Bertalanffy Anniversary Conference
UNITY through DIVERSITY
November 1-4, 2001, in Vienna
University of Vienna and Vienna University of Technology
in the B�ckl-Saal (first floor)
of the University of Technology of Vienna (in the old building)
Technische Universit�t Wien
located in Karlsplatz 13 (*), A-1040 Vienna (AUSTRIA)
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the founder of the General Systems Theory, was born
100 years ago. This is a perfect occasion and his native city of Vienna is
the proper place to review those of his ideas which have left their traces
on current systems thinking. It is in the interest of the whole scientific
community to evaluate the impact the humanistic ideals - which Bertalanffy
formulated for the era of globalisation - have had on the development of
science.
FORUM for presentation of papers, lectures, speeches, posters and also an
Open Space for self-organized debates and discussions.
(*) Karlsplatz 13 is located in one of the borders of Ressel Park. It can
be accessed through underground (U-bahn U4, and also U2 and U1), Station
Karl Platz, Exit Ressel Park. It is the old building of Vienna University
of Technology (Technische Universit�t Wien) in front of the end of this
exit (300 meters). You just cross the Park.
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You are welcome to participate in BAC 2001, bearing in mind what is the
main purpose of BAC 2001.
First of all studying carefully some of the main aspects of BAC 2001 in
http://www.bertalanffy.org
Secondly trying to grasp how may be identified a way forward for the human
species - which is nearly to be an endangered one, condemned to extinction
by the intelligent decision making exerted during the last 7 millennia and
aggravated enormously fast during the last century due to the increasing
arrogance of leaders (?) fighting in order to reinforce the power of their
cliques, who have succeeded in using scientific knowledge and technological
innovations for maintaining billions of second class humans as human
resources, which are only living objects that should work (when there are
posts available) or accept to be killed or die by starvation, in the name
of the magnificent civilization that prevails at the dawn of the 3rd
millenium in order to support the increasing entertainment, amusement,
diversion, recreation, distraction, etc. etc. of the elites, which
altogether constitute the spirit of the so called civilized way of life. A
tentative proposal for learning to identify such a kind of way forward is
the main aim of the expected debate that will take place in the seven
symposia of BAC 2001 (*)
Best regards
elohimjl
.
ps. (*) Revised version of the content of every symposium in the order they
will be examined (November 1 to 4, 2001).
i. New Image of Man and Woman supported by a new General Anthropology: The
main question that humans need to examine is to find out what kind of
wo/men are needed in the 21st century for making possible to reconceive how
every human individually may develop his/her personality taking into
account that:
1) other 6 billion individuals must and will as well to organize their
individualities;
2) the biodiversity that made possible the emergence of the homo sapiens
sapiens should be maintained and improved (not at all for making profitable
business, efficient trade or lucrative financial transactions) in order to
increase the survival chances of humans on the Earth while learning to
fairly share the terrestrial environments with all the other animals,
plants, fungi...;
3) the features of the whole planet that made possible the emergence of
life in this miniscule point of the Universe are not granted forever,
neither can be preserved whatever humans may imagine they could locally,
regionally and globally do through their disrupted minds, conditioned by
selfish ambitions.
...bearing in mind that there are human minds that have succeeded in
increasing the danger of dehumanizing humans (through robotomorphism and
zoomorphism) as Bertalanffy denounced since the 1960s. The trend of actions
"scientifically" organized in order to design the behavioral engineering
(Skinner) based on an assumed science of behavior control (Watson) derived
from the knowledge acquired of conditioned reflexes in rats (Pavlov) has
been maintained until today with the aim of genetically creating super
humans who will be served by the society conceived by Skinner "The problem
is to design a world which will be liked not by people as they are now but
by those who will live in it" Behaviorism implicitly leads towards
totalitarianism (either a benevolent one, as in Huxley's Brave New World,
or a malevolent one, as in Orwell's 1984) that aims at increasing the
control of people.
...searching consequently reliable ways for building the interdisciplinary
enterprise (comprising human biology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology,
linguistics, economics, the arts,...) that may help to create societal
circumstances needed for allowing the individual emergence during the life
of every person searching on his/her own to consciously develop his/her
peculiar personality, while learning to exert humanely his/her intrinsic
spontaneity when unavoidably being confronted to diverse cultural, economic
and social conditions determined peculiarly by the performance of all the
other humans that constitute every human society,...
Bertalanffy aware of this danger considered necessary to find out a "new
science of man" or general anthropology "The image of man is not only a
theoretical question,... it is a question of the preservation of man as
human"
ii. The creation of a sustainable society depends on Innovative Systems
Thinking: However valid the requirement of creating the necessary
conditions for allowing every human being to develop as best as possible
his/her individual personality - in accordance with ethical, ethological,
biological and ecological criteria - human beings at the dawn of the 3rd
millennium are facing an increasing number of global problems
(paradoxically and even contradictorily) created by the higher kind of
intelligence that has generated the evolutionary forces. These problems are
today the source of the worst crisis ever faced by the human species. It
has become childish, frivolous, silly and even stupid to continue
maintaining through narrow minded and shortsighted intelligent decisions -
very often based on a very efficient but quite selfish systems analysis -
the trends of civilizing (?) processes that have become ethically,
ethologically, biologically and ecologically unsustainable.
It is perhaps not yet too late to assume that the scientific community
supported by the Bertalanffian Systems Thinking has potentially the
capability to create - everywhere on the planet - the necessary
circumstances that would allow us, the humans alive at present, to start
creating a humane WAY FORWARD for humankind learning to be conscious enough
of the terrestrial possibilities, which are not granted forever: On the
other side we might be just in time of taking seriously into account that
the chaotic growth of the homosphere during only the last 8 millennia of
civilizing (?) efforts has become the main cause of the deterioration of
the whole biosphere and the gradual destruction of the ecosphere, due to
the very simplified manner the human intelligence has been exerted
We know that the extent of destruction of the soils, the seas, or the
atmosphere (global warming), the iniquitous operation of the banking
system, the inadequacy of government policy requires documentation at a
systems level, putting together the disconnected scraps of information to
form an overall picture, because moving forward demands an attempt to
understand the problem so as to be able to intervene in the system.
Besides, to move forward makes necessary to study the socio-cybernetic
processes which drive the system or to seek to outline the developments
that are required to introduce a more effective socio-cybernetic system.
The question is: how are we to identify and map these systemic forces and
how are we to design a more effective socio cybernetic approach. (John
Raven)
Consequently the main task for the personalities that manage to emerge is
to continuously explore how General Systems Weltanschauung, as a
methodological tool, may help in identifying reliable views about the world
situation, that are needed for creating feasible ways to reach Sustainable
Development as a steady state or flow equilibrium of the dynamics of the
homosphere. Today this steady state is in danger of being abruptly and
irreversibly broken because the Homosphere, which comtinues growing, is
causing faster and faster not only the destruction of fragile areas of the
Biosphere but also the crack of essential elements of the Ecosphere
(elohimjl)
iii. Business based on Bertalanffy's Weltanschauung: However to create a
sustainable society or even to find out how to make sustainable the humane
presence of humans in time and in space makes indispensable to build
optional circumstances needed for the emergence of a new ENTREPRENEURSHIP
SPIRIT. The spirit required for leading business to be oriented by the
"Weltanschauung" suggested by Bertalanffy, as the global awareness that
may generate the ecological, biological, ethological & ethical values
needed:
1) for taking care of the proper preservation of GAIA's features;
2) for maintaining the BIODIVERSITY that may help humans to learn how
to increase the survival chances of our species;
3) for making feasible to interpret humanely and implement cogently a
Terrestrial Bill of HUMAN RIGHTS and COMMITMENTS learning to share the
terrestrial environment with all the other living species.
Systems Thinking is a methodological tool for improving: the functioning of
companies and firms as open systems composed by parts (departments) that
presumably can work better, while learning each one and altogether to
establish and maintain the necessary communications among them, the
financial, marketing, maintenance,... issues, certainly helps to improve
the decision making. However, it has become increasingly dangerous to
continue ignoring the deterioration of the economic, social and cultural
surroundings generated by the increasing efficiently competitiveness .
Competitive companies, in circumstances that have been imposed, tend
exclusively to expand their dominion in order to increase their monetary
profits and financial revenues while basic needs of most people are not
taken into account. The increasing unemployment, the unfair trade organized
by most competitive organizations, the growing poverty and misery of masses
of people (billions at present), the larger number of immigrants to cities
and rich countries,... are now the factors that need to be taken into
account by the Entrepreneurship spirit needed at the dawn of the 21st
century.
Managers and decision makers must recognize today, before it might be too
late, that humankind must not be disassembled by means of successful (?)
competitive firms managed by wealthy entrepreneurs who take advantage of
the endeavour of well paid workers and employees on one side. Such a kind
of successs is the main cause that keeps increasing the number of
unemployed people and poor and miserable customers who become desperate
beings trying to learn, whatever the means, how to survive the next day.
iv. Wholism (or Holism) The way forward into the 21st century. From now
onward, starting in this year 2001, the task of the scientific community in
figurative terms might be based in searching further and further, how human
beings may learn to develop their way of thinking for clearly seeing the
forest before they may start dealing with one or another tree; and also for
grasping the meaning of a tree before trying to handle one of the leaves or
a flower or a fruit.
This intention takes into account that the Bacon's experimental method and
the Galileo's resolutive or analytic method - which made possible the
emergence of the scientific method against the methaphysical approach
(apparently holistic) of the middle Ages - have caused an increasing number
of larger difficulties to the evolvement of human thinking which
intrinsically searchs first to get a gestalt, global, molar, integrative,
organismic, synergistic,...or holistic or wholistic.view of the reality.
Humans could not survive if they were not capable of getting immediately
holistic insights about their concerns. But humans may and perhaps even
should push ahead the evolvement of their thinking recognizing (W)Holism as
an indispensable step.
(W)Holism is an approach that transcends both the metaphysical approach of
the Middle Ages and the scientific method, which has shown during the last
century that the successful conquest and transformation of natural
resources carried out by masses of people employed as human resources
generates huge and quite undesirable effects (wrongly qualified as side
ones) that make its assumed positive contributions more and more
questionable. (W)Holism is potentially more than just a global,
integrative or gestalt view that simply states that the "whole is more than
the sum of its parts" or that 'everything is interrelated with everything
else." Its belated emergence as a truly organismic and synergistic view of
life on this planet has started to help an increasing number of
researchers, scholars and experts to recognize that wholes and parts are
all moulded into an inseparable multilevelled continuum, a living matrix.
The ecosphere, the biosphere, the homosphere, the forest, the tree, the
leaves, the cells in the leaves, the living beings,... and the molecules
are integral components of a substance composed (very diversely) of
matter-energy-information which human beings should not continue dividing
unilaterally for making short term monetary and financial profits. At
present, humankind faces global problems reaching a crisis point. The main
reason for this is that prevailing decision-making processes completely
ignore the need for respecting a wholeness required to counteract the
devastating consequences of 'scientific' fragmentation.
v. Development of Perspectivism, as a Systems Epistemology: It is indeed
indispensable to use a w/holistic approach in order to deal with the
serious crisis that faces humankind at present, but we cannot even try to
identify the absolutely right w/holistic interpretation of the reality,
because there are as many view points to take into account as many humans
as observers may dare in a certain instant to express why and what they
have grasped and how they managed to grasp it, as stated in the uncertainty
principle suggested by Werner Heisenberg. Therefore, it is needed to make
explicitly evident how the validity of knowledge depends partially on every
PERSPECTIVE from which that knowledge is perceived and subsequently to make
clearer how an increasing number of disciplinary and mutidisciplinary
w/holistic views (it is the Bertalanffian Perspectivism) are unavoidably
the reliable way of getting closer and closer, though diversely, to the
'absolute truth' of every aspect of the whole reality. Obviously not all
the perspectives, as views explicitly expressed of a certain aspect of the
reality, are necessarily valid. But among those which are relatively
acceptable none of them is more authentic than the other. The Bertalanffian
Perspectivism is the proper alternative between nihilism - the rejection to
make an effort towards the absolut truth because it is something impossible
to reach - and absolutism - the dogmatism that has generated the scientism,
which assigns value to nothing but science itself; and has produced the
bloodstained fanaticism in religious and political actions
The Bertalanffy's perspectivism in practice oblige every learned person,
while learning, to be aware of his/her relative ignorance, and to recognize
that using his/her brain to the utmost he/she must increasingly try to be
aware of the limits of his/her (human) powers of cognition, because
"perception is not a reflection of 'real things' [but rather] is an
interaction between knower and known". It means that the result of every
observation is partly the result of the viewpoint and methodology of the
observer.This Perspectivism as Systems Epistemology is based on the
assumption that all what seems to be objective perception of real facts and
events is filtered by the biological features of the observer and his/her
psychocultural achievements.
vi. General Systems Theory as a Methodological Maxim. Gerard de Zeeuw has
expressed "Humanity has learnt many wonderful things over the past few
centuries, (although) new and serious difficulties have accrued that are
part of the same wonderful process of learning. These include... a
weakening of ethics, poor social solidarity; increasing social neurosis;
miserable conditions for billions of people affected by new diseases.
...humanity may need a different form of learning, ...co-operation and the
influence of collectives on individuals and vice versa. They require forms
of thinking and acting that emphasise ecological, ethological and ethical
considerations, and that concentrate on supporting and advancing the
harmonious evolvement of biodiversity. It seems proper to develop such
forms of thinking, being supported by the work of one of the first and
still foremost thinkers in this area, that is Ludwig von Bertalanffy. "
Derived from these arguments, it has been assumed that it has become
urgently indispensable to create in the homosphere the necessary conditions
for creating socially a New Image of Man and Woman that may allow the
emergence of humans learning to develop their personalities for building a
way forward towards the Creation of a Sustainable Society, being it
supported by Business based on Bertalanffy's Weltanschauung; complemented
by societal systems engaged in restructuring those that are functioning at
present in order to build a new homosphere that may deal gradually with the
global problems (unemployment, emigration, misery, hunger, starvation,
drug-addiction, modern slavery, sexual abuse of children an women and
transplantation of organs of people that were condemned to death...) that
are disrupting the dynamics of the civilization that prevails.
Learning individually to consistently develop Perspectivism, as a Systems
Epistemology, as an indispensable first step towards an explicitly
generalized Wholism (or Holism) as the (methodological) Way Forward into
the 21st century. These two concerns could be considered de facto two of
the main complementary aspects of the General Systems Theory as a procedure
that aims at prescribing better foresight rather than hindsight. GST used
for crisis prevention in preference to crisis management: may widen the
scope of inquiry for asking first whether a certain project, policy or
action is justified,...
Ervin Laszlo commented "Thus when von Bertalanffy spoke of Allgemeine
Systemtheorie it was consistent with his view that he was proposing a new
perspective, a new way of doing science. It was not directly consistent
with an interpretation often put on "general system theory," to wit, that
it is a (scientific) "theory of general systems." To criticize it as such
is to shoot at straw men. Von Bertalanffy opened up something much broader
and of much greater significance than a single theory (which, as we now
know, can always be falsified and has usually an ephemeral existence): he
created a new paradigm for the development of theories."
...knowing that GST emerged (as) "an exact doctrine of wholeness as a "pure
nature science" or "reine naturwissenschaft," ...a hypothetical-deductive
system of principles which followed from the definition of the wholeness of
an organismic (open) system, and led to conceive it, the GST, as "the
ultimate generalization of the organismic conception" that started in
Organismic Biology , was followed by an Organismic-systems Psychology
continued with organismic insights in societal systems and culminated
assuming possible an organismic model of society and considering necessary
a GST discipline or science about "principles common to the several levels
of organization"
"It is necessary to study not only parts and processes in isolation, but
also to solve the decisive problems found in organization and order
unifying them, resulting from dynamic interaction of parts, and making the
behavoir of the parts different when studied in isolation or within the
whole..." (LvB)
"General system theory, therefore, is a general science of "wholeness...
The characteristics of the complex, therefore, appear as "new" or
"emergent"... (LvB)
vii. Peace Research Through GST supported by GSWeltanschauung. Bertalanffy
noticed how the human reasoning had become seriously contradictory in the
way it 'evolved' towards more degenerated states as it was exerted in a
large measure for organizing scientifically the warfare (terrestrial, naval
& aeronautical) and creating technologies for modern weapons (chemical
substances, biological micro-organisms, nuclear devices & psychological
information) as it has intended de facto to weaken and to annihilate other
human beings, those that leaders of elites identify conventionally, as
irreconcilable enemies.
He also denounced the behaviorists' declarations of idealism when he
noticed that the Frederic Skinner's humanitarian motives and his utopian
world were not moral at all as they were a danger against a real human
development "...it is more than probable that methods used for
inconsequential advertising can and will be employed for the deification of
the state, the nation, its leader, or for global war, as those in charge
desire. The enormous threat contained in Skinner's latest book is that his
is not a program or project to undo freedom and dignity but a description
of what is [already] widely realized in the thought control exerted by the
mass media, commercial society, and politics". LvB had previously denounce
the amoral intentions of Ernest Dichter the dean of motivational research
and behavioral engineer, who sold advice to corporations on how "to
manipulate human motivations and desires". "The motivation research founded
by Dr. Dichter is developing into a science of mass persuasion [that] can
make the human animal buy everything and anything, from detergents to
cigarettes, from cars to American presidents, up to wars and atomic
self-destruction..." (DAVIDSON, Mark: Uncommon Sense. The Life and Thought
of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Father of General Systems Theory. J. P. Tarcher
Inc, Los Angeles, 1983.)
The GST approach to Vietnam, according to Bertalanffy would have included
the primary question of whether or not the U.S. should have made a military
commitment in Vietnam at all. Today this approach may encourage belligerant
entities to examine jointly why any conflict could arise and to explore
together how to reduce and eliminate the causes of conflicts. (DAVIDSON,
Mark: Uncommon Sense.)
In this year 2001, after the tragedy of 11th September when several
thousands of civil people were killed by suicidal terrorists (quite less
than those killed in Africa, Latin-america, Asia and Europe by other kinds
of terrorism - illegal and even legalized and accepted by many governments)
it has become once again explicitly evident the advances in the use of mass
persuasion methodologies in order to get the support required for
justifying:
i) the use of weapons in order to authoritarianly consolidate the World
Order that has been conceived and gradually implemented during the second
half of the last 20th century firstly by means of actions conceived,
organized and implemented during the postwar period (starting around the
1950s) which allowed some winners and loosers of the First and Second World
War, being included several regimes functioning in accordance with the
modernized capitalist ideology and the former U.S.S.R. presumably
socialist, to become economically richer by continuously taking advantage
unilaterally of natural resources located anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile
the less developed countries became systematically poorer and poorer
through the imposition of R&D policies. No doubt that some systems
methodologies have been also conceived and implemented for the benefit of
the winners of what was de facto the Third World War - an economic one -
which was not even declared.
The trends of the prevailing civilization have become during the last
decade frankly contradictory though they are announced everywhere, through
a powerful mass media, as the unique possibility of organizing faster
everything related with the human way of life (transportation,
communications, data processing, internet since 1995,...). These are
actions that are announced as drives toward a post- ultra modern
perspective for the evolvement of the human society, claiming that every
modern human may and must go - willingly or not - faster and faster
everywhere , anywhere and nowhere. These tendencies cannot be sustained
anymore, neither according to traditional procedures and even less
humanely. But they are basic factors of policies concerned with
globalization of business, finances and all kinds (legal and illegal) of
economic transactions, which are announced as if they were the panacea
needed for pushing ahead the evolvement of the 'civilized way of life'.
Instead what has arisen is a controversial globalization that has caused
the emergence of many dissidents who argued that it the Fourth World War -
an economic and political one - aims, supported ideologically by an inhuman
neoliberalism, at destroying borders, governments and nationalisms because
they are not longer necessary. This event soon became the source of a
generalized globalization of unemployment, criminality, misery,
corruption,... and also frivolity, hypocrisy,...
ii) the bombardement of areas inhabited by indigenous people and emigrants
living in miserable conditions (like those asking today for aid in
Afghanistan and Pakistan) with food, portable radios, clothing, water,
medicines,... for conditioning the reaction of people. After all they can
learn to behave like intelligent rats or dogs as they are second and third
class humans willing to accept a bribe in order to change their mood till
eventually accept and contribute to consolidate the World Order planned
for the 3rd millennium
Instead it seems more humane to learn how to use General Systems Theory as
an approach to the prevention of wars - military, economic, political and
cultural ones, knowing that Bertalanffy conceived and developed it as an
approach for all fields and all kinds of problems,... a systems approach
for dealing with the disarray and disturbances caused by some
inconveniencies.
"In our considerations we started with a general definition of "systems"
defined as a "set of elements standing in interrelations... No special
hypothesis or statement were made about the nature of the system, of its
elements or the relations between them. Nevertheless from this purely
formal definition of "system" many properties follow which in part are
expressed in laws well-known in various fields of science, and in part
concern concepts previously regarded as anthropomorphic, vitalistic. or
metaphysical. The parallelism of general conceptions or even special laws
in different fields therefore is a consequence of the fact that those are
concerned with "systems" and that certain general principles apply to
systems irrespective of their nature...
There appear to exist general system laws which apply to any system of a
particular type, irrespective of the particular properties of the systems
and the elements involved,... a general theory of systems would be a useful
tool and providing on the one hand, models that can be used in, and
transferred to, different fields, and safeguarding, on the other hand, from
vague analogies which often have marred the progress in these fields."
(Ludwig von Bertalanffy).
enquiries to: elohimjl <elohimjl@mail.zserv.tuwien.ac.at>
Received on Mon Oct 15 08:14:01 2001
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