Simple, closed systems are subject quickly to the limits imposed by entropy, and do not have the internal complexity to escape through negative entropy or synergy. Open systems may lose system integrity if they are overwhelmed with resources from the outside. By losing integrity, they lose their individual distinctiveness. Simple open systems are most easily subject to a loss of integrity, and assimilation into an outside system. Complex open systems are relatively more immune to loss of integrity, because the resources which enter from outside are processed through and changed as a function of their complex design.
System integrity is maintained, but in a new, more complex form.
For example, the emergence of industrialization led to a massive infusion of resources into virtually every global culture. Simple open cultures were often overwhelmed by the money, resources, or ideas of industrialism, and many of those cultures seem to have essentially disappeared, having been assimilated into the mass. Complex open cultures managed to maintain their traditional practices and beliefs within a new context, and often coupled with the industrial system to evolve their own cultures into even more complex forms. Now, many of those complex traditional cultures are injecting their own resources, in the form of perennial belief systems and views of nature, back into the industrial culture, leading to its further complexification. System coupling is a function of how closely two systems operate in time and space, how similar or complementary they are, and how open they are.