Whole Systems:
This website is designed to explore several viewpoints in regard to whole systems.
First, the site shall begin with a definition of wholes, then proceed to some general principles then (on subsequent pages) very specific opinions from some of the leaders in systems thinking.
Lindblom
What is a system?
A system is composed of regularly interacting or interrelating groups of activities/parts which, when taken together, form a new whole.
In most cases this whole has properties which cannot be found in the constituent elements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
Some Principles:
By accepting that the organisation, as a whole, is part of a network of autonomous wholes, that each 'cell' is an autonomous whole and each individual is an autonomous whole.
Frank Smits,
Study in Complexity, Chaos and Creativity at the University of Western Sydney
http://website.lineone.net/~frank.smits/Essays/Knowledge-Era.htm
BERTALANFFY'S GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY
Systems are integrated wholes whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller units. Instead of concentrating on basic building blocks or substances, the systems approach emphasizes the principles of organization.
Every organism, from the smallest bacterium through the range of plant, animals and human beings - plus the family, society and the planet as whole - is an integrated whole and thus a living system.
Another important aspect of systems is their intrinsically dynamic nature. Their forms are not rigid structures but are flexible yet stable manifestations of underlying processes.
Systems thinking is process thinking; form becomes associated with process, interrelation with interaction, and opposities are unified through oscillation.
Gregory Mitchell
http://www.trans4mind.com/mind-development/systems.html
The of mind mapped out by Bateson's criteria is holistic, and as with all serious holism it is premised on an interaction of differentiated (as opposed to separate or individual) parts.'12
Holistic systems require a differentiation of parts, or there can be no differentiation of events and functioning.
Therefore, mind is understood as an aggregate of differentiated parts, which at their primary level are not themselves mental.
These 'parts' in combined interaction constitute wholes, or whole mind systems.
Lawrence S. Bale, Ph.D.
http://www.narberthpa.com/Bale/lsbale_dop/learn.htm
Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979).
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