Abstract
We start with an overview of the main attributes of systems in general. These common attributes are found in all systems. They can be examined in the abstract as concepts or concretely in actual example systems. The overall concept of a system begins with the concept of an organized whole entity that has connections to other such entities as well as exists in an environmental milieu. We have shamelessly invented the word “systemness” to encompass these general attributes. Our first Quant Box provides a starting place for a formal definition of systemness, which will apply as we construct models of systems for formal analysis. But the rest of the chapter provides descriptions that expand on that formality in terms easy to understand without the math. The first Think Box introduces a theme that will run through the rest of the chapters—that of how the brain is a wonderful model of a complex adaptive system and how the principles and subjects of the chapters apply to understanding this remarkable system.
“A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world.”
Donella Meadows , 2008 (Meadows 2008, p. 2).
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Notes
- 1.
The term black box is a holdover from the reverse engineering field where engineers have to deduce the inner workings of a machine (the box) without taking it apart for fear that doing so would destroy its functionality. More accurately, we should call systems that we can only observe from the outside as opaque processes.
- 2.
Chaos in the sense used here is not the conventional purely randomness that most people think about when using that term. Chaos theory in mathematics and physics deals with a form of non-predictability in systems’ behavior that is not amenable to regular statistical methods. More in Chap. 5, but see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory.
- 3.
- 4.
Truth and the verification of truth are much disputed questions in philosophy. A common philosophical definition of knowledge is “justified true belief” or a belief one holds that corresponds with reality to a reasonable degree. For the purposes of this book, a reasonable correspondence is one that is sufficient to guide activity appropriately for the situation.
- 5.
Actually, we know that components have internal structure and complexity themselves precisely because they have different personalities. The different interaction potential types tell us that something is going on internally within the components, which means they have subcomponents that are interacting in different ways. A beautiful example of this is that atoms, which we once thought were indivisible, have component particles (protons, electrons, and neutrons) that interact in combinations that give rise to the atomic types. But it goes further. Each component of an atom, itself, is comprised of yet smaller components called quarks. Since there are multiple kinds of quarks, many physicists believe that even they have internal structures. No one knows where or if this “matryoshka doll” (also called babushka dolls or Russian nesting dolls) phenomenon bottoms out, though string theory might provide an answer. But since the pattern appears to be consistent in spite of what level we examine, we are content to start, abstractly, somewhere in the middle as if it were the bottom.
- 6.
Contemporary physics now theorizes forces in terms of exchanges (flows) of special kinds of particles, which would reduce the second form of connection to the first. But “force” is a well-established category in a broad variety of usages and we will retain it here.
- 7.
Thus far, the evidence that there might be a repulsive analog to gravitational attraction, called “dark energy,” is sketchy, but it does make sense that there might be such. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy.
- 8.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrons for a basic explanation.
- 9.
For a basic description of “force” and the four forces of nature, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forces.
- 10.
The real physics of atoms is much more involved than we can go into in this book. If the reader has not had a course in physics, a good general book on particle physics, the fundamental forces of nature, and the cosmological origins of atoms is Primack and Abrams (2006).
- 11.
Fusion, supernovas, the emergence of heavy elements, and complex chemistry are common topics in descriptions of cosmic evolution. The fine tuning that allows a universe with the possible emergence of intelligent life, such as ours, is a special topic generally discussed as the “anthropic principle .”
- 12.
Physics treats forces as moving (accelerating) material. We used force above in a relational context with explicit reference to its vector, introducing separation or convergence, repulsion or attraction. In the case of flows, we have a specific interest in the change they bring about in the recipient or object system .
- 13.
- 14.
This concept is borrowed directly from Thermodynamics and consideration of systems in the equilibrium state or maximum entropy .
- 15.
Again we borrow from physics. Here we are referring to systems far from thermal equilibrium, where energy is being supplied to do the useful work of constructing linkages between components to form meta-components.
- 16.
A keystone species is any single species in a particular ecosystem that has a large impact on the stability of the ecosystem. Take the species out of the system and it usually crashes or radically remodels to find a new mix of species and relations. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species.
- 17.
Percepts are low-level patterns that are integrated in the sensory cortex of higher vertebrates, for example, the perception of texture on a surface or the shape of an object. Concepts are higher-order integrations of perceptions that are triggered not only by bottom-up perception but can be independently manipulated mentally. See the later text for more details.
- 18.
These refer to networks of neurons in various brain regions, in particular the cerebral cortex. Neurons are the cells that encode memory traces of experiences generated both from perceptual processing and from conceptual processing. These networks are able to encode features of objects like boundaries or shape. Conceptual neuronal networks integrate all of the features along with the behavioral aspects of a system .
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
The neurobiologist, Elkhonon Goldberg, among others, gives an extensive account of the perceptual mechanisms in the brain as pattern recognizing devices. See Goldberg (2001).
- 22.
See Autonomous vehicles—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_vehicle.
- 23.
This latter fact became painfully clear when the completion of the Human Genome Project showed that there are probably around 30,000 genes specifying the human body and brain plan. Clearly, the brain’s detailed wiring cannot be a result of genetic control. But we already knew that most of what we carry around in our heads is the result of learning!
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Mobus, G.E., Kalton, M.C. (2015). Organized Wholes. In: Principles of Systems Science. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1920-8_3
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