Talk:Systems theory

message: This edit has text copy/paste the systems psychology article. -- Mdd (talk) 21:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copy-paste registration 

message: System theory is in my opinion the gramatically more correct expression, even if Systems theory might be more wiedely used. 
As a support for this opinion here a quote from a recent book by Aloisius Louie, former student of eminent system scientist Robert Rosen: (Aloisius Louie, 2009, "Beyond Life Itself" p. 85/86)
''
4.3 “Systems [sic] Theory” Consider the terms ‘theory of systems’ and
‘system theory’ in the previous paragraph; in particular, note the singular form
system in the latter: not “systems theory”. This last usage is a solecism that
became accepted when it had been repeated often enough, a very example of
‘accumulated wrongs become right’. Recall that von Bertalanffy’s
masterwork is called General System Theory. (In some of his later writings,
the term “systems theory” did occasionally appear. I have in my collection
some copies of his original typescripts, in which he had written “system
theory”, but in the published versions they mysteriously mutated to “systems
theory” — evidence of the handiwork of an over-zealous copy editor,
perhaps...)
Just think of ‘set theory’, ‘group theory’, ‘number theory’, ‘category
theory’, etc. Of course one studies more than one object in each subject!
Indeed, one would say in the possessive ‘theory of sets’, ‘theory of groups’,
‘theory of numbers’, ‘theory of categories’, ...; one says ‘theory of systems’
for that matter. But the point is that when the noun of a mathematical object
(or indeed any noun) is used as adjective, one does not use the plural form.''
(end of quote)
thus systems theory should redirect to system theory and not vice versa.
Since I dont know how to edit the article(s) to that effect, and I dont want to mess anything up, I ask any of the experts to please do that. thank you.
62.203.159.119 (talk) 09:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested reversal of redirection from [[System theory]] to [[Systems theory]]  

message: I think the word Lehre is fairly fuzzy, and perhaps deliberately so, in German, but I believe that the dogmatic or doctrinal aspect is usually present somewhere in the term, however distateful thinking Germans may find this. Dogma has an unpleasant set of associations, largely arising from its use  in connection with religious belief. Doctrine is not much better. Lehre has overtones of intellectual authority, which the average German university student in my experience seems to find not unattractive. Pamour ([[User 
talk:Pamour|talk]]) 12:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. It's the German equivalent of Hopi expressions of time or Smilla's 15000 words for snow. Language expresses culture, or it's nothing, I suppose. 84.227.249.133 (talk) 09:43, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lehre 

message: The science of systems is far greater than the theory of systems. This argument about combining science with theory existed from the beginning and still is here. The article is a great improvement from the beginning,but a lot of work needs to be done about how it began.
It is incorrect to assign the term "inter..." to all systems when "trans... is more accurate. Check your own definitions. Also it is incorrect to assume that simple systems are not part of systems theory.75.118.148.8 (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Science is not a theory

message: ==== The Contradiction ====
I posit that the term "independent...parts" in the introduction is inconsistent with GST as described in Bertallanfy's seminal book on the subject.
The scientific utility of examining systems as a series of "independent" parts is granted by Bertalanffy without reservation.  But to describe System Theory, as it is in the first sentence, does not distinguish it from the way the majority of science was done then and now; namely, the study of systems as a litany of independent parts, statistically and/or functionally related to other parts posteriori.  Furthermore, the emphasis on "independence" expressly contradicts the main thesis of Bertalanffy's book, GST; namely, that to understand open systems, the parts can not be solely examined as independent events.  A quote from GST (p.36-37; revised paperback edition) to bolster this point:
"Aims of General System Theory
"...While in the past, science tried to explain observable phenomena by reducing them to an interplay of elementary units investigatable independently of each other, conceptions appear in contemporary science that are concerned with what is somewhat vaguely termed 'wholeness,' i.e., problems of organization, phenomena not resolvable into local events, dynamic interaction manifest in the difference of behavior of parts when isolated or in a higher configuration, etc.; in short, 'systems' of various orders not understandable by investigation of their respective parts in isolation."
...
"These considerations lead to the postulate of a new scientific discipline which we call general system theory.  Its subject matter is formulation of principles that are valid for 'systems' in general, whatever the nature of their component elements and the relations or 'forces' between them.
"General system theory, therefore, is a general science of 'wholeness' which up till now was considered a vague, hazy, and semi-metaphysical concept."
Bertalanffy goes on to more rigorously define "wholeness" in chapter 3 by contrasting how classical science uses systems of differential equations for closed systems from how a general system approach would have to be modeled for open systems; the main point being the "dependence" of "parts" a priori in systems in general.  Again, he does not disparage reductionism as it is clearly a useful means of inquiry for separable systems.  Never the less, GST (per Bertalanffy) is not concerned with rehashing what science has already mastered.  It is focused on leveraging the common denominators between sciences to tackle general open systems, which to date are not well understood by independent parts and closed feedback loops.
Therefore, I suggest the word "independent" be removed from the very first sentence.
==== System vs. systems ====
"System Theory" is preferable because it pre-supposes that systems are not independent.  An inter-dependent organization of systems, parts, or elements is itself one single system.  And this is the focus of System Theory (specifically, General System Theory).  Otherwise, it is not distinguished from any other scientific project, whether physics, biology, or chemistry; all of which predominantly and usefully examine the world as a litany of one-to-one correlated closed systems.  However, System Theory proper, is concerned with the overlapping inter-dependent relation between all these sub-domains and how they manifest themselves in one open system, whose behavior is not understood by its parts alone.
Cheers,
Wolfworks (talk) 03:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradictions w.r.t. Bertalanffy's GST

message: "System Theory" is preferable because it pre-supposes that systems are not independent.  An inter-dependent organization of systems, parts, or elements is itself one single system.  And this is the focus of System Theory (specifically, General System Theory).  Otherwise, it is not distinguished from any other scientific project, whether physics, biology, or chemistry; all of which predominantly and usefully examine the world as a litany of one-to-one correlated closed systems.  However, System Theory proper, is concerned with the overlapping inter-dependent relation between all these sub-domains and how they manifest themselves in one open system, whose behavior is not understood by its parts alone.
Cheers,
Wolfworks (talk) 03:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  System vs. systems 

message: I checked Wikibooks and Simple WP.  Something essential is still missing.    Gregory Bateson complained that people often didn't understand him (see Intro to Steps to an Ecology of Mind) and it isn't surprising; explaining right-brain thinking with left-brain language is difficult ("Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction").  Bateson and others tried but couldn't produce a brief description of systems that makes it clear.  Cross-disciplinary discriptions tend to go back and forth betweeen various ideas and fields and they can be hard to follow.  But, as Bateson said, this reminds me of a story--(because stories can better describe systems theory).  It's like trying to describe a fast-paced tennis match--You can't watch just one player and follow the game.  You can't be very precise about where each player is standing because they're constantly moving.    You watch the fast-moving ball and the players relationship to it.  A Complex system is like the two tennis players and the ball moving. ...more on this later. 
Lawrence Bale describes, in Gregory Bateson: Cybernetics and the social behavioral sciences by Lawrence S. Bale, Ph.D.: First Published in: Cybernetics & Human Knowing: A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics & Cyber-Semiotics, Vol. 3 no. 1 (1995), pp. 27–45,
how classical science reduces a subject to two variables to study it with greater precision. This requirement makes it impossible for science to study a complex system with many variables.
Science broke things down into pieces to study them and forgot to put the pieces back together again.Margaret9mary (talk) 01:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Complex system is like a Tennis Match 

message: The section "Biomatrix systems theory" has been flagged as WP:NOR since it does not rely on wide scientific publications. In fact, the only publication cited (REF #29: "Dostal, Elisabeth (2005)") dates from 2005 and reports only 19 citations on Google Scholar as of 29 April 2013 (mainly own citations from the same University). This section is under WP:PROD.
Ledjazz (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original Research: "Biomatrix systems theory" 

message: This section has grown out of control, so I have moved it out of the article into this talk page. Please see Wikipedia:Further reading and put only entries that are topical, reliable and balanced, and please, keep the section limited in size. "Wikipedia is not a catalogue of all existing works." Please, if you add an entry back into the article, motivate why. Thank you! Lova Falk talk 07:50, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: A selection of high cited publications is added back now, see here. -- Mdd (talk) 21:50, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Further reading

message: Hi Lova Falk, some time ago I have given this some reconsideration, and I think there are ways to get control back here. We could think about criteria for inclusion. For example (see here) whether of not to:
# Included a limited number of publications, with the highest number of citations
# Excluded: Publications less known/cited from same author
# Excluded: Publications with no info available
# Excluded: Foreign publication
# Excluded: Publications Not directly related
Now if we wish, as you stated to "put only entries that are topical, reliable and balanced, and please, keep the section limited in size", we could choose for this collection of 10 publications. -- Mdd (talk) 21:55, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: A selection of high cited publications is added back now, see here. -- Mdd (talk) 21:50, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further comment 

message: > The term does not yet have a well-established, precise meaning, but systems theory can reasonably be considered a specialization of systems thinking, a generalization of systems science, a systems approach. 
What? That is an utterly useless sentence. CraigWyllie (talk) 01:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, it is actually a necessary concession. Without it, the article might seem overly precise, more precise than it really is or can be. 84.227.249.133 (talk) 09:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second sentence is ... 

message: "Margaret Mead was an influential figure in systems theory". So says the caption to her photo, but on what basis? Very little I think, apart from her attending one or two cybernetics conferences. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:41, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. This article seems to be an effort to raise the status of certain ideas or authors by "adhesion" of famous figures and a huge list of supposed participants. Next we'll be hearing that Einstein, Darwin, and Ludwig Lavater were all closet systematologists who spoke an isomorphic scientific language, each anticipating the other. You can increase the number of outlinks of a webpage without limit, but you can't force anybody to link in. 84.227.249.133 (talk) 09:55, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Margaret Mead 

message: “See also“ “Grey box completion and validation“ has been removed anonymously without explanation from this and several other topics. Following advice from Wikipedia if there are no objections (please provide your name and reasons), I plan to reinstate the reference in a weeks time. 
The removed reference provides techniques for developing system models and hence is relevant. In particular most models are incomplete (i.e. a grey box) and thus need completion and validation. This reference seems to be within the appropriate content of the “See also” section see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#See_also_section.
BillWhiten (talk) 05:28, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the inclusion of Grey box model. Jonpatterns (talk) 10:49, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re Grey box completion and validation 

message: Warning: I wrote a book about interaction, and can be an evil publicist, so I don't edit the page directly.
Interaction is a field of study of the systems theory ("In modern science, dynamic interaction is the basic problem in all fields, and its general principles will have to be formulated in general General Systems Theory.", —Ludwig von Bertalanffy, 1968, General Systems Theory-), so it should have a link to it on its definition, ex: ... Systems in nature communicate between them holding interaction. Interactions that may provide them of order or chaos in specific dimensional sets (a company earns money from interaction sets, so it may use it to hire more employees, etc).
Rodolfoap (talk) 06:45, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to [[interaction]]! 

message: In the "History" section I find the following statements:
: John von Neumann discovered cellular automata and self-reproducing systems, again with only pencil and paper. Aleksandr Lyapunov and Jules Henri Poincaré worked on the foundations of chaos theory without any computer at all. 
To me that reads a little "fan worshipy", and seems out of place in an encyclopedic article.  Lots of people discovered lots of impressive things without computers, and with only pencil and paper:  geometry; calculus; relativity theory; quantum mechanics; etc.  It is not clear why the particular tools used -- or not used -- by von Neumann or Poincare are any more significant than their employment or absence in any of those other discoveries.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed its commentary and should be removed ----Snowded TALK 07:33, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incredulity? 

message: There is no discussion on the Systems science talk page regarding the merge tag, and there is no discussion here regarding it more recent than 2009. The tag was only updated by a bot and I am unclear why the system keeps it current automatically rather than deleting it automatically.  The "merge discussion" here barely mentioned the merge proposal. Instead it focussed, in detail, on the overall quality of the article.  So, as no reasoning or support has been put forward I've removed the tags from both pages.  Judging the merge proposition from the discussion here it seems to me that a merge would be the worst possible way forward for these articles.  Not only has no robust rational FOR it been put forward but the arguments that have been show the considerable and fundamental disagreement about what the terms mean vs. what in some "ideal world" they perhaps should mean.  There ARE different meanings for the terms and irrespective of how this comes to be addressed in my opion there should be an article that focuses on the theory as proposed originally by von Bertalanffy and developed from that.  This article should be that one.  Currently the merge proposal seems to be the result of that group of Wiki authors enamoured of an "ideal" taxonomy and ontology of "knowledge" and who lobby for setting out this rather than the actual and messy truth of the history of "ideas".  LookingGlass (talk) 11:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge "discussion" 

message: I have rewritten the tangled sentences around the term pseudoscience.  Lazlo's introduction (see: http://www.isss.org/laszlofw.htm), in Perspectives on General System Theory, did not accord with its use in the article.  I have edited the sentence after the term to accord with the entry on the FullWiki (http://www.thefullwiki.org/Systems_theory) which seems almost identical to that here anyway.  I've added back Laslo's intent with respect to the word pseudoscience in his own words. Or tried to!  The article still witnesses the scars of the battle between idealists and researchers.  LookingGlass (talk) 12:10, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pseudo reverence 

message: Hello. I am interested in systems chemistry, and wondering if you think we should add about it? omermar 08:38, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Systems Chemisty 

message: I see no clear difference between Bogdanov's Tektology and systems theory except name. The article currently says this:   We should follow the sources we can find, but I feel that there's a US-centric bias in treating von Bertalanffy as the founder and the start of the field, while treating Bogdanov only as a predecessor.  Daask (talk) 15:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tektology vs. Systems theory 

message: Proposed merge of permastub Viable system phenomena into Systems theory. Please discuss. Biogeographist (talk) 18:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not clear on why the page  Viable system phenomena exists at all. Pleasantville (talk) 18:44, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not clear to me either. Perhaps a WP:PROD is in order for Viable system phenomena instead of a merge? Biogeographist (talk) 02:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge discussion, October 2019 

message: Dark web kaise kholen 2405:204:3115:69C6:0:0:790:C0A1 (talk) 17:39, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dark web 

message: As a system is a concept, and therefore an information construct, plus the fact that every system requires information, I propose that information theory is another field that should be included in this list or associated disciplines. Rwilkin (talk) 04:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overview, list of associated disciplines in the 2nd paragraph