The existence of the system is an objective fact, but human beings have known the system for a long time, and there are many researches on simple systems, but few on complex systems.
It was not until the 1930s that the general system theory was gradually formed. The general system theory comes from the organism theory in biology and was born in the study of complex life systems.
From 65438 to 0925, alfred north whitehead, a British mathematical logician and philosopher, put forward the idea of replacing mechanical determinism with organism theory in his article Science and Modern World, arguing that only by treating life as an organic whole can complex life phenomena be explained. Systematic thinking first appeared in Gestalt Psychology established by 192 1. In the study of industrial psychology, Parry J.B put forward the vocabulary and concept of systematic psychology in 1958.
Principles of Physical Biology published by American scholar A.J. Lotca in 1925 and On Regulation published by German scholar W. Koehler in 1927 put forward the idea of general system theory.
From 1924 to 1928, Austrian theoretical biologist L.von Bertalanfeld published many articles to express the idea of general system theory, put forward the concept of organism in biology, and emphasized that the organism must be studied as a whole or system in order to discover the organizational principles at different levels. In Theoretical Biology published by 1932 and Modern Development Theory published by 1934, he put forward the method of studying biology and the concept of biological system theory with mathematical models, and applied the concepts of coordination, order and purpose to the study of biology, forming three basic views on studying life, namely, systematic view, dynamic view and hierarchical view.
1937, Bertalanfi first put forward the concept of general system theory at a philosophy seminar at the University of Chicago. However, due to the pressure of biology at that time, it was not officially published. 1945, he published an article on general system theory, but it was quickly destroyed by the war and did not attract people's attention. From 1947 to 1948, Berta Langfield further expounded the idea of general system theory when giving lectures and attending symposiums in the United States, pointing out that no matter the specific types of systems, the nature of components and the relationship between them, there are general modes, principles and laws applicable to integrated systems or subsystems. 1954, Berta Langfield initiated the establishment of the Society of General System Theory (later renamed the Society of General System Theory). Although general system theory appeared almost at the same time as cybernetics and information theory, it was not taken seriously until the 1960s and 1970s.
1968 Bertalanffy's monograph General System Theory-Foundation, Development and Application summarizes the concept, method and application of general system theory. 1972, he published The History and Present Situation of General System Theory, trying to redefine it. Bertalanfi believes that it is inappropriate to regard general system theory as a mathematical theory, because there are many systematic problems that cannot be expressed by modern mathematical concepts.
The term general system theory has a wide range of contents, including a very wide range of research fields, mainly including three aspects. ① Science about systems: also known as mathematical system theory. This is to describe the system with accurate mathematical language and study the basic theory applicable to all systems. ② System technology: also known as system engineering. This is to study complex systems such as engineering system, life system, economic system and social system with systematic thoughts and methods. (3) System philosophy: To study the scientific methodological nature of general system theory and raise it to the position of philosophical methodology. Bertalanfi tried to extend the general system theory to the category of system science, including almost all three levels of system science. However, the main research contents of modern general system theory are still limited to system thought, system isomorphism, open system and system philosophy. System engineering, which specializes in the organization and management of complex systems, has become an independent discipline, which is beyond the scope of general system theory.
[Editor] Essentials of General System Theory [1]
The main points of Bertrand's general system theory are as follows:
(1) system integrity
System is a collection of several things, which reflects the integrity of objective things, but it is not simply equivalent to the whole. Because the system not only reflects the whole of objective things, but also reflects the relationship between the whole and parts, the whole and levels, the whole and structure, and the whole and the environment. In other words, the system reveals its holistic characteristics from the relationship between the whole and its elements, levels, structure and environment. The unorganized synthesis of elements can also become a whole, but the unorganized state cannot become a system. The integrity of the system is based on the integrity of a certain organizational structure. Only when the elements are interrelated and interact with each other in a certain way to form a certain structure can the system be complete. The concept of wholeness is the core of general system theory.
(2) the organic relevance of the system
The nature of the system is not the sum of the nature of elements, but the nature of the system is the absence of elements; The laws followed by the system are neither the same as those followed by the elements, nor the sum of the laws followed by the elements. However, the system and its elements are unified, the nature of the system is based on the nature of the elements, and the law of the system must be reflected by the relationship between the elements (the structure of the system). The elements existing in the whole must have the internal basis of the interconnection that constitutes the whole, so the elements can only reflect the meaning of their elements in the whole. Once the foundation that constitutes the whole is lost, it is not an element of this system. It boils down to one sentence: a system is an organic collection of elements.
(3) the dynamic nature of the system
The organic connection of the system is not static, but dynamic. The dynamic nature of the system includes two aspects: first, the internal structure of the system changes with time; Secondly, there must be an exchange of material, energy and information between the system and the external environment. For example, metabolism is an important basis for organisms to maintain internal balance. If the cessation of metabolism means the death of the body, then this system as the body will no longer exist. Bertalanfi believes that all practical systems are open systems, and dynamics is the inevitable expression of open systems.
(4) the orderliness of the system
The structure, hierarchy and dynamic directionality of the system all indicate that the system has the characteristics of order. The existence of a system will inevitably present an orderly state. The more orderly the system is, the more organized it is and the better its stability is. When the system moves from order to disorder, its stability will decrease. The state of complete disorder is the disintegration of the system.
(5) the purpose of the system
In order to avoid misunderstanding (mainly to avoid being confused with the teleology of the ancients), some people call it "predetermination". Bertalanffy believes that the order of a system has certain directionality, that is, the development direction of a system depends not only on the accidental actual state, but also on its own inevitable directionality, which is the purpose of the system. He emphasized the universality of the system, believing that it is ubiquitous in mechanical systems or any other types of systems.
[Editor] Trends and characteristics of general system theory
At present, system theory has shown several noteworthy trends and characteristics.
First, system theory and cybernetics, information theory, operational research, system engineering, electronic computer and modern communication technology are mutually infiltrated and closely combined;
Secondly, system theory, cybernetics and information theory are developing in the direction of "three in one", and it has been made clear that system theory is the basis of the other two theories;
Third, new scientific theories, such as dissipative structure theory, synergetics theory, catastrophe theory and fuzzy system theory, have enriched and developed the content of system theory from all aspects, so it is necessary to summarize a systematics as the basic scientific theory of system science;
Fourthly, people pay more and more attention to the philosophy and methodology of system science. Under the development situation of these system sciences, many scholars at home and abroad are committed to synthesizing the research of various system theories and exploring ways to establish a unified system science system. Bertalanfi, the founder of general system theory, divided his system theory into two parts. His narrow system theory and broad system theory are two parts. His narrow system theory focuses on the analysis and research of the system itself; And his generalized system theory is to analyze and study a related system science.
Including three aspects: 1. System science and mathematical system theory; 2. System technology, involving cybernetics, information theory, operational research and system engineering; 3. System philosophy, including system ontology, epistemology and axiology.
Some people put forward that information, energy, matter and time are the basic concepts of the body and a new unified theory is established. Samuel, a professor at Degermore University in Sweden, published System Theory at the annual meeting of General System Theory in 1976. A tentative idea of integrating cybernetics and information theory into a new discipline. In this case, the American Journal of Systems Engineering was renamed the Journal of Systems Science. Some scholars in China believe that system science should include five parts: system concept, general system theory, system theory analysis, system methodology (including system engineering and system analysis) and application of system method. Professor Qian Xuesen, a famous scientist in China. Since 1979, he has published many articles to express that he is a large category of science alongside natural science and social science. Like natural science, system science is also divided into system engineering technology (including system engineering, automation technology and communication technology). System technology science (including supporting science, cybernetics, giant system theory and information theory); Basic science of systems (i.e. systematics); Systematic view (that is, systematic philosophy and methodology, which is the bridge between systematic science and Marxist philosophy). These studies show that in the near future, system theory will stand in the forest of science with a brand-new look.
[Editor] The development trend of general system theory
The general system theory founded by Bertalanfi sums up the human system thought from the perspective of theoretical biology, and establishes the general system theory of open system by analogy and isomorphism. The general system theory he founded belongs to the analogy general system theory, which does not give a satisfactory answer to the order and purpose of the system.
A. Soviet scholar и Uemov put forward the parameterized general system theory. He thinks that Bertrand Langfield's general system theory is founded by isomorphism, homomorphism and other analogy forms, which is limited in practical application. People have found more than 50 independent analogy forms, many of which can be used to develop the analogy general system theory, so this theory can be developed. But comparing different systems is not the only way to establish general system theory. Parametric general system theory expresses the original information of the system with system parameters, and then establishes the relationship between system parameters with electronic computer, thus determining the general law of the system.
Another important field of the development of general system theory is mathematical system theory or mathematical theory of general system. Its representatives are Mesawitz, Wymore and clear.
Professor Lin Fuyong, a Chinese scholar, put forward and published a new general system theory in 1988, which is called general system structure theory. The general system structure theory puts forward a new general system concept system in mathematics, especially the new concepts that reveal the relationship between system components, such as relationship, relationship ring, system structure and so on. On this basis, grasp the problems of system environment, system structure and system behavior and their relationships and laws, and mathematically prove that there are inherent relationships and laws among system environment, system structure and system behavior. In a given institutional environment, institutional behavior is determined and dominated by the institutional structure at the grass-roots level. This conclusion provides an accurate theoretical basis for systematic research. On the basis of this conclusion, the general system structure theory reveals a series of general system principles and laws in theory, and solves a series of general system problems, such as the existence and characteristics of the basic level of the system, whether there are natural laws from simple to complex, and what is the root of complexity. Thus, the general system theory will be developed to the height that the theoretical content is accurate and the practical system problems can be effectively solved.
Some physicists, biologists and chemists have also studied the general system theory in their respective fields along the open system theory initiated by Bertalanfeld, and obtained a series of important laws about complex systems. The most famous ones are: I I.llyaPrigogine's dissipative structure theory, M Egan's hypercycle theory and Haken's synergetics, Laszlo's generalized evolution theory, China scholar Ceng Bangzhe's structural theory-pan-evolution theory, Deng Julong's grey system theory, Wu Xuemou's pan-system theory, Zhang Yingqing's holographic biology and other system theories.
[Editor] The difference between general system theory and complex adaptive system theory [2]
Bertalanfi's general system theory was put forward in the 1940s. The background of this theory is that the basic concepts of two branches of classical science occupy a dominant position in the field of scientific thought. One is Newtonian mechanics, whose world view of mechanical determinism and linear thinking mode make it advocate the reduction research of decomposing things. The other is thermodynamics, of course, equilibrium or near-equilibrium thermodynamics, because it focuses on the disorder and discretization trend of the world caused by the second law of thermodynamics, which leads to a statistical understanding of a large number of things. Therefore, Bertalanfeld said in his masterpiece "General System Theory": At that time, "the view of nature with strict mechanical determinism" was established, "it pointed out that the universe was based on the random and disorderly movement of impersonal particles. Because of the large number of these particles, statistical order and rules are produced. " This "forces us to regard almost everything we study as composed of separated and dispersed parts or factors". Bertalanfi, a scholar from theoretical biology, said that he felt painfully that "the most basic things in life phenomena were ignored and strongly denied by the popular mechanistic methods at that time". The basic feature of life is organization, which shows that its parts interact with each other to form an inseparable whole, that is, life. "The mechanistic worldview regards the activity of material particles as the highest reality", so the concept of organism is completely out of its sight. Bertalanfi asserted: "Classical physics is very successful in the theoretical development of unorganized complex things. ..... The theory of this unorganized complex thing finally comes down to the laws of randomness and probability and the second law of thermodynamics. On the contrary, today's basic problems are organized and complicated. " In the development of new life science, behavioral science and social science, problems of organisms and organizations have appeared everywhere. Therefore, a basic question raised by modern science is the general theory of organization. Bertalanfi thinks that the establishment of general system theory can meet this need.
However, the ideological background (or context) put forward by system theory also limits its basic concept: replacing the mechanism with the model of organism theory, and summarizing the regularity of dynamic interaction between components in biological systems into the regularity of general systems. Bertalanfi said: "I once put forward the biological concept of an organism theory, which emphasized that the organism should be regarded as a whole or a system." What he did "might as well be called the revolution of organism theory for short, and its core is the concept of system." In a word, Bertalanfi regards wholeness as the core nature of the system, and he regards the organism as the model of this wholeness. He made the following statement on biological integrity. Physical organization is a combination of pre-existing atoms, molecules and other separated elements, while the whole organism is divided into specialized parts that are different from each other in structure and function, and then their cooperation is produced. He said: "Only by changing from the undifferentiated whole state to the differentiated state of each component can progress be made, but this means that each component is fixed on a certain function. Therefore, gradual differentiation is gradually institutionalized. " "Institutionalization" makes the components of biological system tend to separate. "However, in the field of biology, institutionalization is by no means complete. Although the organism is partially institutionalized, it is still a unified system. " This is because the "centralization principle" has special significance in the field of biology. Gradual differentiation is often accompanied by gradual centralization. "How is the connection between these two seemingly contradictory phenomena realized? This is because in the process of gradual institutionalization, there is a "hierarchical order" between the parts formed, "some parts are dominated and determine the overall behavior", so that "the dominant part and the subordinate parts below have occurred", such as organisms being dominated and dominated by the highest center of the nervous system. This centralization ensures the integrity of the system. " At the same time, the principle of gradual centralization is the principle of gradual personalization. An "individual" can be defined as a centralized system. Strictly speaking, this is an extreme situation in the field of biology, but it is similar in individual development and phylogeny. Growing organisms become more and more unified and "inseparable" through gradual centralization. "Because centralization can improve the integrity of the system, the more centralized the system, the more advanced it is. In the biological world, the more concentrated species are, the more evolved species are. As he said, "centralization is increasing along the evolutionary ladder". It seems that "individual" constitutes the highest realm of Bertrand's system view, which is essentially a system to realize centralized and unified control. According to this view, Bertalanfi said: "... a mob has no personality." In order to distinguish one social structure from another, it must be combined around an individual. According to this important reason, biological communities like lakes or forests are not' organisms'. Because individual organisms tend to form centers to varying degrees. "At this point, we will see that the Santa Fe Institute runs counter to Bertrand, and it only studies multi-agent or multi-agent, non-central systems, such as ecosystems (including biological communities regarded as non-systems by Bertrand).
On the other hand, we can see that Beta Langfield overemphasizes the concepts of wholeness, order and unity, but completely denies the concepts of locality, disorder and dispersion. Because he equated the concepts of integrity and organization with the concept of "order" in essence, the opposition between system theory and mechanism almost became the opposition between the concepts of order and disorder. For example, he said that "the laws in physics are disorderly laws"; "In the19th century and the first half of 20th century, the world was assumed to be disorderly", "Now we are seeking another basic view about the world-the world is an organization". Disorder does have a negative effect on destruction, but it also has a positive effect on reconstruction. Later, edgar morin correctly pointed out that the orderliness as a reorganization and development organization is actually the unity of order and disorder. He particularly emphasized the principle of "order from noise". In fact, I.llyaPrigogine's theory of "dissipative structure" published in 1969 already contains the concept of the positive role of disorder (randomness), but Berta Langfield absorbed I.llyaPrigogine's idea of "open system" in his revised edition of General System Theory, but did not accept this concept. The key problem here is to grasp the dual effects of order and disorder by profoundly using the dialectical point of view (that is, Moran's "dual logic" principle). It is impossible for organisms to be produced in an absolutely orderly environment, so I say that organisms die because of the second law of thermodynamics and are also born because of the second law of thermodynamics. Of course, from the historical process of the overall development of cognition, Bertalanfi's cognitive limitations are also understandable. In the period when classical mechanics and classical thermodynamics dominate the field of scientific thought, it is appropriate to use the concept of organized order to oppose the concept of mechanical disorder first; However, in the process of further development of scientific thought, knowledge should be transformed from the fundamental opposition of order and disorder to the unity of opposites. This is in line with the development process of positive, negative and harmonious dialectics of cognition.
The system studied by Santa Fe Institute is quite different from that studied by Bertrand, which can be seen from the phenomenon put forward by Holland at the beginning of his book "Hidden Order", "... all kinds of people in new york consume a lot of various foods every day, so there is no need to worry about possible supply failures. Not only new york people live like this, but also the residents of Paris, Delhi, Shanghai and Tokyo. It's incredible that they all take it for granted. However, these cities do not have a central planning commission or other institutions to arrange and solve the purchase and distribution problems, nor do they maintain a large amount of reserves to play a buffer role in response to market fluctuations. If the transportation of daily supplies is cut off, the food in these cities will not last for a week or two. Day after day, year after year, how do these cities skillfully avoid the destructive fluctuation between shortage and surplus? ...... We once again asked the previous question: What makes the city maintain a coordinated operation without continuous disasters and central planning? " As the main research object of Santa Fe Institute, complex adaptive system is a non-individual system, such as social system, economic system, ecological system and nervous system. Moreover, Holland said that their system model "describes how a single free agent evolved into a multi-agent, and how it changed from a single seed multi-agent to a specific aggregate composed of several multi-agents". He said, "The main body formed by aggregation is a key feature ... new york, a complex adaptive system, can be well described by the continuous interaction of these main bodies. Although new york is diverse, constantly changing and lacks central command, it has maintained coordination in both short and long term, which is a typical feature of the mystery of CAS (complex adaptive system-initiator). Multi-agent system is called multi-agent system by Santa Fe Institute, because all individuals are independent decision-making actors and are not under the command of a system center. Therefore, this system can be called polycentric, or even "non-centric" because there are too many self-centered subjects. However, they are not "a mob", but many independent individuals can coordinate with each other in their interactive communication activities and maintain a macro order, such as the phenomenon caused by many commodity producers spontaneously following the law of value in the market economy. The research of complex adaptive system is to find the hidden order in group activities or the hidden mechanism that produces macro order. In the behavior of a single individual, the order of behavior is determined by the command issued by the command center, so it is realized and obvious. In the operation of a large multi-agent system without center, order is realized unconsciously and spontaneously in the interaction of multi-agents, so it is called "concealment".
The complex adaptive system theory of Santa Fe Institute was put forward in 1990s. The academic background at this time is quite different from that in the middle of the 20th century. I.llyaPrigogine's "dissipative structure" theory has been put forward, which shows the randomness of dissipative system evolution (unpredictable, fluctuation leads to order). Chaos theory has also been put forward, pointing out that inherent randomness, that is, disorder, will also occur in deterministic systems with nonlinear action mechanism. In Bertrand's time, the disorder caused by the second law of thermodynamics would only cause people's ill feelings. Now people see that disorder is bound to be related to order, and it also plays a necessary role in the evolution of things. At this time, the Santa Fe Institute intends to use various possibilities to study the self-organization mechanism of the huge and complex dynamic system in the process of adapting to the environment, and it recognizes that it is the existence of disorder that causes the complexity of the world.
Gherman, the academic leader of Santa Fe Institute and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, believes that the order of the world comes from the basic laws of physics first, and then from the laws caused by fixed accidents in the development of the universe (for example, the laws of chemistry and biology formed on the basis of physical laws and special conditions). The disorder of the world comes from the "uncertainty of quantum mechanics" of the basic law and the chaotic phenomenon mentioned above. He said: "The universe has quantum mechanical properties, which means that even if we know the initial state and the basic laws of matter, we can only calculate the probability of a set of possible historical existence of the universe. ..... and the uncertainty of quantum mechanics is ignored accordingly, there is still a general chaos phenomenon, that is, the results of mechanical processes are so affected by initial conditions that even a small change in the initial state will lead to significant differences in the final results. " The Santa Fe Institute put forward the famous concept of "chaotic edge", which "combines chaos and order" and is "a certain balance between the forces of order and disorder". Gherman pointed out: "The condition between order and disorder is not only the characteristic of the environment in which life occurs, but also the characteristic of high efficiency and great depth of life itself." This shows that the complex adaptive system not only comes from the chaotic edge, but also can operate effectively only on the chaotic edge. "The external environment must show enough regularity for the system to learn or adapt, but at the same time it can't have too much regularity, so that nothing happens (that is, everything goes according to the law, and the system has no room for initiative, which leads to the failure of evolution and innovation-the initiator)." "Complex adaptive systems work best in an intermediate state of order and disorder. They explore the regularity determined by approximate determinism in the semi-classical field, and at the same time benefit from uncertainty (…), which can provide great help in the process of finding a' better' schema. The concept of adaptability can concretize the word' better' ... ". In short, the combination of order and disorder in the environment makes things develop in many possibilities, and the combination of order and disorder in the subject's own organization makes the subject's behavior structure adapt to the flexible changes in the environment. The combination of these two conditions ensures that the adaptive system can choose a "better" behavior mode from a variety of possible behaviors to achieve its own goals, thus making continuous progress. This situation embodies the basic proposition of Santa Fe Institute's complexity theory: "Adaptability makes complexity". In the process of adapting to the living environment, the complex adaptive system becomes more and more complex in structure and function. As gherman said, "After the complex adaptive system is formed, a large number of possibilities are often detected, and high-level complexity and new complex adaptive systems are opened." The "complexity science" proposed by I.llyaPrigogine is actually the "evolutionary physics" that he proposed to replace the classical science as "the physics of existence". However, I.llyaPrigogine's evolutionary physics only uses dissipative structure theory to reveal the evolutionary mechanism of physical and chemical systems, while Santa Fe Institute wants to use their "complex adaptive system theory" to reveal the evolutionary mechanism of advanced systems above the biological level.
Now we can see that although Bertrand's theory and Santa Fe Institute's theory both point to systematic research, their principles are quite different. Bertrand's system theory studies a centralized individual, while Santa Fe Institute studies a group without a center. Bertrand's system implements centralized control from top to bottom, while Santa Fe Institute's system implements decentralized coordination from bottom to top. The former control mode is therefore preset and consciously fixed, while the latter control mode is the spontaneous evolution of the later generation. The power source of the former system lies in the whole and the center, which gives vitality to the whole part; The power source of the latter system lies in individuals and grass-roots units-because only one person is the subject of conscious and purposeful active activities, and their interaction forms an unconscious overall macro order. Finally, I want to reveal the ambiguity of the concept of "emergence" between Bertrand's philosophical system theory and Santa Fe College system theory. The emergence concept of Bertrand Filipi's system theory is the one we have been familiar with for many years. Its core meaning is that the isolated part of the whole does not have brand-new attributes, and the high level of things cannot be reduced to the low level. The concept of emergence in Santa Fe Institute, defined by Holland in his book Emergence, has a kind of "smell": "Emergence is a complex behavior produced by simple action combination"; The basic characteristics of emerging phenomena: simplicity breeds complexity. Holland also said: "The main idea of this book is that the study of emergence is closely related to the ability to determine ability with a few rules in a large and complex field." Bertalanfi's concept of emergence is about the relationship between the whole and the part, which is put forward to oppose simplification or reduction. Holland's concept of emergence is about the relationship between simplicity and complexity, and his expression of the problem makes the idea of simplification stand out. This is because the theory of complex adaptive system holds that individuals interact in local areas according to several simple rules, and a complex and orderly functional model of the whole system can be formed from bottom to top. An example of its argument is as follows: The geese fly south in a neat queue, not because a leading bird is directing them to do so, but because each goose follows some simple rules of its position relationship with the flying neighboring geese, so the complex behavior of the flock can emerge from the implementation of local simple rules. The problem is to find simple rules of local interaction between low-level individuals, so as to "reduce the complex observation of emergence to the interaction of simple mechanisms." Although there is no understandable direct connection between these simple rules and the complex phenomena they cause, people may still find these simple rules to restore them in some way or partially. It should be noted that the reduction model of Santa Fe Institute is not from the whole to the individual, but to the simple rules of individual interaction, so it can be considered that it tries to establish a new reductionism. In a word, Bertalanfi's irreversible emergence of Santa Fe Institute has become a reversible emergence, which also makes it impossible for us to simply bring complexity theory into the framework of system theory.