Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
pated with the recognition that GST is merely a perspective or paradigm and that
such basic conceptual frameworks are central to the development of exact scien-
tific theory and a new way of doing science. GST was not meant to be a single
overarching theory (which history tells us has a short-lived existence). Above
all, it is a system-theory; it deals with systemic phenomena—organisms, groups,
and the like (e.g., nations, economies, biosphere, astronomical universe). It
views a system as an integrated whole of its subsidiary components, not a
mechanistic aggregate of parts in isolable causal relations (3).
Some of the concepts and principles are rigorous enough to be considered
laws in addition to providing a general framework for theory construction. "If
this be considered not enough, the reader would do well to remember that a true
general theory of all such varieties of systems would constitute a master science
that would make Einstein's attempt at a unified field theory pale by comparison"
(from Foreword by Ervin Laszlo for a collection of essays gathered together and
published in honor of von Bertalanffy two years after his death in 1972). As it
was then and remains now, the science of systems is not restricted to a particular
level of biological order or set of relationships. This perspective is all inclusive;
it allows us to look at a gene network or a cell as an integrated system or to look
at the organ, the organism, the family unit, the community, nation, and the bio-
sphere as an organized system (see Figure 1). The concept of a holon (from the
Greek
holos
= whole) is used to explain the unity of greater purpose. Arthur
Koestler popularized this term to describe the hybrid nature of subwholes/parts
in living systems (4). A natural byproduct of this view of a system is the holar-
chy that is formed in which systems are simultaneously self-contained wholes in
relation to their subordinated parts and dependent parts when viewed by the
overarching whole (Figure 2). The manifestation of a relationally distributed
control structure is the creation of autonomous, self-reliant functional modules
that can handle contingencies without central control or intervention.
3.
SYSTEMIC PRINCIPLES OF CYBERNETICS
Information is information not matter or energy. No material-
ism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.
—Norbert Weiner
A special branch of general systems theory that studies systems that can be
mapped using loops or looping structure became known as cybernetics. The
term cybernetics stems from the Greek
kybernetes
(meaning steersman, gover-
nor, or pilot as in autopilot). It became known as a theory of the communication
and control of regulatory feedback (information loop). The modern abstract
view of cybernetics encompasses the study of systems (subsystems) and their
