SATM 4.3 Biology - Origins in the Systems Diciplines

Biology has provided equally fertile ground for the development of systems concepts; contributing, amongst others, "complexity", "emergence", "hierarchy", "equilibrium", "adaptation", "homoeostasis", "self-regulation", "open-system", "environment", "autopoiesis" and "autonomy."


Organismic biologists argued that while living systems might obey the laws of physics and chemistry, there was something more to them than that. A hierarchy existed in nature - molecules, organelles, cells, organs, organisms - and at certain points in the hierarchy, stable levels of organized complexity arose which demonstrated "emergent properties" which did not exist at levels below.

The fact that organisms, as wholes, had characteristics which were not reducible to their parts meant that biology was necessary.

Of equal significance in discussing the contribution of biology to systems thinking is the work of L.J. Henderson and W.B. Cannon.

Central to the survival of the organism is its ability to maintain an equilibrium through self-regulating mechanisms. The achievement of this crucial stability requires the organism to be constantly responding to its environment and adapting to suit this environment.

The best known biologist of all to have influenced systems thinking was Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

For von Bertalanffy, every living system is a "whole" made up of interrelated and interdependent parts, interacting to maintain that whole. These parts are both ordered in a hierarchy and differentiated to perform specific functions, helping the system to survive and adapt to its environment. In addition there needs to be some sort of "transformation process" inherent in the system whereby it takes in inputs, transforms them and produces outputs back into its environment. The key concept here is that of an "open system."

Closed systems obey the second law of thermodynamics, gradually running down, increasing in entropy and reaching an equilibrium state where no energy can be obtained from them.

Open systems can temporarily defeat the second law of thermodynamics. By living off their environment, importing complex molecules high in free energy, they can evolve toward states of increased order and organization.

Some of the primary characteristics of open systems identified by von Bertalanffy were "regulation", "feedback", and "equifinality." 

Regulation is necessary if the interrelated and interacting parts of open systems are not to give rise to chaos and disorder. 

An effective means of regulation is through feedback whereby a message is generated if part of a system's functioning is going awry and is transmitted to an "effector" which takes action bring it back on course.

Equifinality is the ability to reach the same final state from different initial conditions and in different ways. It depends on the existence of feedback and regulation.

Autopoiesis is an ancient Greek word referring to self-production. 

Maturana and Varela begin by posing the question "What is the necessary and sufficient organization for a given system to be a living unity?" They argue that such unities nust be autopoietic systems: "Living beings are characterized by their autopoietic organization".

According to Maturana and Varela, autopoietic systems have both "organization" and "structure." Here organization denotes "those relations that must exist among the components of a system for it to be a member of a specific class". The organization must remain invariant if the unity is to maintain its identity. The structure of a unity, defined as the components and relations that actually constitute a particular unity, can, however, change without the unity ceasing to exist. In other words, two unities of the same class must have the same organization but may have different structures.

Autopoietic systems are, therefore, closed systems in the sense that they seek to maintain their own organization as constant. They are also structure-determined rather than externally-determined systems.

    (Jackson, M.C. 2000,Systems Approaches to Management, Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. NY. P46-49.)