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Systems thinking
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==Characteristics== [[File:System_boundary2.svg|thumb|upright=0.8|System boundary in context]] [[File:OpenSystemRepresentation.svg|thumb|upright=0.8|System input and output allows exchange of energy and information across boundary.]] {{anchor|System}}{{quote|...What is a system? A system is a set of things ... interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. ... But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world|Donella Meadows<ref name="meadows2008" />{{rp|2}}}} {{quote|[a system] is "an integrated whole even though composed of diverse, interacting, specialized structures and subjunctions"|IEEE (1972)<ref name="ieee1972">[[IEEE]] (1972) Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms</ref>{{rp|582}}}} *{{anchor|subsystem}}[[system#Subsystems|Subsystem]]s serve as part of a larger system, but each comprises a system in its own right. Each frequently can be described reductively, with properties obeying its own laws, such as Newton's System of the World, in which entire [[planet]]s, [[star]]s, and their satellites can be treated, sometimes in a scientific way as dynamical systems, entirely mathematically, as demonstrated by [[Johannes Kepler]]'s equation (1619) for the orbit of Mars before Newton's ''Principia'' appeared in 1687. *{{anchor|black box}}[[Black box]]es are subsystems whose operation can be characterized by their inputs and outputs, [[Viable system model#Regulatory aphorisms|without regard to further detail]].<ref name="meadows2008" />{{rp|87–88}}<ref name="bbw">Wiener, Norbert; ''[[Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine]]'', MIT Press, 1961, ISBN 0-262-73009-X, page xi</ref> ===Particular systems=== *[[Political system]]s were recognized as early as the millennia before the common era.<ref name="aristotlePolitics">Aristotle, ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]''</ref><ref>JS Maloy (2009) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40208102 The Aristotelianism of Locke's Politics] ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. '''70''', No. 2 (April 2009), pp. 235–257 (23 pages)</ref> *[[Biological system]]s were recognized in [[Kalloni#Bay and lagoon|Aristotle's lagoon]] ca. 350 BCE.<ref>Aristotle, [[History of Animals]]</ref><ref name="Lennox">{{cite web |last1=Lennox |first1=James |title=Aristotle's Biology |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-biology/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=28 November 2014 |date=27 July 2011}}</ref> *[[Economic system]]s were recognized by 1776.<ref name="smith76">[[Adam Smith]] [https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/adam-smith/the-wealth-of-nations/text (1776) ''The Wealth of Nations''] Book IV refers to commercial, and mercantile systems, as well as to systems of political enonomy</ref> *[[Social system]]s were recognized by the 19th and 20th centuries of the common era.<ref>[[Max Weber]], [[The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]]</ref><ref>[[Talcott Parsons]], [[The Structure of Social Action]]</ref> **[[Radar system]]s were developed in [[MIT Radiation Laboratory#Formation|World War II]] in subsystem fashion; they were made up of [[transmitter]], [[Radar warning receiver|receiver]], [[power supply]], and [[signal processing]] subsystems, to defend against airborne attacks.<ref>[[MIT Radiation Laboratory]], MIT Radiation Laboratory Series, 28 volumes</ref> *[[Dynamical systems]] of [[ordinary differential equation]]s were shown to exhibit [[stability theory|stable behavior]] given a [[Control-Lyapunov function|suitable]] [[Lyapunov function#Example|Lyapunov control function]] by [[Aleksandr Lyapunov]] in 1892.<ref name="pates">Richard Pates [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXAx_641FPM (2021) What is a Lyapunov function]</ref> *[[Thermodynamic systems]] were treated as early as the eighteenth century, in which it was discovered that [[heat]] could be created without limit, but that for [[closed system]]s, [[laws of thermodynamics]] could be formulated.<ref name="beingatoBecoming">{{cite book | authorlink=Ilya Prigogine|last=Prigogine | first=Ilya | year=1980 | title=From Being To Becoming | publisher=Freeman | isbn=0-7167-1107-9 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/frombeingtobecom00ipri }} 272 pages.</ref> [[Ilya Prigogine]] (1980) has identified situations in which systems far from equilibrium can exhibit stable behavior;<ref name="G&P1971">Glansdorff, P., Prigogine, I. (1971). [https://books.google.com/books?id=vf9QAAAAMAAJ ''Thermodynamic Theory of Structure, Stability and Fluctuations''], London: Wiley-Interscience {{ISBN|0-471-30280-5}}</ref> once a Lyapunov function has been identified, future and past can be distinguished, and scientific activity can begin.<ref name="beingatoBecoming" />{{rp|212–213}} ===Systems far from equilibrium=== {{anchor|Resilience}} Living systems are [[Ecological resilience|resilient]],<ref name="ah3" /> and are [[Non-equilibrium thermodynamics|far from equilibrium]].<ref name="meadows2008"/>{{rp|Ch.3}}<ref name="G&P1971" /> [[Homeostasis]] is the analog to equilibrium, for a living system; the concept was described in 1849, and the term was coined in 1926.<ref name="wotb">{{cite book |first=W.B. |last=Cannon |author-link=Walter Bradford Cannon |title=The Wisdom of the Body |pages=177–201 |year=1932 |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York}}</ref><ref name="cannon">{{cite book |language=fr |first=W. B. |last=Cannon |author-link=Walter Bradford Cannon |chapter=Physiological regulation of normal states: some tentative postulates concerning biological homeostatics |editor=A. Pettit|title=A Charles Riches amis, ses collègues, ses élèves |page=91 |publisher=Paris: Les Éditions Médicales |year=1926}}</ref> {{anchor|Self-organization}} Resilient systems are [[Self-organization|self-organizing]];<ref name="ah3" />{{efn|name=klirSystemScience |1=Abstract: [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-0718-9_1 "An inevitable prerequisite for this book, as implied by its title, is a presupposition that systems science is a legitimate field of scientific inquiry. It is self-evident that I, as the author of this book, consider this presupposition valid. Otherwise, clearly, I would not conceive of writing the book in the first place"]. —George J. Klir, "What Is Systems Science?" from ''Facets of Systems Science'' (1991) }}<ref name="meadows2008" />{{rp|Ch.3}} <ref>H T Odum [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.242.4882.1132 (25 Nov 1988) Self-Organization, Transformity and Information] ''Science'' Vol '''242''', Issue 4882 pp. 1132–1139 as reprinted by Gerald Midgley ed. (2002), ''Systems Thinking'' vol ''2''</ref> {{anchor|Hierarchy}} The scope of functional controls is [[Hierarchy|hierarchical]], in a resilient system.<ref name="ah3" /><ref name="meadows2008" />{{rp|Ch.3}}
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