Collective Beings
With collective behaviors playing a fundamental role in many scientific and technical disciplines, COLLECTIVE BEINGS focuses its attention on socio-economic applications to be used, for example, to increase corporate profitability and productivity. To thi
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Contemporary Systems Thinking Series Editor: Robert L. Flood Monash University Australia COMMUNITY OPERATIONAL RESEARCH OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development Gerald Midgley and Alejandro Ochoa-Arias CRITICAL SYSTEMIC PRAXIS FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Participatory Policy Design and Governance for a Global Age Janet Mclntyre-Mills GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View Bela H. Banathy IN SEARCH OF AN INTEGRATIVE VISION FOR TECHNOLOGY Interdisciplinary Studies in Information Systems Sytse Strijbos and Andrew Basden METADECISIONS Rehabilitating Epistemology John P. van Gigch PROCESSES AND BOUNDARIES OF THE MIND Extending the Limit Line Yair Neuman REALISING SYSTEMS THINKING Knowledge and Action in Management Science John Mingers SYSTEMIC INTERVENTION Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice Gerald Midgley A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher.
COLLECTIVE BEINGS
Gianfranco Minati Eliano Pessa
Springer
Gianfranco Minati Italian Systems Society Milan, Italy
Eliano Pessa University of Pavia Pavia, Italy
Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN-10: 0-387-35541-3 (HB) ISBN-10: 0-387-35941-9 (e-book) ISBN-13: 978-0387-35541-2 (HB) ISBN-13: 978-0387-35941-0 (e-book) Printed on acid-free paper. © 2006 by Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now know or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if the are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed in the United States of America. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 spnnger.com
Contents
Preface
ix
Foreword
xv
Chapter 1. The Background to Systemics 1.1 Introduction 1.2 What is Systemics? 1.3 A short, introductory history 1.4 Fundamental theoretical concepts 1.4.1 Set theory 1.4.2 Set theory and systems 1.4.3 Formalizing systems 1.4.4 Formalizing systemics 1.5 Sets, structured sets, systems and subsystems 1.6 Other approaches
1 1 3 5 15 16 18 22 25 38 41
Chapter 2. Generalizing Systemics and the Role of the Observer 2.1 The contribution of Von Foerster 2.2 The role of Observer in scientific theories 2.3 Uncertainty principles in Science 2.4 The Dynamic Usage of Models (DYSAM)
47 48 50 55 64
vi
Contents 2.4.1 Background to DYSAM
64
2.4.2 Implementing DYSAM
70
2.4.3 A model of DYSAM
75
Chapter 3. Emergence
89
3.1 A short history of
