Universal Systems

The concepts and principles of Systems Theory are applied in the practice of Systems Thinking. Using this methodical practice enables the user to simplify many of the complex phenomena that we experience throughout Nature, within and among people, and in civilization as a whole. Systems thinking treats living things as thinking systems.

By any other name, the same…

• General Systems Theory
• Cybernetics
• Complex Adaptive Systems
• Management Science
• Operations Research

Related to other subjects:

• Information theory
• Decision theory
• Game theory
• Chaos theory
• Artificial intelligence
• Robotics
• Agent-Based Modelling

E.g. Thermostat Regulator System

• Set the room temperature for comfort
• Furnace comes on when room is too cool
• Air conditioner comes on if too warm
• It is smart

E.g. Self-regulating Physiology, i.e. homeostasis

• Body temperature
• Blood pressure
• Appetite
• Sleepiness
• Sex drive
• Social interest

All living things depend on maintaining their form by borrowing energy from their environments. There are inputs and outputs.

The cosmos is made up of enegy-information. Energy and information are not separate but are always found together. Energy always takes some form while form is always embedded in some medium (consciousness may be an exception).

There are two outer frameworks that make up everything in the cosmos – causation and logic.

Energy drives change in a process we call causation in which energy is transmitted from one state to another through time. Logic, broadly speaking, shapes the changes.