IESC:Introduction to the Second Edition

The challenge to reason

The first edition of this Encyclopedia has been well received and, I dare hope, useful to those who took interest in it.

During the seven years after its appearance, so many events happened worldwide, that this kind of work can now be seen in a quite different light.

I never believed that it would concern only scholars and, among them only those not affected by specialized tunnel vision.

It has not of course reached Jane and John Citizen, at least not yet.

Their world, our own world, has been how\-ever violently shaked and deeply troubled by new challenges as well as by insidious but per\-vasive doubts about basic beliefs and even per\-haps about the very survival or our species in the near future.

As stated by Bertrand RUSSELL (quoted by Sören BRIER): "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts". This is still truer today than it was when Russell was observing the confuse and confusing spectacle of mankind, i.e. until his disappearance in 1970.

Meanwhile the challenge to reason is worsening day by day. It is not merely its negation by the "fools and fanatics". As Stafford BEER pointed out, it has even more to see with the ill-informed, sloppy and/or devious use of reason itself. Moreover such a fake rationality is frequently put at the service of ill-conceived (and in cases, abusive) designs, proposals and decisions. Just to take an example, let us ponder the massive Aral Sea disaster. ("see site http://www.dfd.dlr.de/app/land/aralsee/").

We are evermore victims of what Jean FOURASTIE called "the ignorance of ignorance" (much worse than simple ignorance, as it leads to insolence and imprudence). In a similar way we sink into the swamps of "underconceptualization" (John WARFIELD)

Personal musings on the systemic path

Now, how could Systems and Cybernetics be of any use about all this?

Of course, it could help to ward off the territories of ignorance and deepen the understanding of what happens, and why we are generally so helpless about it.

At least my own inquiry has brought me food for thought about a number of brand-hot present issues.

Only one example will do. I became in the recent years more and more interested in the so-called neural networks, as models for multiple interactions among a great number of elements within a specific area of activity and in accordance with some rules of communication and action.

I quickly discovered that neural networks could help to transform analogies into models for very different kinds of situations. They better the understanding of insects societies, but also the propagation of epidemics (AIDS for example) using the complementary model of "small world". They better explain the progress of forest fires, or stock market crashes, or the swift diffusion of ideologies or fads, with the help of "memes". It makes clearer the changing world economy, or the workings of the world-wide electronic web.

It also changed the understanding of this editor about communication means and codes, be them pheromones, pathogens, money, electronic pulses or human languages.

Many other examples of this kind could be offered.

The conceptual toolkit in perspective

In short, systems and cybernetic models, when organized into a coherent language, become an exceptionally valuable methodological toolkit for the study of any complex issue.

By the way, let us not anymore sink into the morass of controversy about so-called "theory of systems", what it is or not, what it should be or not. The topic is of course interesting, but it should not detract us from practical purposes, nor make us appear as abstruse and inconsequential.

As the spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once said, let us go to the "matters"("a las cosas", i.e. to the issues at hand)

It is nevertheless also important to understand that systems thinking (and acting) introduces a new approach to the "matters" and is arguably the most significant conceptual mutation in Western thought, at least since Renaissance.

I tackled this subject in my 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2003 papers, in order to make clearer my own mind (and hopefully my readers' minds) about the deeper meaning of this new way to manage our ideas and behavior.

In this sense, I am struck by some significant aspects:

- Systems thinking operates a general mental and psychological re-orientation (or "re-polarization") that implies a kind of implosive self-reference about one's own way of thinking. This leads to the conscience of a conceptual implicate order (more or less in the sense of David BOHM's cosmic implicate order) in which the more specific "explicate" models create from specialized or disciplinary viewpoints, can be connected and put into a general perspective.

This is at least the feeling I acquired after more than 45 years of reflexion on the subject.

- In a parallel way, the "world out there" (of Heinz von FÖRSTER) has been massively transformed during the last 150 years through the impact of a more and more extended use of energy. Thousand of small, and more or less isolated communities and tens of supposedly "independent" nation-states are being forcefully connected within a "one world" in the making (as clearly seen already by Wendell WILLKIE, unsuccessful US presidential candidate in 1940.)

This is at the same time a “creative destruction” process (Joseph SCHUMPETER) and the emergence of a hyper-complex whole system through “dissipative structuration” (Ilya PRIGOGINE). Both aspects reflect a powerful new structural dynamics.

- Caught in the throes of such a dramatic transformation, human societies seem to suffer a kind of overpowering social pathology and are probably starting to undergo a groping immunological process somehow similar to the biological acquisition of antibodies.

In my opinion the appearance of systems and cybernetics thinking during the $ 2^{nd} $ half of the last century is an important- and possibly even one of the decisive events in this self-protection process. In fact, it is obvious that the ongoing deep and general transformation of man and societies evoques and tends to produce new ways of thinking and acting. Similar processes have been observed worldwide all along the historical evolution of societies and their cultures.

The progress of systems thinking

A significant evolution during the 10 to 15 more recent years has been the nascent and/or growing interest in systems thinking in countries where it was practically unknown, or at least undeveloped.

In Europe for instance, very useful work has been produced in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Switzerland, in addition to what is done since many years in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile Canada and the United States remain fully active.

Another very important development is presently taking place in China, Corea and Japan, where significant correspondances are discovered with the traditional oriental philosophies.

Latin America is also waking up. The oldest systems society, the argentinian, is now in good company with the active peruvian one and more informal groups in Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.

Signs of activity have also been registered in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In all these countries original work is produced and interest is growing.

In short, we seem to be on our way toward a worldwide awekening.

Now only Central and North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India and Indonesia remain largely absent

The foregoing "stock taking" could indicate that we are slowly nearing the critical mass needed if systems and cybernetics were to be recognized as useful mental and practical tools.

The Road ahead

Of course, we still need to fulfil some basic conditions before reaching such a stage in our progress.

1- Concepts and models must be translated into specific methodologies for design and action in administration, business, ecological and social issues, and politics. What has already be achieved must be diffused much wider.

The United Nations and specially UNESCO would have to play an active role in such translation and diffusion of the results.

Unesco already made a good start with the edition of the small but substancial books on education by Edgar MORIN and the publication of the "Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems" (EOLSS), whose conceptual foundation is systemic.

The Union of International Associations (Brussels) possibly could still expand its valuable Encyclopedia of World Problems and Resources, which structural organization is also quite systemic.

2- All that has been gathered until now in systemics and cybernetics must be transmitted to the new generations, who will need it still much more than their predecessors.

If this is not done, they would lose critical years to rediscover an already existing knowledge, ready for use, and on which they could start creative work of their own.

3- The already disponible information should be ordered and made available in more easy and convenient ways.

The quite limited diffusion of the systemic and cybernetic journals (some of which have even perished) is completely insufficient.

Much more should be done, particularly by creating a general repository of all existing past and present material. And of course, the www.should be used in a much more extensive (but precise) way.

Moreover, notwithstanding the fact that english is now the "lingua franca" of communication, the information needs of non-english speakers or readers should be taken care of.

As conversation and creative debate at all levels and places are essential, adequate basic material should be produced in the most important languages: arabic, chinese, french, german, italian, japanese, portuguese, russian and spanish. Ideally the list should also include bulgarian, hindi, hungarian, iranian, kiswahili, malay, polish, rumanian, turkish and urdu.

The International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR) could play an important role, helping those who would like to translate significant papers and books into their own language, or produce original information of general scope.

In this Encyclopedia's second edition, at least much more references in french, german, italian and other languages have been included.

But anyhow this will be useful only for those able to read this book in english, to begin with.

On the other hand, the inordinate proliferation of information and particularly doctored pseudo-information that characterizes our present time is now a problem in itself. Until-let us say - 1950 lack of information was the main hindrance.

On the contrary nowadays we are in danger to drown in a deluge of propaganda of the most various intentions, as well as proposed "good for all" models or pseudo-models offered by so-called "gurus".

From one side, our disponible time to gather information is strictly limited. We are thus obliged to select those inputs that are really significant and seem potentially useful to us. This is in itself a time consuming process.

We need also to adapt and readapt more and more frequently to shifting conditions in general and in our specific field of activity. As said by Gerrit BROEKSTRA, "no fit is forever". He could have added..."not even for long time".

Conclusions

Accordingly, Systems thinking does not offer recipes for "solutions". What it proposes is a methodological approach that help us to conduce our thoughts in an ordered, renovated and more efficient way when confronted with new issues that are much more intricated and wide-embracing than even in a recent past.

In short, we must reconstruct our own mental and psychological competence if we are to assume efficient and personal responsibility in our behavior and decision making. If not, we would merely contribute to the growing general disorder and evermore turn into helpless social puppets. This is indeed also becoming true for the very puppeteers who believe that they all-pervasively control our strings. In fact we have frequently seen their power slowly eroded, if not suddenly destroyed by the unexpected reactions (for them!) of the social groups or systems that they fancied themselves to manage at will. This was the final fate of nearly all of the major political leaders during the last century.

As a conclusion, preparing this second edition has been for me a constant process of self-critical thinking. I had to evaluate in a recursive way what was significant, and how, and why, and applicable to what and when... and also what is connected to what else and in which stable or transient way. Moreover, integrating new ideas to the already existing material was frequently an arduous process.

Finally, the global result is again merely offered as "food for thought", but now also more intended as tools for reflexive and responsible intervention in better understood situations and issues.

I must once again tribute my gratitude to the many friends who helped me in a way or another to prepare this updating; to the valuable support of the International Federation for Systems Research, to my patient publisher, and once more to my wife Gloria in her triple quality of librarian, typist and generously understanding spouse.

Charles François, June 2004