Summary
Von Bertalanffy was one of the first scientists to identify universal principles that are valid for all systems, regardless of their disciplinary domain. In this work, he defines the concept of system as a set of mutually interacting components associated with attributes, which are abstract descriptors that define and characterize these components. The empirical observation at the base of this theory is that all systems share some important similarities in structure and behavioral patterns, including dynamic attributes such as growth, decay and oscillations.
In particulary, systems theory studies the relationships between these structures and properties, from which new properties of wholes emerge. A general system implies any theoretical system involving more than one discipline. This theory introduced a new perspective for observing reality, based on awareness of the essential interrelatedness and inter-dependence of all phenomena - physical, biological, psychological, social and cultural, doing away with conceptual boundaries between fields of knowledge.
Anticipating all but a handful of other scientists, Bertalanffy realized that endeavoring to explain the behavior of living organisms through reductive, exclusively mechanical explanations was fundamentally wrong. Initially working on identifying structural, behavioral and developmental features common to different classes of these organisms, selecting commonly shared phenomena such as growth, homeostasis and evolution, he began constructing relevant general theoretical models, then arranging these in a hierarchy according to organizational complexity. This led von Bertalanffy to become one of the first to observe that life itself is a system of self-organization that continues to develop and unfold into more and more differentiated and complex systems which cannot be subdivided into parts, because life itself depends on the interaction of the parts as a system. Each organism, therefore is a whole which is greater the sum of the parts, a system within other systems, and should be perceived, not as a static, closed object but as an open, dynamic system actively searching for contact, stimulation and interaction.
The systems view observes the entire world in terms of relationships and integration. It follows that the properties of these integrated wholes cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. Rather than focusing on elementary parts or substances, what is highlighted are the principles of organization which are shared by every organism from the smallest bacteria up through the planet itself, each one an integrated whole within a whole, a living system within a living system.These systems are intrinsically dynamic; rather than considering them as rigid structures they should be thought of as interacting parcels of processes, in which interrelation is linked to interaction, opposites become unified through oscillation, and form is inseparable from process.
Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
Bertalanffy himself gave a moral interpretation to the concept of systems and to his general system theory. Until human beings become fully aware that we are all part of a systemically interdependent global community including all of mankind and all of nature, until we come to realize that privileging small groups of elite humans to the detriment of most, in a zero-sum competition for profit, ignoring the ethical and ecological repercussions of human activites, is lethal to the very system of which we are all part, we will be blind to the inevitable outcome: the destruction of the entire system of living organisms, including those who believe that they are separate and above the rest.
