RE: [SysSciWG] General Systems Transdisciplinarity

[David Rousseau]

The work the GSTD team presented last year at IW’15, an INCOSE  webinar and workshops before IS’15 and ISSS 2015 has now been written up, and it has been published as a special issue of Systema, the open-access journal of the Bertalanffy Centre for the Study of Systems Science.  Debora Hammond kindly served as Guest Editor for this special issue.  I am attaching a PDF of the contents page, and the complete issue can be accessed here: http://www.systema-journal.org/issue/view/47  

 

Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback and advice, it was a great help to us.  We are now using this conceptual and terminological framework to develop theory and methodology elements we can contribute towards a GST* and the GS Worldview.   We will be presenting some of the new work at ISSS 2016 in Boulder in July, and are hoping to have further work to present at IW’17.

 

David  

[Lenard Troncale]

Congratulations David and Team on all the productivity!! It's not as if GST will just fall into place; it continues to require dedicated and persistent work into the future; at least we have allies now!

Len

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<_ Systema Special Issue GSTD - Contents Page.pdf>

[David Rousseau]

Thanks Len!  As you say, a substantial road still lies ahead.  Especially for us: our work so far is mostly about the conceptual and terminological framework we need for a GST, whereas you are already some way down the road with a theory. 

 

A surprising discovery to us was that there is not one GST but several. Several people at our IS’16 workshop asked whether that was a possibility (e.g. Bob Sherman and Randall Russell) and we just did not know at that stage.  Eventually we worked it out, and the answer is clearly yes – we cover the range and the reasons in our paper “In Search of GST”.  Of course (like with so much) you got there long ago – e.g. you named the ISSS SIG you founded in the early 90’s “Research towards General Theories of Systems” (plural).  It was a perspicacious call, and we hope that we have exposed some of the grounding for it with our work.  Our approach to GST has a different starting point form yours, but (like you) I think we will converge on the same theory, since Nature is the arbiter.

 

David

[David Rousseau]

IS’15, I meant, obviously…

 

From: David Rousseau [mailto:david.r...@systemsphilosophy.org]
Sent: 07 June 2016 18:22
To: 'syss...@googlegroups.com'
Subject: RE: [SysSciWG] General Systems Transdisciplinarity

 

Thanks Len!  As you say, a substantial road still lies ahead.  Especially for us: our work so far is mostly about the conceptual and terminological framework we need for a GST, whereas you are already some way down the road with a theory. 

 

A surprising discovery to us was that there is not one GST but several. Several people at our IS’16 workshop asked whether that was a possibility (e.g. Bob Sherman and Randall Russell) and we just did not know at that stage.  Eventually we worked it out, and the answer is clearly yes – we cover the range and the reasons in our paper “In Search of GST”.  Of course (like with so much) you got there long ago – e.g. you named the ISSS SIG you founded in the early 90’s “Research towards General Theories of Systems” (plural).  It was a perspicacious call, and we hope that we have exposed some of the grounding for it with our work.  Our approach to GST has a different starting point form yours, but (like you) I think we will converge on the same theory, since Nature is the arbiter.

 

David

 

        

 

From: syss...@googlegroups.com [mailto:syss...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lenard Troncale
Sent: 07 June 2016 17:11
To: syss...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Jennifer Wilby; Julie Billingham; Stefan Blachfellner
Subject: Re: [SysSciWG] General Systems Transdisciplinarity

 

Congratulations David and Team on all the productivity!! It's not as if GST will just fall into place; it continues to require dedicated and persistent work into the future; at least we have allies now!

[Lenard Troncale]

David,

When I created that ISSS SIG you mention it was in desperation and frustration that the society supposedly devoted to researching a GST (or GST's) was almost entirely neglecting that activity in favor of applying systems thinking (rather shallowly) as if a GST already existed and all that was required was faith in holistic approaches. So I was trying to stimulate more work on formulating the specifics of a rigorous GST. That strategy did not work particularly well 20+ years ago possibly because I did not put enough effort into it myself (for the ISSS; for my own work I kept on plugging away). Perhaps now. We shall see. Don't see much evidence of it in this current ISSS planning despite Kineman's earlier promises. Still mostly all application stuff and promises that cannot be fulfilled. More yearnings than promises. I love those who have those good yearnings; but have to point out that what works is knowing how things work and not yearnings or promises.

For the historical record, I actually made it (the SIG you mention) in the plural to encourage many different approaches knowing that there were several underway that were distinctly different. Wanted to encourage the several to address each other. Instead, people like Ackoff and Odum and Rosen and Warfield died, and people like Forester and Richardson and the MIT group (Carrera etc.) and Klir just ignored the rest.

Recently, one very passionate and dedicated neophyte to the field asked for a list of people whose work should be integrated in a GST and I sent him that paper where I list some 95! Perhaps that variety will serve us IFF we don't fall into the trap (that our current U.S. political leaders are falling into) of sticking to OUR PROGRAM and decrying all others SIMPLY BECAUSE they are different from OURS (EGO and territoriality) again and seemingly always.

But beyond the continuing human issues, there is the possibility that nature has used different levels of a GST for different functions to solve different problems for different complexities of system; not as much for simple demands; more for more complex or mature. In that, Nature may itself be opting for what "suffices" (as Ackoff used to say) rather than some "ideal" GST which we harken to because we are humans and can idealize the ideal. The real should not suffer because we hold out for the ideal.

Len