Some of the discoveries in the physical sciences, in quantum physics, thermodynamics and chaos theory for example, have significant value for systems thinkers more generally whatever their field of study. This open up the possibility of a synthesis across all the disciplines with certain key concepts of a systemic nature playing a significant role whether in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology or management.
We look at the work of some systems thinkers, particularly Jantsch, Wheatley and Capra, whose reading of the natural sciences suggests that a synthesis across all disciplines might be possible based upon holistic thinking.
The view of "self-organizing evolution" presented is non-reductionist and directs our attention toward, an increasing awareness of being connected with the environment in space and time. Jantsch (1980, The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution, Pergamon Press, Oxford.) identifies three central aspects of the emerging paradigm of self-organization:
- A specific macroscopic dynamics of process systems
- Continuous exchange and thereby co-evolution with the environment
- Self-transcendence, the evolution of evolutionary processes
In quantum mechanics, particles do not exist as independent things: "they come into being and are observed only in relationship to something else". In biology, new notions of evolution and co-evolution have come to the fore. Autopoietic systems are able to maintain their autonomy while being "structurally coupled" with their environments. The work of Prigogine on dissipative structures, in the field of chemistry, reveals that disorder can be the sources of new order. In a dissipative structure, things in the environment that disturb the system's equilibrium play a crucial role in creating new forms of order. Growth is found in disequilibrium, not in balance. The things we fear most in organizations - fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances - need not be signs of an impending disorder that will destroy us. Instead, fluctuations are the primary source of creativity. The most chaotic of systems never goes beyond certain boundaries. (Wheatley, 1992, Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco.)
In Wheatley's view the new science has importants for organization theory and for leadership. Enterprises can be managed through concepts and a few guiding principles. We should not seek to rely on elaborate rules, task definition and structures. We can trust in chaos; organizations should be allowed to evolve.
Capra, in his book The Web of life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter (1996), firmly locates the "paradigm shift" he sees occurring the natural and social phenomena within the holistic tradition of thought. Holistic investigation is "contextual thinking" which insists that parts of systems can only be understood in terms of their relationships with each other and with the whole. For the systems thinker, as Capra notes, relationships are primary. This type of thinking bagan with Aristotle. Aristotle's was an organic perspective that likened the word and all it contained to a living being.
In the seventeenth century, however, the Aristotelian world-view came under threat as the "Scientific Revolution" gained momentum. The philosophy that underpinned the Scientific Revolution was "Cartesian Mechanism." "Analysis" was now promoted as the means by which to gain knowledge. Broadly defined, analysis involves the division of a whole into separate parts for the purpose of understanding those parts. The behavior of the whole can then be reduced by studying the properties of the parts in isolation. This approach, of cause, exists at the opposite end of the spectrum to holistic thinking.
In the twentieth century, biologists again found themselves having to cast off the constraints of mechanistic thinking and returning to a holistic approach in order to advance their discipline.
A theory of living systems consistent with the philosophical framework of deep ecology and implying a non-mechanistic, post-Cartesian understanding of life, is now emerging. Three concepts are central to this new theory - "pattern of organization", "structure of the system" and "process." The pattern of organization is the formation and arrangement of relationships between the system's parts. It determines the characteristics of the system, be it a living or a non-living system. The structure of a system can be defined as "the physical embodiment of its pattern of organization". Process refers to the ever present flow of "matter" through living systems because they are in constant contact with their environments. The three concepts are therefore interdependent and, taken together, provide for Capra the "key criteria of a living system": The pattern of organization can be recognized if it is embodied in a physical structure, and in living systems this embodiment is an ongoing process. (Capra, 1996, The Web of life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter, Flamingo, London.)
Capra's main focus is on the claim that living systems are circular networks which constantly produce themselves.
The notion of "dissipative structures" is due to Ilya Prigogine, a Russian scientist, who won the Nobel prize in 1977 for his work on the thermodynamics of systems far from equilibrium. For Prigogine, science had focussed for far too long on systems in a state of "thermodynamic equilibrium" and largely ignored processes and structures occurring "far from equilibrium." These were looked down on as nuisances, as disturbances, as subjects not worthy of study." (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984, Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. Bantam Books, NY.)
This, however, is to miss the point of how open systems are able to change and evolve. Systems are continuously subject to fluctuations and, as a result of the effects of positive feedback, these fluctuations can be powerful enough to drive systems far from equilibrium. In this state a system may disintegrate.
Prigogine showed, however, that under certain conditions chemical systems are able to pass through randomness and achieve a new level of order as "dissipative structures" - so called because they require energy from the outside to prevent them from dissipating. Rather than focussing on the inevitability of decay as systems run down to a state of maximum entropy, as classical thermodynamics does, they theory of dissipative structures highlights the capability of open systems to evolve towards greater complexity through spontaneous self-organization.
Dissipative structures are able, through self-organization, to a maintain a stable state in unstable conditions far from equilibrium. They do this, through the exchange of resources with their environments. The characteristics of a dissipative structure mean that a system can maintain the same overall structure while experiencing a continuous flow and change of components. Moreover these are the very characteristics that ensure the survival fo the system and the maintenance of life.
The third concept in Capra's synthesis is "process." Pattern and structure can only be fully understood if they are considered in terms of processes: the pattern of life is a set of relationships between processes of production; and a dissipative structure can only be understood in terms of metabolic and developmental processes. (Capra, 1996, The Web of life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter, Flamingo, London.)
From the writings of Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist and psychiatrist much influenced by cybernetics, and from the work of Maturana, Capra derives the notion that "cognition" is central to the process of life. Basteson's theory of cognition suggested that mental processes are immanent in all kinds of living systems, from organisms to social systems and ecosystems. Systems that exist on the basis of mental processes can develop in much the same way as our minds develop. They are capable od exhibiting memory, learning and decision-making.
(Jackson, 2000, Systems Approaches to Management, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, NY. P75~81)
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