Tag: Systems Theory

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17. Extended Framework for a General Systems Theory

Introducing the Extended Framework for a General Systems Theory (EFGST)

The “Extended Framework for a General Systems Theory” (EFGST) builds upon the original “Framework for a General Systems Theory” that I first released several months ago. The original framework provided a structured, cross-disciplinary approach to understanding systems, their properties, and the causal processes that drive them.

This new Extended Framework expands this foundation with several key advances that connect systems theory more tightly to physical and informational dynamics:

  1. Seeds and Contra-Seeds describe how systems can be triggered to develop or decay through reinforcing or opposing influences.
  2. Mobus’s Concept of Systemness,  Integrated with the notion of state spaces, helps describe how systems maintain coherence, evolve, and approach attractors.
  3. Troncale’s Linkage Propositions are reinterpreted within EFGST as causal-probabilistic connections that can potentially be used to map probabilities across configuration and state spaces, providing a degree of predictability.
  4. Recomposition provides a new explanatory model for how complex systems build upon rather than replace their components, clarifying how emergence arises in distinct levels.

Together, these extensions bring the framework closer to a unified theory of system dynamics, applicable from physics and biology to social and cognitive systems.

You can read the overview paper and explore the detailed set of definitions and propositions here:

Overview Paper (Academia.edu): https://www.academia.edu/144773922/Overview_of_the_Extended_Framework_for_a_General_Systems_Theory

Overview Paper (Rational-Understanding) and Complete Definitions and Propositions List: https://rational-understanding.com/efgst/

These materials form the foundation for ongoing work towards an integrated General Systems Theory; one that connects the causal, energetic, and informational dimensions of system behaviour.

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10. A Systems View of Human Cognition

Three Minds in One — A Systems View of Human Cognition

Across a century of psychology, communication theory, and leadership research, the same insight keeps re-emerging: human cognition is triadic. Freud called it the Id, Ego, and Superego. Eric Berne described Child, Parent, and Adult ego states. More recently, systems thinkers speak of Ego, Eco, and Intuitive Intelligence.

Each of these frameworks highlights a different aspect of a common truth: the human mind is a layered system shaped by evolution, motivation, and reflexivity. We are driven by instinct, shaped by society, and guided by reflection. Understanding how these layers work can help us communicate better, make peace with ourselves, and grow as individuals and communities.

In my new article, I explore this recurring cognitive triad and its evolutionary foundations. I show how it maps onto brain structures, motivational needs (via Alderfer’s ERG theory), and modes of interpersonal communication. It also shows us how reflexivity and observation give us the tools to navigate these inner voices constructively.

You can read the full article in PDF format here: https://rational-understanding.com/my-books#freudandberne

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09. Unifying Universal Disciplines towards a General System Theory

Unifying Universal Disciplines towards a General System Theory

This paper can be downloaded free of charge from:

https://rational-understanding.com/UUDH#paper & https://www.academia.edu/127960952/Unifying_Universal_Disciplines_Towards_a_General_System_Theory

Systems theory, causality, natural language, and logic have traditionally been pursued as separate disciplines. However, underlying each of these domains are fundamental structures that suggest a deeper, unified framework. The way we structure our understanding of these disciplines is not arbitrary. Rather, it is dictated by principles that govern perception and cognition. It may also be dictated by principles that govern reality.

The Unified Universal Disciplines Hypothesis (UUDH) proposed in this paper posits that Fundamental systems theory, causality, natural language, and logic are different manifestations of the same underlying structure in the way that human beings perceive reality and reason. Each of these domains encodes and processes causal interactions in ways that reflect the level of complexity and perspective employed by the observer.

This paper presents the argument and describes the methodology for unifying these disciplines into a cohesive model that enables more precise reasoning across them. Symbolic Reasoning, an enhancement of traditional set theory, provides a formal tool to facilitate this unification.

UUDH has considerable and diverse explanatory power from quantum theory to human society. The unification of systems, causality, natural language, and logic represents a promising approach to developing a more comprehensive understanding of human cognition and external reality. By integrating these traditionally separate fields, we can enhance our ability to reason about complex systems in a coherent and structured manner. Symbolic Reasoning offers a powerful tool for this integration. However, the approach is hypothetical, and empirical testing is needed to verify it.

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15. Vanishing Properties and Social Change: A Systems Science Perspective

Vanishing Properties and Social Change: A Systems Science Perspective

Emergent Properties

In systems theory, an emergent property is a characteristic that arises at the level of a system but is absent in its individual components. This is commonly seen in nature, physics, and social systems. The classic example of an emergent property is, of course, consciousness. The human mind is conscious, but its component neurons are not.

Much has been written about emergent properties and the concept is a keystone in systems science. They are generally thought to have a causal basis and to be a consequence of interactions between the component parts. For example, there is much scientific evidence that consciousness is due to feedback through our sensory processing centres thereby making us aware of our own thoughts. Some of this evidence is discussed at https://rational-understanding.com/2021/10/22/consciousness/  

Vanishing Properties

But what of the complementary concept: disappearing or vanishing properties? There appears to be little, if any, awareness or discussion around this concept in the systems community. Yet the concept not only exists but also has a significant impact on the reality that we experience. Perhaps, it is because vanishing properties are often more easily explained than emergent ones, which to this day, seem to have a mystical aura around them?  Vanishing properties are crucial for understanding why large-scale social and environmental problems persist despite widespread individual concern.

Vanishing properties occur when attributes present in individual components fail to manifest at the system level. For example, atoms consist of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. While the individual components have a charge, a neutral atom as a whole exhibits no net charge, effectively “cancelling out” this property.

While emergent properties have long been studied in systems science, the concept of vanishing properties remains underexplored. Yet, understanding how responsibility, action, and ethical concern can disappear in collective settings is crucial for tackling today’s most pressing social challenges from climate change to political engagement.

Before discussing practical examples of vanishing properties in society, I would first like to mention the work of two important figures in the field: Floyd Allport and Albert Bandura.

Floyd Allport

Floyd Allport (1890–1978) was a pioneering figure in social psychology, known for emphasising the importance of individual behaviour in social contexts. His work is highly relevant to the concept of vanishing properties in the social context, particularly in understanding how individual behaviours fail to manifest at the collective level. His rejection of the “group mind” aligns with the idea that societal patterns arise from the actions (or inactions) of individuals, rather than from some mystical or autonomous group entity. This perspective is crucial in explaining why individual responsibility or intention can disappear in collective settings, a key characteristic of vanishing properties.

For example, Allport’s research on social facilitation and inhibition provides insight into how people’s behaviour changes when they are part of a group. In some cases, the presence of others enhances individual performance (social facilitation), but in more complex or high-pressure situations, individuals may withhold action, assuming that others will take the lead (similar to the bystander effect). This can explain why personal responsibility for addressing issues like climate change, political activism, or poverty may vanish in large social settings. Individuals assume that their contributions are insignificant or that others will step in.

Allport’s emphasis on individual responsibility in collective settings influenced later research on diffusion of responsibility, groupthink, and social loafing, phenomena where action diminishes as group size increases.

Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura (1925–2021) was a pioneering psychologist best known for his work on social learning theory, self-efficacy, and moral disengagement. Later in his career, Bandura developed the theory of moral disengagement. This concept, which has been applied to understanding everything from corporate misconduct to social and environmental inaction, explains how individuals rationalise harmful or unethical behaviour, allowing them to detach from personal responsibility in a collective setting. It helps to explain why moral responsibility can vanish at the group level, even when individuals personally recognise an issue as wrong. Bandura identified several ways in which moral disengagement operates, including diffusion of responsibility, dehumanisation of victims, and euphemistic labelling, where harmful actions are framed in neutral or positive terms.

An example of the latter is Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. By using this term, the Russian government avoided the more negative connotations of “war” or “aggression,” which could trigger stronger domestic and international opposition. This euphemistic language helped to justify the military action, downplay its severity, and align public perception with the government’s narrative, making it easier for individuals to morally disengage from the real human suffering and destruction involved.

Another example of euphemistic labelling is found in corporate ‘greenwashing,’ where companies reframe environmentally harmful practices in misleadingly positive terms. For instance, airlines advertising ‘carbon-neutral flights’ often rely on questionable carbon offset schemes rather than reducing emissions.

Vanishing Properties in Society and Their Impact

In sociology, vanishing properties explain why problems arise with collective action. Despite individual awareness and concern, collective action often fails to materialise. Some examples of this effect are given below.

1. Climate Change and the Diffusion of Responsibility (The Bystander Effect)

The bystander effect is a psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help someone in distress when others are present. They assume that someone else will take responsibility. The term was coined by John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1968 after their research on the murder of Kitty Genovese, where multiple witnesses reportedly failed to intervene. Their studies demonstrated that the presence of others leads to diffusion of responsibility, reducing the likelihood of individual action.

In the case of climate change, many individuals recognise it as a major issue and take small actions, e.g., recycling or reducing plastic use. However, many also believe their personal contributions are insignificant in the grand scheme, leading to widespread inaction. This results in what Garrett Hardin referred to in his 1968 essay as “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Resources become depleted because individuals have no incentive to limit their consumption and assume that others should take responsibility.

2. Political Apathy and Pluralistic Ignorance

Many individuals may privately disagree with an unjust policy or social norm but assume that others support it. Since no one openly challenges the status quo, it remains unchallenged, even if many oppose it internally. The result can be that policies and social structures persist even when the majority oppose them, as seen in past civil rights struggles and modern political apathy.

3. Voting and the Perceived Irrelevance of One Vote

A single individual’s vote has a small chance of changing the outcome of an election. However, if many people believe their vote does not matter, turnout decreases, affecting the result. The consequence can be low voter participation, the weakening of democracy, and unrepresentative governance.

4. Poverty and Compassion Fatigue

The concept of vanishing properties can also apply to the effect of group, as opposed to individual, issues on people. For example, when we hear about one specific person in need, we often feel empathy and a desire to help. However, large scale poverty can feel overwhelming, leading to a sense of powerlessness and disengagement. The consequence can be “compassion fatigue,” where we shut down emotionally in response to large-scale suffering.

Countering Vanishing Properties: Strategies for Social Change

While vanishing properties explain societal inertia, history has shown that effective strategies can counter this. Some examples of successful strategies are given below.

1. Climate Change: Social Norms and Behavioural Nudging

Sweden combined policy (carbon taxes) with visible social norms, such as increased bicycle lanes and renewable energy promotions. As people saw others adopting eco-friendly behaviours, individual actions reinforced collective responsibility rather than it vanishing.

While some argue that climate solutions require systemic action rather than individual behaviour changes, research shows that visible shifts in social norms can influence both policymakers and industries to adopt stronger regulations.

2. Political Activism: Breaking Pluralistic Ignorance

In early 20th-century Britain, many women privately supported suffrage but hesitated to voice their views due to societal norms. The Suffragettes’ public demonstrations, hunger strikes, and acts of civil disobedience helped break pluralistic ignorance. As more women openly demanded the right to vote, it became clear that widespread support existed, leading to legislative change with the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

3. Voting and Civic Engagement: Social Accountability

Studies have shown that making voting visible, e.g., posting about it online or wearing “I Voted” stickers, increases participation. Public visibility shifts voting from an isolated act to a socially expected norm, preventing individual effort from disappearing.

Sustained collective identity is crucial in overcoming vanishing properties. Social movements succeed when individuals feel part of a shared cause, reinforcing participation over time.

4. Poverty: Personalising the Narrative

Research has shown that people are more likely to donate or act when shown a single individual’s story rather than abstract statistics. Charities like Save the Children highlight personal narratives, making people feel that their actions have a direct impact.

Conclusion: Transforming Individual Concern into Collective Action

The concept of vanishing properties provides a powerful lens for understanding why major societal problems persist despite widespread concern. By recognising these dynamics, we can design interventions that restore personal responsibility at the collective level rather than letting it disappear.

Key takeaways:

  • Make action visible: Seeing others act reinforces personal responsibility.
  • Encourage small commitments: Micro-actions, like public pledges, create momentum.
  • Break the silence: When individuals speak out, they empower others to do the same.
  • Personalise large issues: Framing problems around individual stories makes them more relatable.

Understanding vanishing properties not only explains why change is hard, but also offers clear strategies to turn awareness into action. The challenge lies not in whether people care, but in ensuring that care translates into meaningful collective impact.

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38. A Theory of Society Derived from the Principles of Systems, Psychology, Ecology and Evolution Part 3

A Theory of Society Derived from the Principles of Systems, Psychology, Ecology, & Evolution (Part 3)

This paper is open access and can be downloaded free of charge in pdf format at https://rational-understanding.com/my-books#theory-of-society-3

Part 1 of this series of papers focussed largely on the principles of systems, ecology, and evolution to describe the ways in which individuals and organisations of all types interact, and so, create the structure of society. That is, how they exchange satisfiers and contra-satisfiers; satisfiers being those things that increase the level of satisfaction of our needs, and contra-satisfiers those things that decrease their level of satisfaction. However, Part 1 did not account for the choices that we make in the ways that we interact.

Human needs motivate our behaviour, but beliefs determine what form that behaviour takes. Although needs are fundamental to everything that has a function, beliefs are an emergent property of humanity, and a consequence of our ability to manipulate information and our highly social nature. However, beliefs can be true, or they can be false. In observing reality, we make mistakes and frequently distort it to satisfy our needs or avoid our contra-needs.

Part 3 will, therefore, discuss the psychological and social psychological aspects of our nature, particularly the beliefs, psychological defence mechanisms, and their socio-cultural reinforcement, that lead to our choices.

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06. Systems Theory from a Cognitive and Physicalist Perspective

Systems Theory from A Cognitive and Physicalist Perspective Updated

This paper, is available for download in pdf form at https://rational-understanding.com/my-books#Systems-Theory-from-a-Cognitive-and-Physicalist-Perspective

It was originally published in January, 2023, has been updated to include observations from:

  • “A Conceptual Framework for General System Theory”, John A. Challoner, March, 2024.
  • “Different Interpretations of Systems Terms” sent to the Research towards a General Systems Theory SIG of the International Society for the Systems Sciences’ in April, 2024.
  • “The Mathematics of Language and Thought”, John A. Challoner, 2021.

The paper discusses systems theory from a cognitive and physicalist perspective. The cognitive perspective holds that we are our minds and cannot escape the constraints imposed by their biology and evolutionary history. Nevertheless, human cognition is a reasonably accurate representation of reality. Physicalism holds that space-time comprises the whole of reality and that everything, including abstract concepts and information, exists within it.

From this perspective, conceptual and theoretical frameworks for systems theory are proposed and described. Concepts include: the importance of structure; the nature of relationships, causality, and physical laws; and the significance of recursion, hierarchy, holism, and emergence. Human cognitive factors are also discussed, including: their limitations; the nature of information and language; and the search for knowledge in a world of complexity and apparent disorder.

The paper includes the implications of this perspective for General System Theory and Social Systems Theory, suggesting further work to advance those disciplines.

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06. Behaviour is a System

Behaviour is a System

Human behaviour, whether that of an individual or that of a larger organisation, is a process. So, together with its inputs and outputs, it can be regarded as a system. The diagram below describes this system.

The behaviour system is part of a nested hierarchy comprising other systems. They are arranged as follows. The control component, in the case of an individual, is his mind, and in the case of a larger organisation, its leader. Together, the mental and physical resources that they directly control, i.e., the body of an individual or the people in a larger organisation, comprise the operational system. The operational system, together with the resources that it owns, comprise the resource system. Finally, the behaviour system comprises the resource system plus actual behaviour.

These systems operate in the following way. Paragraph numbers refer to those in the diagram.

  1. The environment comprises everything that is not a part of the system. It includes both the natural and the social environments. Inputs from the environment enter via the operational component. These inputs include risks and opportunities. The relevant parts of the operational component are, in the case of an individual, his physical senses, or in the case of a larger organisation particular individuals. For example, an individual may perceive a wasp as a threat of injury, or a government may see another nation as an opportunity for trade.
  2. Information from the environment is passed from the operational component to the control component, i.e., the mind or leader, where decisions are made. The operational component monitors the state of resources and satisfiers, i.e., those things that satisfy the individual or organisation’s needs. It also passes this information to the control component. For example, an individual may recognise that food in the refrigerator is running low, or a business that its stock of spare parts is too high.
  3. In return for this information, the control component makes decisions, and then, passes instructions to the operational component. These instructions are based on a risk, cost, benefit analysis that uses the value of satisfiers or contra-satisfiers and the resources required to create them. The value allocated to a satisfier or contra-satisfier depends on the interaction style of the individual or leader, i.e., whether they are co-operative, positively competitive, or negatively competitive. A negatively competitive individual may conclude that shoplifting is the way to fill their refrigerator. A government with a co-operative style may see a trading alliance as the way to improve their economy.
  4. Resources are acquired from the environment and become part of the resource reserves of the system, i.e., its property. They can be matter, energy or money. Resources can be acquired directly from the natural environment, or through trade with other individuals or organisations. Early humans were hunter-gatherers and acquired their food directly from nature. Today, however, many of us buy our bread from a baker or supermarket.
  5. The activities of the operational component, together with resources taken from reserves, act as inputs to the operations process. These inputs are satisfiers for the process. The operations process converts these resources into outputs. So, for example, an individual may cook the food in their refrigerator to create a meal. A business may assemble parts, or mix constituents, to create a sellable product.
  6. Some of these outputs are satisfiers for the operational component. We may, for example, eat part of the meal we have prepared to satisfy our personal need for sustenance. Similarly, governments and businesses pay the people who carry out their function.
  7. Other outputs can be satisfiers or contra-satisfiers that are used to trade for resources from other individuals or organisations. So, we may trade our labour for pay or provide a meal to friends in return for their friendship. Businesses do, of course, provide goods and services in return for payment. Alternatively, outputs can be operations on the natural environment to acquire resources, e.g., mining, hunting, or gathering. All behavioural outputs are constrained by the physical resources available, for example, an individual’s physical abilities. They are also constrained by the operational resources owned, for example, the financial capital of a business.
  8. Finally, behaviour can be observed, and so, the system of which it is a part outputs information to the environment. We can, for example, watch a football match or observe government activities, and thus, criticise them.

Organisations are recursive. Every organisation comprises several lesser ones. Every organisation, together with others, is also part of a larger one. This recursion continues downwards to individuals and upwards to all of humanity. This model describes the behaviour of every individual or organisation in that structure. So, it may provide the basis for a systems psychology of both individuals and organisations. Notably, it provides a basis for social learning theory which postulates that we emulate role models, that our behaviour is reinforced by the approval of others, i.e., satisfiers, and extinguished by their disapproval, i.e., contra-satisfiers.

The model may also be a basis for dynamic models of society, thereby enabling predictions to be made.

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02. The VUCA Environment

The VUCA Environment

VUCA is a term first coined, in 1987, by the American economists Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus. It refers to the environment as being volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.

In a volatile environment, the nature of change can quickly alter, and the speed of change can be rapid. The classical example is, of course, stock market prices, but volatility also applies in other social arenas, for example the political arena when a scandal breaks.

In an uncertain environment, events and the outcomes of actions are unpredictable, can come as a surprise, and previous experience may not apply. Weather is an example in which unexpected droughts or deluges of rainfall occur.

Complexity refers to the way in which everything in the environment is causally inter-related. There may be no single cause resulting in a single effect, but rather multiple causes and effects that defy analysis. When situations are complex, a change in one place can have unintended consequences elsewhere. Chaos theory can also apply. For example, a small change in the behaviour of one individual can propagate through a crowd to completely alter its behaviour.

Finally, ambiguity refers to a lack of understanding or a misreading of the situation. Facts are unclear and cause and effect may be confused. This typically applies to the interpretation of historical events. Different historians can give different explanations based on different interpretations of the available information. For example, the two parties in a territorial dispute may both believe that their claim is reasonable due to different historical interpretations.

VUCA is a product not only of our inability to understand complexity and our inability to precisely model it, but also a product of genuine random events at the atomic and sub-atomic level. Examples of the latter are the radioactive decay of atoms and the appearance of virtual particles. Such events interact with the physical universe, and the change that they cause is magnified as it propagates ever more widely.

The VUCA concept can be used as an excuse for inaction and a lack of forward planning. However, the advantage of accepting it as reality is that we can better identify the risks associated with our actions and have measures ready if things do not go as we had hoped.

Unfortunately, we have an optimism bias and often underestimate the difficulties and risks involved in a project or enterprise. This is particularly the case when promoting a pet project to others. However, on the other hand, a greater awareness of the VUCA nature of reality can lead to a greater understanding of the knowns and unknowns in a situation. It also leads to the identification of potential surprises, and, where appropriate, trigger action to clarify any critical unknowns. Finally, it can lead to a better understanding of the potential threats and opportunities in a situation, and, where appropriate, lead to the planning of measures to avoid those threats or seize those opportunities.

A good understanding of an organisation’s vulnerabilities will enable it to plan resilience measures which limit damage in the face of the unexpected. A good understanding of an organisation’s objectives will better enable it to seize opportunities should they arise.

Clearly, this requires an organisation to be agile, flexible, and adaptable in the face of the unexpected. It also requires it to have a range of interventions, mitigation measures, plans B and C, etc., available should a change of direction become necessary. Finally, it requires the organisation to carefully monitor situations and the outcomes of its decisions.

This also applies to us as individuals. For example: we insure our homes, cars and holidays against the unexpected; we wear safety equipment when playing sports; we maintain cash reserves in the bank to see us through difficult times; and so on.

In the absence of such measures and in a VUCA world, organisations will inevitably run into difficulties and ultimately fail. A failure to recognise the VUCA world is one of the main reasons why government projects so often fail. In 2017, PricewaterhouseCoopers AG of Switzerland investigated the reasons for this. They produced a report entitled “Are public projects doomed to failure from the start?”. They found that the complexity of such projects was often underestimated, and an overoptimistic attitude would prevail. In practice, however, the political, organisational, and technical complexity of a project could render it unmanageable. They also found that deadlines were often set for political reasons, and political agendas could lead to an unwillingness to abandon projects that no longer fitted the business case. Furthermore, it was often the case that many different organisations would need to co-operate, but their IT systems differed, and they could resist the necessary changes to their practices. PricewaterhouseCoopers did, however, find that with proper management and diligence none of these factors were insurmountable.

Similar problems arise with government policy interventions. Like everyone else, the ability of politicians to understand complexity is limited. So, in practice the process of intervention is one of innovation, trial, and error. In other arenas there may be many actors some of whom will succeed and others of whom will fail, so trial and error is acceptable. However, government differs from the rest of society in that it is the sole actor and there is just one trial. Unfortunately, it is usually inexpedient for a politician to admit to error. So, government error is often only corrected when the opposition takes power.

On the positive side, many Western governments are now recognising the VUCA world and putting measures in place to better manage their function in its light. Recent guidance on managing complexity in the UK can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/systems-thinking-for-civil-servants

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06. Systems Theory from a Cognitive and Physicalist Perspective

Systems Theory from a Cognitive and Physicalist Perspective

In June, 2022, I commented in my final post on causality and systems theory that General Systems Theory was not as well developed as I had hoped. So, more work was required before I could make further posts on the topic.

That work is now complete. However, the resulting article is too long for a single blog post and cannot be broken down into a series. So, I have produced it in pdf form and it can be downloaded here.

It updates my earlier articles and pdfs “Joining Up the Dots”, “How we Understand a Complex Universe”, “The Importance of Information” and “What is Information at Source”. So, these have been deleted from the website.

A brief description of the article follows.

The cognitive perspective holds that we are our minds and cannot escape the constraints imposed by their biology and evolutionary history. Nevertheless, human cognition is a reasonably accurate representation of reality. Physicalism holds that space-time comprises the whole of reality and that everything, including abstract concepts and information, exists within it.

From this perspective, I describe some of the main concepts in systems theory. They include: the importance of structure in forming meaningful systems; the nature of relationships, causality, and physical laws; and the significance of recursion, hierarchy, holism, and emergence. I also discuss cognitive factors including: our mental limitations; the nature of information and language; and our search for knowledge in a world of complexity and apparent disorder.

The article concludes with the implications of this perspective for General System Theory and Social Systems Theory and suggests further work to advance these disciplines.

The article has been written up in the style of an academic paper because I will submit it to relevant journals in the near future. However, I have used plain English and explain my ideas in a step by step manner. There are also many diagrams which help to illustrate them.

I hope that you find the article interesting and enlightening.

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02. A Systems Model of Human Organisation (Part 2)

A Systems Model of Human Organisation (Part 2)

This post is part two of the article begun last week. Due to its length, I have split the article down into three posts, but if you would like to read it in one sitting a copy can be downloaded here https://rational-understanding.com/my-books#systems-model.

Internal Feedback

Adapting internal processes involves an internal feedback loop in which the command component’s role is to:

  1. gather information from subordinate components. This information is subject to darkness and miscommunication. Darkness implies that the full picture can never be known. Miscommunication may involve subordinate components providing  misinformation or failing to supply relevant facts. Thus, the role of the command component is also to ensure that the supply of information is relevant and policed.
  2. issue instructions, laws, rules, regulations, norms, etc. to subordinate components and to police them. As will be explained later, ideally, this should also include rules to prevent negative competition. There can be difficulties when a command component polices itself, and thus, in a democracy for example, law-making and enforcement are separated.

External Feedback

Influencing the organisation’s external environment also involves a feedback loop. Outputs from the organisation act as inputs to other organisations in the environment. These may then be processed to yield the original organisation’s desired inputs. At its simplest level, an individual may pay for, or in some other way trade for food. At a higher level, a business may lobby government for reduced taxation or regulation. These external feedback loops are what bond levels in the organizational hierarchy together into society.

Each component organisation’s demand for inputs is a motivator. If, at the level in which external feedback occurs, other component organisations share the same motivator, they can act in one of three ways:

  1. Negative Unilateralism. The organisation acts unilaterally and in negative competition with others. The terms unilateral and multilateral are normally associated with international affairs, but here they are used more generically. Negative competition involves preventing competitors from achieving their goals. It includes but is not limited to the provision of misinformation about either organisation’s motivation, abilities and intentions. In this scenario, each organisation strives for its inputs from what may be a limited resource, and no functioning parent organisation emerges. Because negative competition leads to inefficiencies, the full potential benefits are unlikely to be achieved. Finally, open conflict can arise. It is notable that this largely reflects the state of global organisation today.
  2. Positive Unilateralism. The organisation acts unilaterally and in positive competition with others. Positive competition occurs when competitors each strive to be the best, as in the case of a running race. It leads to a  recognition of which component is best suited to what function. This, in turn, leads to co-operation. Each component finds the niche to which it is best suited and/or in which it is the most efficient. Thus, a functioning parent organisation with a command component ultimately evolves. On average, each component organisation will gain greater benefits than the previous option. However, sub-optimisation applies, and the benefits may not be as great as for those who are overwhelmingly successful in negative competition.
  3. Multilateralism. The organisation acts in co-operation with others. In this case a parent organisation with a command component is designed. The European Union is an example. However, because each component organisation strives for efficiency, there is a risk that they will exploit others, rather than contribute to the common effort. This would reduce the benefits for all.

In practice, the above options exist as points on a scale. There are numerous intermediate points between options a and b, and between options b and c, which depend on the attitudes and decisions of the component organisations.

Because we are a eusocial species, we must balance individual or unilateral action in our short-term interest with communal or multilateral action yielding longer-term benefits. For every organisation, there is an optimum efficiency which can be achieved by using positive unilateralism or multilateralism where appropriate. Nations with conflict between the political left, who favour collectivism, and the right, who favour individualism, should take note.

Optimisation applies to an organisation that acts unilaterally. If an organisation acts multilaterally, then we must rise up through the hierarchy until we reach either the global system or a parent or grandparent acting unilaterally. The requirement for optimization then cascades down through component and sub-component organisations, which may then need to operate sub-optimally.

When influencing its external environment, the role of the command component of an organisation is to:

  1. gather information from the external environment. In the systems model, this information is an input, which itself must be sought by influencing the external environment.
  2. make decisions in the interest of the relevant organisation as a whole. The relevant organisation may be the one commanded, its parent, or its grandparent, whichever operates unilaterally.
  3. manage the balance between unilateral and multilateral action to optimise the efficiency of the relevant organisation.
  4. issue commands to sub-ordinate components for the necessary outputs.

This article will conclude with part 3 next week.