Systems Theory
There is no need to be a mathematician to find much utility in the concept of open systems. Systems theory first emerged as a reaction to analytical, reductionist, and predominately linear approaches taken by science in virtually all its fields. Systems theory brings a generally holistic reorientation of thought to any given fairly complex situation; an inherently non-linear and multidisciplinary approach.
The benefit of systems thinking is that even small subsystems are often critical cogs in the larger collection, all working in an integrated fashion to make the total system work. The system has any number of inputs and processes, which effect each other in various ways and produce any number of outputs. Often when we change one part of a system, the entire system is affected in ways we did not foresee. Economists call these outcomes externalities, and they become one of the largest arguments against government or hierarchical intervention.
Complex systems occur in nature, society, biology, science and anywhere numerous variables interact to produce a result. A great deal of research has been done to determine commonalities in systems in all fields. It is also true that research and direction of systems theory has attracted energetic political ideologues, as have the rest of the social sciences. It is one of their foundational issues.
Open and Closed Systems
While closed systems have an identifiable and finite number of feedback and interaction variables, open systems do not. They continuously interact with their environment, and assumptions must be made regarding the criticality of those interactions in modeling an open system.
Until the plot disassembled, the movie series The Matrix illustrated the challenge of managing a complex (open) system; even a pervasive network of sentient machines could not successfully control or manage the open system of human existence, no matter how many times they attempted it. Existence is eternally emergent. There will always be a ‘One.’ The reason is simple. “Life finds a way,” as Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) said in Jurassic Park, another movie with the characteristics of complex systems as its backdrop. Complex systems adapt and evolve and thrive. It is what they do.
Business planning is a model of an open system
As an another example, business planning is by its nature a model of an open system. The product or business plan is framed within an organization in an industry within a broader economy that itself is affected by world events. It is therefore not uncommon for business plans to fail not from bad strategy or lack of execution, but from external forces unforeseen while modeling the industry or economy in which the plan was to work.
The florist who opens her new shop in Ireland and then goes bankrupt because of a financial collapse in the USA which caused a global recession is the victim of events in an open or complex system.
Complexity requires scenario analysis during planning phases which identify and quantify potentially devastating externalities. But no one is omniscient. The Federal Reserve, whose job is to manage the economy and foresee economic risk, did not recognize the instability of either the housing market or banking leverage.
Because the economy is an open system, business plans are best viewed as an evergreen document as opposed to a project. Collaborative software makes it possible to inlay the original business plan and encourage Associates tasked with execution to edit and add to it as the inevitable story of reality unfolds.
Notes on closed systems
Note that “systems without output are unknowable by an external observer (e.g., an insolent teenager), and systems without inputs are not controllable[i]”. Since the marginal cost of technology approaches zero, man-made processes should encourage more input and output feedback, with an emphasis on real-time.
One example is financial records. It is entirely possible to institute accounting and financial reporting systems that produce weekly or even daily reporting function, including most audit records, even while driving cost down and discouraging fraud. The secret is in the approach.
Open systems are inherently integrative
A truly open system is most difficult and often impossible to model.
But one of the attractions to open systems theory is that it naturally brings focus to both internal and external interactions and inter-relationships as opposed to many specialized fields of study which concentrate only on one aspect or dimension of the organism, culture, or system. Concentration on the holistic nature of the system then takes on a different hue, for the dynamic nature of the model inherently becomes a description of how continual change has a reinforcing and feedback effect on itself through the very components that describe it.
This holistic approach highlights the inherent danger of high level departments in organizations. Human Resources, Governance, and Strategy are good examples of groups that can easily suffer from irrelevance, at the least becoming just another variable acting on the complex system that is the organization rather than an integral portion of its DNA.
To counteract this inherent hierarchical issue, we strongly encourage embedding as organizations get larger.
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Weather as complexity
UPDATE: As of the date of this article, a significant discovery has been made.
Many scientists, statisticians and computer engineers postulate that since the environment is an open system, anthropogenic global warming is impossible to establish or model, much less resolve. Further, it is highly questionable that any computer hardware in existence could model the system that fairly represented the variables that affect the environment.
One of the pillars of global warming proponents has been that as the world warms, the atmosphere will increasingly act as a blanket holding in radiation and having an iterative effect on increases in CO2. This construct is crucial to all global warming models given the vastly subservient role CO2 plays to water vapor both in quantity and thermodynamic properties. For CO2 to have significant effects on the atmosphere, it must exhibit significant multiplier effects.
Professor Lindzen from MIT, using the latest technology, has just demonstrated that contrary to all warming models, any heat in the atmosphere actually results in increases in the rate of escape of radiation into space. If this research holds up in any way, it likely spells a death knell to the whole global warming edifice. Has global warming experienced an Einstein moment? We shall see.
References
[i]“Open System Definition,” Principia Cybernetica Web, http://bit.ly/6xJJiz.