Systems thinking

 ( Cybernetics ) 

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/229816 (1971) Maxwell and the Origins of Cybernetics] ''Isis'', Vol. '''62''', No. 4 (Winter, 1971), pp. 424-444 (21 pages)
     

Maxwell's approach, which linearized the equations of motion of the system, produced a tractable method of solution. Norbert Wiener identified this approach as an influence on his studies of cybernetics during World War II and Wiener even proposed treating some subsystems under investigation as black boxes.Peter Galison (1994) The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 228–266 (39 pages) JSTOR Methods for solutions of the systems of equations then become the subject of study, as in feedback control systems, in stability theory, in constraint satisfaction problems, the unification algorithm, type inference, and so forth.

"So, how do we change the system dynamics to produce more of what we want and less of that which is undesirable? ... MIT’s Jay Forrester likes to say that the average manager can ... guess with great accuracy where to look for leverage points—places in the system where a small change could lead to a large shift in behavior".Donella Meadows, (2008) — Donella Meadows, (2008) p.145

• Subsystems serve as part of a larger system, but each comprises a system in its own right. Each frequently can be described reductively, with properties obeying its own laws, such as Newton's System of the World, in which entire , , and their satellites can be treated, sometimes in a scientific way as dynamical systems, entirely mathematically, as demonstrated by Johannes Kepler's equation (1619) for the orbit of Mars before Newton's Principia appeared in 1687.
• are subsystems whose operation can be characterized by their inputs and outputs, without regard to further detail.Wiener, Norbert; , MIT Press, 1961, ISBN 0-262-73009-X, page xi

• were recognized as early as the millennia before the common era.Aristotle, PoliticsJS Maloy (2009) The Aristotelianism of Locke's Politics Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 70, No. 2 (April 2009), pp. 235–257 (23 pages)
• Biological systems were recognized in Aristotle's lagoon ca. 350 BCE.Aristotle, History of Animals
• were recognized by 1776.Adam Smith (1776) The Wealth of Nations Book IV refers to commercial, and mercantile systems, as well as to systems of political enonomy
• were recognized by the 19th and 20th centuries of the common era.Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismTalcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action
• were developed in World War II in subsystem fashion; they were made up of transmitter, receiver, power supply, and signal processing subsystems, to defend against airborne attacks.MIT Radiation Laboratory, MIT Radiation Laboratory Series, 28 volumes
• Dynamical systems of ordinary differential equations were shown to exhibit stability theory given a suitable Lyapunov control function by Aleksandr Lyapunov in 1892.Richard Pates (2021) What is a Lyapunov function
• Thermodynamic systems were treated as early as the eighteenth century, in which it was discovered that heat could be created without limit, but that for , laws of thermodynamics could be formulated.
  Ilya Prigogine (1980). 9780716711070, Freeman. . ISBN 9780716711070
  272 pages. Ilya Prigogine (1980) has identified situations in which systems far from equilibrium can exhibit stable behavior;Glansdorff, P., Prigogine, I. (1971). Thermodynamic Theory of Structure, Stability and Fluctuations, London: Wiley-Interscience once a Lyapunov function has been identified, future and past can be distinguished, and scientific activity can begin.

Living systems are resilient, and are far from equilibrium. [[Homeostasis]] is the analog to equilibrium, for a living system; the concept was described in 1849, and the term was coined in 1926.
     

Resilient systems are self-organizing;H T Odum [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.242.4882.1132 (25 Nov 1988) Self-Organization, Transformity and Information] ''Science'' Vol '''242''', Issue 4882 pp. 1132–1139 as reprinted by Gerald Midgley ed. (2002), ''Systems Thinking'' vol ''2''
     

The scope of functional controls is [[hierarchical|Hierarchy]], in a resilient system.
     

• Critical systems heuristics: in particular, there can be twelve boundary categories for the systems when organizing one's thinking and actions.
• Critical systems thinking, including the E P I C approach.
• DSRP, a framework for systems thinking that attempts to generalise all other approaches.
• Ontology engineering of representation, formal naming and definition of categories, and the properties and the relations between concepts, data, and entities.
• Soft systems methodology, including the CATWOE approach and rich pictures.
• Systemic design, for example using the double diamond approach.
• System dynamics of stocks, flows, and internal feedback loops.
• Viable system model: uses 5 subsystems.

• Russell L. Ackoff (1968) "General Systems Theory and Systems Research Contrasting Conceptions of Systems Science." in: Views on a General Systems Theory: Proceedings from the Second System Symposium, Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (ed.).
• A.C. Ehresmann, J.-P. Vanbremeersch (1987) Hierarchical evolutive systems: A mathematical model for complex systems" Bulletin of Mathematical Biology Volume 49, Issue 1, Pages 13–50
• NJTA Kramer & J de Smit (1977) Systems thinking: Concepts and Notions, Springer. 148 pages
• A. H. Louie (November 1983) " Categorical system theory" Bulletin of Mathematical Biology volume 45, pages 1047–1072
• DonellaMeadows.org Systems Thinking Resources
• Gerald Midgley (ed.) (2002) Systems Thinking, SAGE Publications. 4 volume set: 1,492 pages List of chapter titles

• Robert Rosen. (1958) “ The Representation of Biological Systems from the Standpoint of the Theory of Categories". Bull. math. Biophys. 20, 317–342.
• Peter Senge, (1990) The Fifth Discipline