Some time past, early in my philosophical venture (say, around 1980) — and then again, more recently (shortly before the turn of the millennium) — it dawned on me that nearly everyone I respected or whose accomplishments I found illuminating or at least interesting was doing something involving systems — or systems thinking — in one way or another.

The list: Ervin Laszlo, R. Buckminster Fuller, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Norbert Weiner, W. Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson, E.O. Wilson, James Grier Miller, Donella Meadows, Thomas S. Kuhn, Leopold Kohr, Friedrich A. Hayek, Kevin Kelly, Stewart Brand, Brian Eno, Stafford Beer, more.  

What should be clear from this list that the subject is cross-disciplinary: it includes philosophers of various stripes, scientists from multiple disciplines, inventors, economists, and one musician / composer / producer.

Not everyone on this list thinks, or thought, of himself/herself as a systems theorist or user, or used systems-theoretical language. Nor does my inclusion of a particular person on this list mean I agree with all his/her conclusions, in every detail.

What is a system? Are there different ways of classifying systems? Why are systems important? Is systems thinking important for philosophy?

Answering: a system is any set of discrete elements or components, operating in a rules-based relationship, collaborating or cooperating to achieve a goal or result that none of the elements or components could have achieved in isolation.

A popular but less clear way of saying this: the whole of any system is invariably more than the sum of its parts.

Systems are useful to study because they are everywhere! The human body is a system; so is the human brain (the most complex system we know of!). The computer I’m typing this on is a system; so is the software I’m using. Business corporations are systems; the U.S. economy is a larger system. A government agency is a system. The ecosphere (or — what else? — the ecosystem) is a system. The planet Earth as a whole. The solar system. On up. The other direction also supplies a taxonomy of systems within systems (or subsystems and more subsystems). The cells that make up your body are systems, as are the molecules that make up the cells, the atoms that make up the molecules, the subatomic particles that make up the atoms, and so on.

That it’s systems “all the way down” is not unreasonable.

It would also not be unreasonable to echo the early comment by Thales of Miletus by saying, “The first principle of all things is system.” (He said water.)

Philosophically, systems thinking thus offers a way of looking at the universe — a methodology and metaphysics that avoids reductionism and steers a course between materialism versus dualism. We’ve seen that systems can be categorized in hierarchies. The smallest systems subatomic physics has isolated seem to have types (e.g., “charmed” quarks) suggesting further subsystems beyond the reach of our instruments (possibly not, eventually, our mathematics).

The largest systems seem to be aggregates of galactic clusters of almost-unimaginable vastness (think not of the “mere” 80,000 light years of our galaxy but of a discrete something billions of light years across).

The systems we interact with the most at the “middle-sized” level include the human body, other organisms, its subsystems (e.g., the digestive, circulatory, reproductive, and immune systems); mechanical systems such as cars and computers; formal systems such as software; and, if we’re conscious of it, behavioral systems also known as habits.

Contrary to one possible impression this discussion might prompt: not everything in our experience or in the world is a system. We may speak of heaps: aggregates of things that have ended up together, or side by side, in no systemic or systematic fashion. Beaches comprised of grains of sand are heaps in this sense. So is the pile of dirty clothes on our bathroom floor. (Eventually, of course, if one examines the units that make up heaps one reaches something systemic: crystalline lattices in grains of sand; structures of cotton, or wool, or what-have-you, that make up items of clothing.) 

One of the implications above: systems always appear to exist in an environment. A boundary system separates the inside of the system from what is contiguously outside — its proximate environment, which can affect or be affected by it directly and immediately. (We may speak of the remote environment of a system as everything outside this perimeter, noting that there is no sharp line separating these two but rather a long gradient.)

We speak of biological systems, and see properties emerge in those systems that do not appear in their components (that we can discern as such): conscious awareness of entities in a proximate environment, that is.

And then there are those mechanical and formal systems of all types: machines of all sorts ranging from automobile engines to computers to the programs that run computers.

We can distinguish both of these from human-created systems: we mentioned a business corporation, and we mentioned the economy. The former will invariably be embedded in the latter.

Finally, there’s my morning routine, or yours: the sequence of habits we’ve fallen into, or maybe consciously cultivated, to begin the day on an organized (i.e., systemic) note. There’s Stephen King’s habit (which he’s described in interviews) of beginning writing at 8 am daily, notepad and glass of water beside his computer, writing without stopping until 12 pm.  

Each of these kinds of systems — organic, mechanical, organizational, behavioral — has its own distinct features. It is important to note that none can be reduced to the others without losing crucial information. Attempts to do so have been disastrous. Reductionism is a bad idea!

Open systems permit a constant flow of matter, energy and information across their boundaries (however we cash out those three terms). Closed systems — if any exist — do not. Nature does not seem to disclose any truly closed systems (though black holes, permitting matter and energy to enter but not escape) might come halfway!

Strictly speaking, whether a truly closed system would even be detectable from outside is an interesting question.

Systems can also be classified by whether their locus of control is at least partially internal: they have their own goals apart from determination by their environment or internal programming (in a broad sense). Organic or biological systems appear to fit this bill up to a point, since their subsystems have one basic goal: coordinating to ensure the survival or sustenance of the whole. Such systems take action, again in a broad sense — using means to pursue ends — to achieve sustenance and other goals such as reproduction. Mechanical and formal systems do not do this. They just “sit there” as it were, unless acted upon.

Human-created systems, again, can be affected both by what happens in their proximate and also in their remote environments. Example: businesses forced to lay off employees if the economy goes sideways. Or which hire during the next recovery period. An economy as a whole can be affected by a sufficiently severe weather event or climactic disruption.

And my morning routine will be affected if, e.g., I awakened not feeling well. I can affect it consciously by integrating something new into it — as I did when I began taking vitamins with the tall glass of water I was already drinking in order to hydrate myself at the start of each day.

Among the most important applications of systems thinking is to public health at its various levels. I’ve elsewhere written about primary prevention, secondary treatment, and tertiary care, for example.

The first sets out to strengthen systems enabling them to parry or absorb attacks from the outside (e.g., the viruses that are all around us in any event). Example: eating nutritious food, or specific foods or vitamins to strengthen particular systems.

The second sets out to restore the balance or equilibrium of a disrupted system: or in ordinary language, you’re sick and need to take action to get well.

The third deals with disruptions so severe that a restoration of the same balance as before isn’t possible, so it works towards a new balance that accommodates the new condition. For example, if someone suffers a debilitating stroke, the person may never regain the same capacity to speak clearly or walking without assistance as before.

Vaccines, understood properly, constitute a form of primary prevention by communicating information to the immune system about what it is protecting against.

In a broad sense, primary prevention is everything one does in order to avoid getting sick, injured, or otherwise harmed. Doctors supply secondary treatment. Specialists may be required for tertiary care which may involve months of physical therapy.

Primary prevention is clearly the most rational idea for a person to pursue, if good health is a long-term priority for them.

Systems may always collaborate, or coordinate, with other systems horizontally, to enhance their capacity to parry or absorb sources of potential disruption from their proximate environment. (The relationship between a system and its subsystemic components may be called a vertical relationship.)  

Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s intriguing concept of antifragility fits in here. Fragile systems break easily, or disintegrate, in the face of potential disruption. Resilient systems parry or absorb sources of disruption and stay essentially the same. Antifragile systems parry or absorb sources of disruption and get better, or stronger.

Did living systems originally appear spontaneously, naturally, naturalistically? Or does the very complexity of a living system in the integrated workings of its components, all of which have to be operational and in the right relationship to one other or the system isn’t viable, imply some kind of intelligent design?

Obviously mechanical systems had designers—inventors. The formal systems embodied within them? Sometimes obviously again the answer is yes: Microsoft programmers engineered both the Windows operating system and the edition of Word I’m using to write this on, as well as the WordPress platform the Lost Generation Philosopher publishes on.

As for the “original” formal systems of mathematics and logic? Plato would have said these are eternal — aspects of his transcendent world of Forms or Universals. A Christian might describe them as elements of Logos as one of God’s eternal aspects.

Good habits — constructive, goal-oriented behavioral systems, or sequences of actions, if one prefers — also rarely come into being by themselves, unplanned. This is true almost trivially.

One’s answer to origins questions appears to depend on their worldview and its presuppositions. I’ve written a book on worldviews and the desirability of a philosophy that prioritizes analyzing and evaluating them.

There is doubtless much more to be said about systems, how they operate, how they affect our daily doings, and the role they play in both the human and the natural world around us. For those who have never had the opportunity to take a close look at the subject in all its nuances, this overview should be sufficient to get started.