inevitable doom.

Mastering Oneself from Rethinking book p. 74 One masters oneself by giving up the attempt.

So if you want control, stop trying to have control. I see this as the leader of an experiential exercise. The more I let the class lead on, the more they seem to think that I am a masterful leader and creator of learning.

Mechanistic The biological viewpoint that all organisms, including humans, are merely complex mahcines and that all of life can be explained entirely by the laws of physics and chemistry. from Checkland book

Mechanistic world-view - all phenomena are ultimately aggregates of fortuitous actions of elementary physical units. Theoretically, this conception did not lead to exact sciences outside the field of physics - i.e. to laws of the higher level of reality, the biological, psychological and sociological. Practically, its consequences have been fatal for our civilization. The attitude that considers physical phenomenon as the sole standard of reality has lead to the mechanization of mankind and to the devaluation of higher values. pp. 87-88

Meta-Question from Rethinking book p. 65 A meta-question is a question that directly or indirectly produces a question for an answer.

Miracles from Rethinking book p. 148

Miracles happen. Just deal one hand of cards to four people. The odds against that one hand being dealt are a million to one. The more hands dealt, the more miracles occur. Miracles is another name for unlikely and improbable events. Understand about miracles:

Miracles can be reduced in number by sound programming practice.
Miracles can never be eliminated by any practice, but merely reduced.
As the number of miracles is reduced, the remaining miracles seem even more miraculous.
If you start believing miracles can never happen, you start being extremely vulnerable to them when the inevitable is upon you. Then miracles become disasters.

Model of Natural Selection from Rethinking book p. 91

There must be replication with variation.
There must be selective action of an environment.

We can apply these to the design process
Generation of new ideas
Selection among these ideas according to criteria.
ME So here we see a general law of general systems applied to a specific area of design. 

Observing from Rethinking book

45 Of all the things we'd like to teach systems analysts, the art of observation seems to be the most elusive.
48 W. Ross Ashby - In our daily lives we are confronted at every turn with system whose internal mechanisms are not fully open to inspection, and which must be treated by the methods appropriate to the Black Box.

One Truth from Rethinking book p. 37 There is no one truth about what happened.

Each person had a different experience and a different way of relating that experience. (me)

Open Systems A system that continuously exchanges matter/energy with its environment. Includes all systems that are alive.

The following are from Checkland book

   125 A closed system in equilibrium does not need energy for its preservation, nor can energy be obtained from it. For example, a closed reservoir contains a large amount of (potential) energy; but it cannot drive a motor. 
   125 Continuous working capacity is, therefore, not possible in a closed system which tends to attain equilibrium as soon as possible, but only in an open system. 
   125 The apparent "equilibrium" found in an organism is not a true equilibrium incapable of performing work; rather it is a dynamic pseudo-equilibrium, kept constant at a certain distance from true equilibrium; so being capable of performing work but, on the other hand, requiring continuous import of energy for maintaining the distance from true equilibrium.
   
    MY COMMENT - closed systems don't take in or put our energy. Open systems do both. People are open systems. Project teams are open systems. Stuff bothers open systems.

Organismic Biology "Organisms are organized things and, as biologists, we have to find out about it." p. 89.

Overshoot p. 143 While heading for steady state, the system goes in the right direction, but goes too far. Eventually it turns back towards and reaches steady state.

People do this. Project managers often do this. We want to correct a project going in the wrong direction. We correct too much and over shoot our target. Act early act small.

Problem Solving a key job of the systems engineer

from Rethinking book p. 22 Our business contains few, if any, easy solutions. Success in problem solving comes to those who don't put much faith in the latest "magic," but who are willing to try ideas out for themselves, even when those ideas are presented in a carnival of public relations blather.

Progressive Centralization The tendency, as a system becomes more complex, for certain parts to become dominant.

Progressive Differentiation The tendency, as a system becomes more complex, for parts to specialized.

Progressive Integration The tendency, as a system becomes more complex, for the parts to become increasingly dependent on the whole.

Progressive Mechanization The tendency, related to progressive differentiation, for parts of a system to be limited to a single function.

from Checkland book

The individual becoming ever more a cogwheel dominated by a few privileged leaders, mediocrities and mystifiers who pursue their private interests under a smokescreen of ideologies.

Questions from Rethinking book p. 65

Write a question that would be an appropriate question for an examination in this course at this time.
Answer the question you wrote in part 1.
66 What do you think I should be asking you now?

Robotic Concepts These are thought to be false, but still remain dominant in psychological research, theory, and engineering. So here are some of them:

Stimulus-Response Scheme 
Environmentalism 
Equilibrium Principle 
Principle of Economy

Bertalanffy's replies from pages 191-192. Unbiased observation easily shows the spuriosness of these basic assumptions. The S-R scheme leaves out the large part of behavior which is expression of spontaneous activities such as play, exploratory behavior and any form of creativity. Environmentalism is refuted by the elementary fact that not even fruit flies or Pavlovian dogs are equal, as any study of heredity or behavior would know. Biologically, life is not maintenance or restoration of equilibrium but is essentially maintenance of disequilibria, as the doctrine of the organism as open system reveals. Considered as adaptation, creativity is a failure, a disease and unhappiness. Stimulus-Response Scheme
Behavior, animal and human, is considered to be response for stimuli coming from outside. 
The point is that the rules found by learning theorists in animal experiments are supposed to cover the total of human behavior. 
This is the basis of advertising and entertainment - these simple stimulus will cause the desired behavior in the target audience (my comment). 
More sophisticated versions of the scheme do not alter its essence. 
Environmentalism
Behavior and personality are shaped by outside influences. 
In more general formulation, the human brain is a computer that can be programmed at will. The practical consequence is that human beings are born not only with equal rights but with equal capabilities. 
Hence also the belief that money buys everything: when the Russians build better space vehicles, a few more billions spent on education will produce the crop of young Einsteins needed for closing the gap. 
Equilibrium Principle In Freudian formulation, this is the "principle of stability": the basic function of the mental apparatus consists in maintaining homeostatic equilibrium. Behavior essentially is reduction of tensions, particularly those of a sexual nature. Hence, let them release their tensions by way of promiscuity and other tension reduction, and you will have normal and satisfied human beings. Principle of Economy Behavior (so the theory goes) is governed by the principle of economy. It is utilitarian and should be carried through in the most economic way, that is, at minimum expense of mental or vital energy.
e.g. reduce scholastic demands to the minimum necessary to become an executive, electronics engineer or plumber - otherwise you warp personality, create tensions, and make an unhappy being. 

Second Law of Thermodynamics The four laws are:

Zeroth law of thermodynamics, stating that thermodynamic equilibrium is an equivalence relation.

If two thermodynamic systems are separately in thermal equilibrium with a third, they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other.

First law of thermodynamics, about the conservation of energy
The change in the internal energy of a closed thermodynamic system is equal to the sum of the amount of heat energy supplied to the system and the work done on the system.

Second law of thermodynamics, about entropy
The total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.
   143-144 According to the second principle of thermodynamics, the general trend of physical processes is toward increasing entropy, i.e., states of increasing probability and decreasing order. 
Living systems maintain themselves in a state of high order and improbability, or may even evolve toward increasing differentiation and organization (MY EXAMPLE babies grow into adults) as is the case in organismic development and evolution. 

Third law of thermodynamics, about absolute zero temperature

As a system asymptotically approaches absolute zero of temperature all processes virtually cease and the entropy of the system asymptotically approaches a minimum value; also stated as: "the entropy of all systems and of all states of a system is zero at absolute zero" or equivalently "it is impossible to reach the absolute zero of temperature by any finite number of processes".
See also: Bose�Einstein condensate and negative temperature. 

Square Law of Computation from Rethinking book p. 93 ...if we try to go from A to B, the complexity goes up as the square of the distance between A and B.

So of course, you do increments. But not every desirable design can be achieved through a series of small changes to an existing system.

Steady State A basic characteristic of open systems, in which constancy is maintained by a continuous flow of input and output. Bertalanffy used this term as n alternative to equilibrium, which imply constancy that is static.

A basic characteristic of open systems, in which constancy is maintained by a continuous flow of input and output. Bertalanffy used this term as an alternative to equilibrium, which imply constancy that is static.

Systems Analysis Generally synonymous with Operations research. The interdisciplinary search for more efficient ways of using existing talent and technology to improve a system.

Systems Engineering Similar to and sometimes indistinguishable from systems analysis. But this approach is more likely to consider the need for a system's fundamental redesign and replacement.

Systems Thinking from Checkland book An epistemology (theory) which, when applied to human activity is based upton the four basic ideas: Emergence, Hierarchy, Communication, and Control as characteristics of systems. When applied to natural or designed systems the crucial characteristic is the emergent properties of the whole.

Emergence The tendency for unpredictable qualities to emerge from the interaction of the parts within a system. SIDE EFFECTS!!! THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
(from Checkland book) The principle that whole entities exhibit properties that are meaningful only when attributed to the whole, not to its parts - e.g. the smell of ammonia. Every model of a human activity system exhibits properties as a whole entity which derive from its component activities and their structure, but cannot be reduced to them. 
Hierarchy A key model of general systems thought, depicting reality as a hierarchical architecture of organized entities.
The principle according to which entities meaningfully treated as wholes are built up of smaller entities which are themselves wholes...and so on. In a hierarchy, emergent properties denote levels. 
Communication The transfer of information (information=a distinction which reduces uncertainty). Control The process by means of which a whole entity retains its identity and/or performance under changing circumstances. In the formal system model the decision-taking process ensures that control action is taken in the light of the system's purpose or mission and the observed level of the measure of performance.

Tension Balance from Rethinking book p. 146

A true designer has to be enough of a realist to know that any design is bound to be fickle, bug enough of a romantic to try anyway. And a true teacher of design has to be tough enough to win a few bets, but romantic enough to let young love triumph in the end.

Thinking about myself from Rethinking book p. 18

The best...seem to share the ability to apply their own analytical abilities to themselves - to think about their own thinking and professional behavior.

Three Important Things from Rethinking book p. 103 Agnes De Mille

I learned three important things in college

to use a library
to memorize quickly and visually
to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes.
What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.

Tradeoffs from Rethinking book p. 123

Because tradeoffs are universal, we can often use the tradeoff concept to reason backwards from effects to causes. The reasoning process goes like this:

We are doing X instead of Y.
We must be getting a benefit from X - what is it?
We must be losing something from not doing Y - what is it?

Variation and Selection from Rethinking book p. 92 Strike a balance between variation and selection. (a biology law)

How do you strike this balance. Ask yourself, "Do we have too many ideas, or not enough?"

WIGGLE Charts PUT THIS IN THE SE BOOK! from Rethinking book Weinberg's Ideogram for Generating Graphics that Lack Exactitude

A way to draw diagrams. You draw wiggly lines for the things that you are not certain about and straight lines for the certain items.

Introduction to GST From Wiki Jump to: navigation, search [edit] Title

"An Introduction to General Systems Thinking"

Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing

2001

This the second version of this book - the Silver Anniversary Edition. The book was first published in 1975 by John Wiley and Sons. This was to be the first volume in a series of books on General Systems Thinking. Weinberg wrote a second edition titled On the Design of Stable Systems in 1979 which was issued in second edition as General Principles of Systems Design. [edit] Notes

The Law of Medium Numbers: For medium number systems, we can expect that large fluctuations, irregularities, and discrepancy with any theory will occur more or less regularly. p. 206. p. 20.

The Law of Conservation of Laws: When the facts contradict the law, reject the facts or change the definitions, but never throw away the law. p. 41.

The Law of Happy Particularities: Any general law must have at least two specific applications. p. 42.

The Law of Unhappy Particularities: Any general law is bound to have at least two exceptions. p. 42.

The Composition Law: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. p. 43.

The Decomposition Law: The part is more than a fraction of the whole. p. 43.

The Banana Principle: Heuristic devices don't tell you when to stop. p. 55.

The Principle of Indifference: Laws should not depend on a particular choice of notation. p. 72.

The Principle of Difference: Laws should not depend on a particular choice of symbols, but they usually do. p. 140.

The Eye-Brain Law: To a certain extent, mental power can compensate for observational weakness. p. 96.

The Brain-Eye Law: To a certain extent, observational power can compensate for mental weakness. p. 96. The Lump Law: If we want to learn anything, we mustn't try to learn everything. p. 105.

The General Law of Complementarity: Any two points of view are complementary. p. 120.

The Axiom of Experience: The future will be like the past, because, in the past, the future was like the past. p. 141.

The Invariance Principle: With respect to any given property, there are those transformations that preserve it and those that do not preserve it. Stated another way: With respect to a given transformation, there are those properties that are preserved by it and those that are not. p. 154.

The Perfect Systems Law: True systems properties cannot be investigated. p. 160.

The Strong Connection Law: Systems, on the average, are more tightly connected than the average. Stated another way, In systems, all other things are rarely equal. p. 161.

The Picture Principle: When speaking about a dimensional reduction, insert the words 46 a picture of' in whatever you were about to say. (Figure 7 is a cube - becomes - Figure 7 is a picture of a cube.) p. 189.

The Diachronic Principle: If a line of behavior crosses itself, then either (1) the system is not state determined, or (2) we are viewing a projection - an incomplete view. p. 190.

The Synchronic Principle: If two systems occupy the same position in the state space at the same time, then the space is underdimensioned, that is, the view is incomplete. p. 190.

The Count-to-Three Principle: If you cannot think of three ways of abusing a tool, you do not understand how to use it. p. 196.

The Principle of Indeterminability: We cannot with certainty attribute observed constraint either to system or environment. p. 214.

The Systems Triumvirate

Why do I see what I see?
Why do things stay the same?
Why do things change? p. 228.

The Used Car Law: A system that is doing a good job of regulation need not adapt. p. 254.

General Principles of System Design From Wiki Jump to: navigation, search [edit] Title

"General Principles of System Design"

Gerald M. Weinberg

Daniela Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing

1988

This book was first published in 1979 by John Wiley and Sons under the title On the Design of Stable Systems.

It was the "second volume" of a series that ended here. The "first volume" was titled An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. [edit] Notes

Weinberg's Laws of Twins p. 3

First Law - Among all births, twin births are pretty rare, and triplets rarer still.

Second Law - Births themselves are almost infinitely rarer than no births at all.

Hence, the vast majority of the time nothing happens. 
Remember this when observing, regulating, and working with systems.

The First Law of Aggregates: When it comes to survival, aggregates outlive their worst members. p. 16

The Law of Small Numbers: Theories built on large number approximations usually don't work when applied to the behavior of small aggregates. p. 33

The Law of Collapse: Any strong association among lifetimes - be it cooperative or competitive - leads to sudden collapse. p. 55 The law of Collapse limits the way in which we can reason backward from the black box observation of a collapsing aggregate. We could be seeing the beginning of jealous competition, or the end of devoted co-operation. Once our world begins to topple around us, departed friends are as bad as determined enemies.

ME If everyone depends on everyone else for group survival, the death of one person quickly leads to death of the group.

"The fallacy of typological thinking, as will all illusions, lies not in the explanations themselves, but in the failure to consider other explanations." p. 57.

Decomposition Fallacy p. 57 the assumption that the behavior of the aggregate is merely the sum of individual behaviors AND each individual has basically the same (real close to the aberage) behavior.

The Law of Typology: We cannot with certainty attribute observed constraint to either a type of individual or a kind of interaction. p. 58.

Principle of Difference p. 61 turning a problem upside down - or more precisely by turning the observer upside down - we can often bath an obscurity in a fresh light.

ME This is like how I write, then ask myself, "Oh yea, smart guy. What is this DOESN'T WORK?"

Principle of Indifference p. 61 Looking at system from different positions yields the same picture.

The Second Aggregate Law: For aggregate success, members must be the same to the system and different to the environment. Stated another way, To see aggregate survival, an observer must ignore differences among members, though differences must exist if the aggregate is to survive. p. 68.

The Renaming-Conservation Law: Every renaming system has an overall conservation law. p. 85.

Principle of Invariance p. 138 we can only understand permanence through attempts at change.

The Structure-Regulation Law: Stability is made possible by the process of regulation: regulation is made possible by the existence of stability. p. 157.

Law of Effect p. 158 Small changes in structure will lead to small changes in behavior. This is a hope instead of a law. We hope it is true, but it is rarely true.

"Quite often, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful engineered system is precisely in the successful system's low sensitivity to real-world 'accidents' or 'decay.' Usually, the designer has to sacrifice some 'efficiency' to get such structural stability..." p. 160.

The Problem of Multidimensional Regulation. When a system has to deal simultaneously with two threats, protection against one will increase vulnerability to the other. p. 168.

The First Law of Regulatory Compromise

Aggregation gives protection

against the unknown;

specialization, against the known; and the use

of each sacrifices some opportunity to use the other. p. 173.

The Second Law of Regulatory Compromise: There is a limiting factor to every regulatory strategy or "moderation in all things, even in moderation" p. 174.

The Pervasiveness Principle: In an open system, such as our bodies represent, compounded of unstable material and subjected continually to disturbing conditions, constancy is in itself evidence that agencies are acting or ready to act, to maintain this constancy. p. 187.

The Perversity Principle: If a state remains steady it does so because any tendency towards change is automatically met by increased effectiveness of the factor or factors which resist the change. p. 187.

The Plait Principle: The regulatory system which determines a homeostatic state may comprise a number of cooperating factors brought into action at the same time or successively. p. 187.

The Pilot Principle and The Polarity Principle: When a factor is known which can shift a homeostatic state in one direction it is reasonable to look for automatic control of that factor, or for a factor or factors having an opposing effect. p. 187.

The Ponderous Principle p. 200 regulation by sheer force of numbers.

The Piddling Principle: When regulation by association, it is important to be unimportant. p. 200.

The Foodback Principle: No system can long endure by eating its own excrement. p. 202.

The Parallel Principle: A regulator must be "like" the environment it regulates. p. 206.

Lump Law p. 212 (lump-ing means to categorize or lump the fine distinctions in the world into broader classifications.) If you want to understand anything, you mustn't try to understand everything.

Conditional Regulation p. 214 regulates on certain conditions.

Unconditional Regulation p. 214 regulates all the time regardless of any conditions.

The Problem of Life p. 214-215 We can avoid acting foolishly by never acting at all. We can avoid missing an opportunity by answering every knock. The problem is not to choose between thought and action but to choose when to think and when to act.

Anticipatory Regulation p. 227 This regulator needs information that comes earlier in time than an actual change in the regulated variable.

Brain-Eye Law p. 223 to a certain extent, mental power can compensate for observational weakness.

Internal Regulation p. 231 make changes on the inside of the system (take blood pressure medicine). People tend to take internal actions and often don't even consider affecting the environment.

External Regulation p. 232 make changes on the outside of the system, i.e. to the environment (avoid stressful situations).

Eye-Brain Law p. 259 to a certain extent, observational power can compensate for mental weakness.

The First Environmental Regulation Law: Systems that live by the environment, live for the environment. p. 237.

All the industries that depend on smoking (ash trays, lighters, etc.) live by the smoking industry. Hence, they live for it.

The Second Environmental Regulation Law: Systems that against the environment, live by the environment. p. 237.

Doctors live against illness, but they live by illness (if illness goes away, the Doctors are out of business.

The Lazy Law: When regulating, doing nothing is doing something. p. 244.

The Fundamental Regulator Paradox: The task of a regulator is to eliminate variation, but this variation is the ultimate source of information about the quality of its work. Therefore, the better the job a regulator does, the less information it gets about how to improve. Stated another way, Better regulation today risks worse regulation tomorrow. p. 250. Stated another way, purity is the enemy of learning.

Weinberg's Edict p. 272 banish the words "purpose" and "intelligence" from use in all systems writing and discussion.

Perfect Regulation p. 286 this doesn't exist, but that doesn't keep people from trying for it. Often the results are really bad. In complex systems, it courts catastrophe.

Purity is the enemy of learning. p. 286

First-in-the-Chain Fallacy p. 301 We tend to see the thing that is first in the chain of regulation or other affects. We stop looking once we see the first in the chain.

Cannon's Perversity Principle p. 303 the regulator must behave in a manner contrary to the desired behavior of the regulated variable: the regulator must be active so that other parts may be passive.

Kool-Aid Fallacy p. 303 begins with the confusion between the regulator and the think being regulated. On a hot day you drink ice cold Kool-Aid. That cools the part of the body that causes perspiration (a body-cooling mechanism). The regulator is cooled so it figures that the environment is cool as well - WRONG.

In the mountains, our landlord live downstairs (and we upstairs). The thermostat is next to his fireplace. On a cold day he builds a fire, the thermostat - warmed by the fire - turns off the heat AND we freeze upstairs.

The Aspirin Illusion: The suppression of pain instead of the eradication of the disease for which the pain is a warning. p. 304.

The False-Alarm Fallacy: The belief that certain regulatory systems remain in perfect working condition, as long as they don't change physically. p. 307.

Systems that regulate against the possibility of extremely rare events must be well regulated themselves. For example, Bank robbery systems and fire alarm systems. That is why we have fire drills.

Flareback Fallacy p. 309 when we try to regulate the regulator, we often damage it so that it regulates less instead of more effectively.

To get rid of insects we spray insecticide. This spray also kills birds (natural eaters of insects). So birds die and insects increase instead of decrease. This is flareback.

Humpty-Dumpty Method p. 313 you take the complexity bull by the horns by:

Stating that "complexity" is a measurable property of a system (rather than a relationship between system and observer, as we know it to be).
Stating, or "proving," that this-and-such property (such as "stability") follows from high (or low) complexity.

In this way, complexity, in all its complexity, is brought under control by the primitive device known ... as "name magic" - if I give it a name, I control it.

The Bullet-Proof Vest Fallacy: p. 318 protection by one regulatory mechanism obviates the need for other protection.

e.g. people on the gulf coast hear that the government is seeding a hurricane to lessen the strength of the hurricane. So, they don't evacuate. a driver of a car is forced to wear a safety belt and have a air bag in his car. So he drives 20% faster.

The Homunculus Fallacy p. 326 Medieval scholars believed that the embryo must look like a little person (the homunculus). The fallacy is that the system's model must bear a physical resemblance to the environment.

We form an image of what we are seeking, and this image blinds us to the thing we're really after when it's right in front of us.

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Category: General Systems Thinking

Boulding book From Wiki Jump to: navigation, search Contents [hide]

1 Title

2 Notes

  o 2.1 Chapter 1
  o 2.2 Chapter 2
  o 2.3 Chapter 3
  o 2.4 Chapter 4
  o 2.5 Chapter 5
  o 2.6 Chapter 6
  o 2.7 Chapter 7
  o 2.8 Chapter 8
  o 2.9 Chapter 9
  o 2.10 Chapter 10
  o 2.11 Chapter 11

[edit] Title

"The Image - Knowledge in Life and Society," Kenneth E. Boulding, The University of Michigan Press, 1956. [edit] Notes [edit] Chapter 1

What I have been talking about is knowledge. Knowledge, perhaps, is not a good word for this. Perhaps one would rather say my Image of the world. p. 5

The first proposition of this work, therefore, is that behavior depends on the image. p. 6

The messages consist of information in the sense that they are structured experiences. The meaning of a message is the change which it produces in the image. p. 7

When a message hits an image one of three things can happen.

the message is going straight through without hitting it. (ignored)
It may change the image in some rather regular and well-defined way that might be described as simple addition.
A revolutionary change. The image changes in a radical way. pp. 7-8
A fourth possible impact - may clarify the image.

There are no facts there are only messages filtered through a changeable value system. p . 14

This is the characteristic which distinguishes man from the lower oragnisms - the art of conversation or discourse. p. 15 This is a theme throughout GST that there is something special about humans.

In summation, then, my theory might well be called an organic theory of knowledge. Its most fundamental proposition is that knowledge is what somebody or something knows, and that without a knower, knowledge is an absurdity. p. 16 [edit] Chapter 2

In the image of the history of the universe...two opposing forces, or tendencies, seem to be operating.

The tendency represented by the second law of thermodynamics; the tendency, that is, for state to become more probable, more chaotic, and for things to run down.
On the other hand, we clearly observe...the tendency for the rise of organization. p. 19

thermostats: homeostatic control mechanisms.

receptor (a sensor)
control
effector (the furnace and the pipes which lead from it) p. 20

Homeostasis the mechanism which permitted the biological organisms to maintain steady states or equilibrium values of its important variables in the face of changing environments. p. 21

open system it maintains its structure in the midst of a through-put of chemical material. It is not only a homeostatic control system, it is a self-maintaining system capable of metabolism and digestion, that is, the intake of substances which it uses in part to maintain or to extend its own structure... pp. 22-23

It is the capacity for organizing information into large and complex images which is the chief glory of our species. p. 25 This is a theme throughout GST that there is something special about humans.

The outgoing messages are the result of the image, not the result of the incoming messages. The incoming messages only modify the outgoing messages as they succeed in modifying the image. p. 28 I took this note as it matches the Satir model of interaction. The image - me - I modify the intake of the message. [edit] Chapter 3

Open System maintains itself, and develops in the midst of a stream of through-put. p. 33

MY COMMENT Boulding always emphasizes the term through-put in his book. This must have been something special to him. THINK ABOUT THIS.

The growth of living substances is both organized and equifinal.

organized - it involves the orderly differentiation of the substance into complex parts exhibiting a division of labor.
equifinal - it has some end form, the attainment of which is marked by the cessation of growth and which is strikingly independent of the origin of the system. p. 33

Many projects start in the same place, but few end in the same place. MY COMMENT

Through-put not only of material substance but also of information. Even the simplest living creature is an information-gathering and information-organizing structure. Laws of Conservation state that substance in, substance consumed, substance remaining all add up. This is not true of information. The through-put of information in an organization involves a "teaching" or structuring process which does not follow any strict law of conservation even though there may be limitations imposed on it. p 35

It is this capacity for language which is the most essential difference between man and all other organisms. p. 43

Human society is an edifice spun out of the tenuous webs of conversation. p. 45 [edit] Chapter 4

There is a curious delimma here. As science becomes more and more sophisticated, it becomes further divorced from the popular images and less capable of influencing them. p. 49

MY COMMENT - must be connected, must have a relationship to have influence.

One of the universal problems here is, when is a message to be interpreted as having relational significance, and when is it to be interpreted as a chance or random event. p. 50

We have a curious capacity for giving ourselves examinations. We know how to write the questions that we have answers for. p. 53

Several items here to consider

We can ask ourselves questions and find the answers - learning. 
We can only ask ourselves questions that are limited by and then limit our imagination.

Like the organism, the organization is an "open system" in the sense that it has a through-put of individuals occupying various places in a role structure much as a biological organism maintains a through-put of material substance in a constant structure. The organization, therefore, exhibits many characteristics of open systems. It has a kind of embryology, and it exhibits a certain degree of equifinality. p. 58

There are extremely important differences between organizations and organisms. The great difference lies in the nature of the image possessed by the constituent parts and by the whole. p. 59

In the case of organizations, the reverse is true. It is the cell which has the image, not the organization. The image structure lies wholly within the frames of the individuals composing the organizations. p. 60

The rise in the self-consciousness of the image of society and organization is of great importance in interpreting the dynamics of social change and of the change in the social image. p. 61 [edit] Chapter 5

Furthermore, the world of the scientist is the world of the repeatable, the world of the probable. The rare occurrence, the nonrepeatable event, the unanswerable question elude him. p. 71

Because the image is a creation of the message, people tend to remake themselves in the image which other people have of them. p. 71

In our consideration of the dynamics of the value image we must not forget the extreme importance of the small face-to-face group, especially the group of the individual's peers. In every society there seems to be the official ... there seems also to be, however, an informal value image which is often much more important in governing the actual behavior of an individual. p. 73

The sanctions of the peer group, however, are usually much more effective on the individual than the sanctions of superiors. p. 73

As in the biological world, we see only the mutants that survive. ME We don't see all the mutants (radicals, experimenters, etc.) that fail. There are a great number of them. p. 76 [edit] Chapter 6

First revised law of economic behavior we will do today what we did yesterday unless there are good reasons for doing otherwise....We have here, we may notice, the primitive image of time as an essentially cyclical phenomenon, a time for this and a time for that. p. 86

'Second revised law of economic behavior the good reasons which are necessary if we do not do today what we did yesterday are derived mainly from dissatisfaction with what we did yesterday or with what happened to us yesterday. p. 87

Boulding uses a couple of examples to show that the image is present and that the image is modified in part by incoming messages.

The spiral either upward or downward is eventually broken and reversed (house prices rise, so people bid higher to get a house before prices are too high, this raises prices, so this spirals upward until something stops it.) the oligopoly or competition among the few. Something happens to introduce more competition and change the situation.

It is in the "nonconformist" subcultures that images are most likly to be sensitive and subject to change. p. 94 [edit] Chapter 7

Organizations as well as individuals can suffer from hallucinations. It is the peculiar disease of authoritarian structures. p. 101

It may be argued, indeed, that both democratic and authoritarian forms are inherently unstable, and that the general political dynamic consists of an oscillation between the two. p. 102 [edit] Chapter 8

An image which is about to collapse of its own weight is frequently supported far beyond its time by the efforts of misguided people to push it over. The attacks of the reformers produce defensive mechanisms on the part of the holders of the image. p. 122

This is an example of efforts to do something bring about the opposite result. MY COMMENT

What this means in practice is that our response should be always to an uncertain image. ME There is always something out there that we don't see and don't understand. So hold something back in reserve. p. 131 [edit] Chapter 9

Difficulties arise because of the economic principle that the prosperity of an specialized occupation depends upon its ability to keep people out of it. There has been a strong tendency to set up artificial barriers to communication among the trades and professions. p. 140 (I see this in the NCS and such.)

Three basic principles of professional ethics p. 141

strict sanctions against price cutting in any form
strict regulation of entry into the profession
a tacit agreement to cover up the mistakes of the practitioners by a conspiracy of silence directed toward preventing any feedback to the public.

Because its lines of communication all turn inward, the members of the subculture devote themselves to the elaborate solution of problems which they themselves create. p. 145

Society owes an enormous debt to those marginal men who live uneasily in two different universes of discourse. Society is apt to repay this debt by making them thoroughly uncomfortable and still more marginal. p. 146 ME So goes it for the person who moves about and thinks. You have to be an outside consultant to do this.

A limited amount of contact with other subcultures frequently reinforces a value system. This is particularly true wherever the value system is conceived in somewhat negative terms, where we have a "not-image" rather than an image. ME The Church of Christ has long had a not-image (not musical instruments, not women preachers, not this and that). p. 147 [edit] Chapter 10

If a single theoretical principle can be shown to apply over a wide area of the empirical world, this is economy in the learning process. p. 163 [edit] Chapter 11

It can be argued with alarming cogency that lies are frequently more stable and have a better survival value than the truth. p. 168

If there is a tiger in the room...the man who doesn't see it is just about as well off as the man who does...best chance of survival. p. 168 Retrieved from "http://localhost:8888/mediawiki/index.php/Boulding_book"

Category: General Systems Thinking

Rethinking book From Wiki Jump to: navigation, search [edit] Title

"Rethinking Systems Analysis and Design"

Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing

1988

[edit] Contents

The Rethinking book talks much about the analyst and observing. This is key to the systems engineer when doing requirements and asking questions.

Anyone who claims to be a general systems theorist cannot be one, for there is no such thing. p. 31

...what has worked best when dealing with unmastered complexity is a combination of: (p. 8)

Learning from analogous situations outside the present situation
Learning how people think and combining that thinking with facts and preconceptions to determine action.

the study of these things is what we call general systems thinking...

18 The best...seem to share the ability to apply their own analytical abilities to themselves - to think about their own thinking and professional behavior.

Observing p. 45 Of all the things we'd like to teach systems analysts, the art of observation seems to be the most elusive.

Observing p. 48 W. Ross Ashby - In our daily lives we are confronted at every turn with system whose internal mechanisms are not fully open to inspection, and which must be treated by the methods appropriate to the Black Box.

Problem Solving p. 22 Our business contains few, if any, easy solutions. Success in problem solving comes to those who don't put much faith in the latest "magic," but who are willing to try ideas out for themselves, even when those ideas are presented in a carnival of public relations blather.

37 There is no one truth about what happened.

ME Each person had a different experience and a different way of relating that experience.
65 A meta-question is a question that directly or indirectly produces a question for an answer.

Questions p. 65

Write a question that would be an appropriate question for an examination in this course at this time.
Answer the question you wrote in part 1.
1. 66 What do you think I should be asking you now?

Mastering Oneself p. 74 One masters oneself by giving up the attempt.

So if you want control, stop trying to have control. I have seen this while leading experiential exercises. The more I let the class lead on, the more they seem to think that I am a masterful leader and creator of learning.

Law of Large Numbers p. 90 In the end, though, there are so many copies that the Law of Large Numbers begins to work against those variations.

Model of Natural Selection p. 91

There must be replication with variation.
There must be selective action of an environment.

We can apply these to the design process

Generation of new ideas
Selection among these ideas according to criteria.
So here we see a general law of general systems applied to a specific area of design.

Variation and Selection p. 92 Strike a balance between variation and selection. (a biology law) How do you strike this balance. Ask yourself, "Do we have too many ideas, or not enough?"

Square Law of Computation p. 93 ...if we try to go from A to B, the complexity goes up as the square of the distance between A and B.

So of course, you do increments. But not every desirable design can be achieved through a series of small changes to an existing system.

Three Important Things p. 103 Agnes De Mille

I learned three important things in college

to use a library
to memorize quickly and visually
to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes.
What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.

Tradeoffs p. 123 Because tradeoffs are universal, we can often use the tradeoff concept to reason backwards from effects to causes. The reasoning process goes like this:

We are doing X instead of Y.
We must be getting a benefit from X - what is it?
We must be losing something from not doing Y - what is it?

Tension Balance p. 146 A true designer has to be enough of a realist to know that any design is bound to be fickle, bug enough of a romantic to try anyway. And a true teacher of design has to be tough enough to win a few bets, but romantic enough to let young love triumph in the end.

Miracles p. 148 Miracles happen. Just deal one hand of cards to four people. The odds against that one hand being dealt are a million to one. The more hands dealt, the more miracles occur.

Miracles is another name for unlikely and improbable events.

Understand about miracles:

Miracles can be reduced in number by sound programming practice.
Miracles can never be eliminated by any practice, but merely reduced.
As the number of miracles is reduced, the remaining miracles seem even more miraculous.
If you start believing miracles can never happen, you start being extremely vulnerable to them when the inevitable is upon you. Then miracles become disasters.

WIGGLE Charts Weinberg's Ideogram for Generating Graphics that Lack Exactitude

A way to draw diagrams. You draw wiggly lines for the things that you are not certain about and straight lines for the certain items.

False Precision p. 157 John von Neumann

There's no sense being precise about something when you don't even know what you're talking about.
My use of a slide rule when estimating project costs. 

Updated: Thursday, November 8, 2007