Ludwig von Bertalanffy Quotes

# Information theory, introducing the concept of information as a quantity measurable by an expression isomorphic to negative entropy in physics, and developing the principles of its transmission.

# Cybernetics, based upon the principle of feedback or circular causal trains providing mechanisms for goal-seeking and self-controlling behavior.

There are quite a number of novel developments intended to meet the needs of a general theory of systems. We may enumerate them in brief survey:

We realize, however, that all scientific laws merely represent abstractions and idealizations expressing certain aspects of reality. Every science means a schematized picture of reality, in the sense that a certain conceptual construct is unequivocally related to certain features of order in reality;

Apparently, the isomorphisms of laws rest in our cognition on the one hand, and in reality on the other.

Therefore, general systems theory should be, methodologically, an important means of controlling and instigating the transfer of principles from one field to another, and it will no longer be necessary to duplicate or triplicate the discovery of the same principles in different fields isolated from the other.

Progress is only possible by passing from a state of undifferentiated wholeness to differentiation of parts.

You cannot sum up the behavior of the whole from the isolated parts, and you have to take into account the relations between the various subordinate systems which are super-ordinated to them in order to understand the behavior of the parts.

A system can be defined as a set of elements standing in interrelations. Interrelation means that elements, p, stand in relations, R, so that the behavior of an element p in R is different from its behavior in another relation, R’. If the behaviors in R and R’ are not different, there is no interaction, and the elements behave independently with respect to the relations R and R’.

While we can conceive of a sum [or aggregate] as being composed gradually, a system as a total of parts with its [multiplicative] interrelations has to be conceived of as being composed instantly.

The general notion in communication theory is that of information. In many cases, the flow of information corresponds to a flow of energy, e.g. if light waves emitted by some objects reach the eye or a photoelectric cell, elicit some reaction of the organism or some machinery, and thus convey information.

We find systems which by their very nature and definition are not closed systems. Every living organism is essentially an open system. It maintains itself in a continuous inflow and outflow, a building up and breaking down of components, never being, so long as it is alive, in a state of chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium but maintained in a so-called steady state which is distinct from the latter.

Major aims of general theory: (1) There is a general tendency toward integration in the various sciences, natural and social. (2) Such integration seems to be centered in a general theory of systems. (3) Such theory may be an important means for aiming at exact theory in the nonphysical fields of science. (4) Developing unifying principles running "vertically" through the universe of the individual sciences, this theory brings us nearer the goal of the unity of science. (5) This can lead to a much-needed integration in scientific education.

There appears to exist a general systems laws which apply to any system of a certain type, irrespective of the particular properties of the system and of the elements involved.

Can civilizations and cultures be considered as systems? It seems, therefore, that a general theory of systems would be a useful tool providing, on the one hand, models that can be used in, and transferred different fields, and safeguarding, on the other hand, from vague analogies which often have marred the progress in these fields.