Abstract
Since the middle of this century much important work has been done by members of the systems community to further understanding of complex matters in areas such as computation theory, self reproducing automata, cybernetics, information theory and the softer areas of social or purposeful systems. However, the objective of re-integrating disjoint scientific specialities under a general systems theory has not been met. During the last twenty years, fragmentation rather than integration has occurred with significant differences developing between the conceptualisation of ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ systems, ‘hard’ and’ soft’ systems, ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’ systems, and ‘physical’ and’ social’ systems. During this period the ‘meta-discipline’ of Systems Science has developed to the point where, (to paraphrase Einstein) “As far as the laws of General Systems Theory refer to reality they are not certain and as far as they are certain they do not refer to reality”, (Capra, 1992).
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Doyle, K.G. (1995). Uniting Systems Theory with Practice. In: Ellis, K., Gregory, A., Mears-Young, B.R., Ragsdell, G. (eds) Critical Issues in Systems Theory and Practice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9883-8_43
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