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Systemic solutions for systemic problems

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“The logic of the world is the logic of descriptions of the world.”

-- Heinz von Foerster

Abstract

The systems sciences and cybernetics emerged in the years after World War II. These fields created many new approaches to engineering and management and contributed new ideas to existing academic fields. The new fields also identified similar concepts across a range of fields and began to create a general theory of systems. In addition the systems sciences created a variety of methods for managing complex systems, for example logistics, operations research and computer simulations. In the 1970s there was concern about population and environment balance. Currently there is increasing concern with governance, since the rate of presentation of problems seems to be greater than the ability of our institutions to manage them. This paper will discuss the history of systems science and cybernetics, the questions formulated and the solutions proposed, the difficulties encountered in finding a home within contemporary universities and some exciting lines of research now underway.

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Acknowledgements

During its preparation this article was discussed with Karl H. Mueller, who offered helpful suggestions.

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  1. Department of Management, School of Business, George Washington University, Washington, USA

    Stuart Umpleby

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  1. Stuart Umpleby
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Correspondence to Stuart Umpleby.

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Stuart Umpleby is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Management in the School of Business at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He received a bachelor’s degree in engineering, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science and a PhD in Communications from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), IL. While at UIUC he worked with Heinz von Foerster and others in the Biological Computer Laboratory. Since 1975 he has been a professor in the Department of Management at George Washington University. For twenty years he directed the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning. He is a past president of the American Society for Cybernetics and Associate Editor of the journal Cybernetics and Systems. He received the Norbert Wiener award from the American Society for Cybernetics. He is now serving as president of the executive committee of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences. His website is: http://blogs.gwu.edu/umpleby.

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Umpleby, S. Systemic solutions for systemic problems. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 26, 269–286 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-017-5332-x

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