General Systems Theory

Preface......Page 6
Contents......Page 9
Part 1 The Theories and Why......Page 13
1 The Emergence of Holistic Thinking......Page 15
The scholastic paradigm......Page 17
The Renaissance paradigm......Page 20
The mechanistic world and determinism......Page 23
The hegemony of determinism......Page 25
The age of relativity and quantum mechanics......Page 32
The systems age......Page 44
Review questions and problems......Page 56
2 Basic Ideas of General Systems Theory......Page 57
GST and concepts defining systems properties......Page 64
Cybernetics and concepts defining systems processes......Page 81
General scientific and systemic concepts......Page 100
Widely-known laws, principles, theorems and hypotheses......Page 104
Some generic facts of systems behaviour......Page 109
Review questions and problems......Page 113
3 A Selection of Systems Theories......Page 114
Boulding and the Hierarchy of Systems Complexity......Page 115
Miller and the General Living Systems Theory......Page 122
Beer and the Viable System Model......Page 136
Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis......Page 144
Teilhard de Chardin and the noosphere......Page 156
Taylor and the Geopolitic Systems Model......Page 159
Klir and the General Systems Problem Solver......Page 164
Laszlo and the Natural Systems......Page 168
Cook and the Quantal System......Page 173
Checkland and the Systems Typology......Page 177
Jordan and the Systems Taxonomy......Page 180
Salk and the categories of nature......Page 183
Powers and the Control Theory......Page 188
Namilov and the organismic view of science......Page 192
Review questions and problems......Page 195
4 Communication and Information Theory......Page 197
Basic concepts of communication theory......Page 200
Interrelations between time, place and channel......Page 206
Shannon’s classical theory......Page 211
Basic concepts of information theory......Page 218
Information, exformation and entropy......Page 221
How to measure information......Page 228
Entropy and redundancy......Page 236
Channels, noise and coding......Page 240
Review questions and problems......Page 244
5 Some Theories of Brain and Mind......Page 245
The need for consciousness......Page 247
A hierarchy of memory......Page 259
Brain models......Page 263
A model perspective......Page 276
Review questions and problems......Page 278
Part 2 The Applications and How......Page 279
6 Artificial Intelligence and Life......Page 281
The Turing test......Page 287
Parallel processing and neural networks......Page 290
Expert systems......Page 293
Some other applications......Page 297
Artificial life......Page 300
Computer viruses......Page 306
Review questions and problems......Page 311
7 Organizational Theory and Management Cybernetics......Page 313
The origin of modern trading corporations......Page 316
The development of organizational theory......Page 319
The non-avoidable hierarchy......Page 328
Organizational design......Page 329
Multiple perspectives of management cybernetics......Page 339
A systems approach in ten points......Page 348
Review questions and problems......Page 349
8 Decision-Making and Decision Aids......Page 350
Some concepts and distinctions of the area......Page 352
Basic decision aids......Page 359
Managerial problems and needs......Page 363
Four generations of computer support......Page 366
C3I systems......Page 371
Some psychological aspects of decision-making......Page 376
The future of managerial decision support......Page 381
Review questions and problems......Page 382
9 Informatics......Page 383
Electronic networks......Page 385
Fibre optics, communication and navigation satellites, cellular radio......Page 390
Internet......Page 393
Virtual reality......Page 401
Cyberspace and cyberpunk......Page 405
Review questions and problems......Page 407
10 Some of the Systems Methodologies......Page 409
Large-scale, soft and intertwined problems......Page 411
Systems design......Page 414
Breakthrough thinking......Page 416
Systems analysis......Page 422
Systems engineering......Page 424
GLS simulation......Page 427
Method versus problem......Page 433
Review questions and problems......Page 436
11 The Future of Systems Theory......Page 437
Science of today......Page 438
The world we live in......Page 439
The need for change......Page 443
Systems thinking as alternate and criticized paradigm......Page 446
Systems thinking and the academic environment......Page 450
How to write the instruction manual......Page 452
Review questions and problems......Page 453
References......Page 455
Name Index......Page 461
Subject Index......Page 465