BAC 2001 "Registration form"

International Conference on Systems Thinking Globally Concerned

UNITY through DIVERSITY

November 1-4, 2001, in Vienna

University of Vienna and Vienna University of Technology

http://www.bertalanffy.org

in the Böckl-Saal (first floor)
of the University of Technology of Vienna (in the old building)
Technische Universität 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 Universität Wien) in front of the end of this
exit (300 meters). You just cross the Park.

You may copy the following 14 lines, fill it with the information required
and send as a message

(to <markus.rajtora@instinct.cc> cc to
<elohimjl@mail.zserv.tuwien.ac.at>

as a Registration to BAC 2001

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Hotel required: yes no

 max. Price:

Conference fees:

Rich countries EURO 140
Poor countries EURO 70
Students EURO 50

SYMPOSIA on some of BERTALANFFY'S MAIN CONCERNS

Symposium (I). "The creation of a sustainable society depends on Innovative
Systems Thinking (IST) supported by General Systems Weltanschauung (GSW)"
aims at exploring how it might be feasible to reach Sustainable Development
as a steady state or flow equilibrium of humankind's dynamics.

...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 system. (John Raven)

GSW, as a methodological tool, helps to identify reliable views about the
world situation, needed for creating feasible ways to reach Sustainable
Development as a steady state or flow equilibrium of humankind's dynamics.
This steady state is today in danger of being abruptly 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)

Symposium (II) "Wholism (or Holism) The way forward into the 21st century"
aims at searching further how human beings may and also should 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.

(W)Holism transcends both the metaphysical approach of the Middle Ages and
the scientific method, which has shown 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
that make its assumed positive contributions more and more questionable

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.

Symposium (III) "General Systems Theory as a Methodological Maxim" aims at
pondering why and how GST could and should prescribe better foresight
rather than hindsight; be 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,...

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,... "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"

Symposium (IV) "New Image of Man and Woman" supported by a new General
Anthropology" aims at searching 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 learning on his/her own to
consciously develop his/her peculiar personality, while his/her intrinsic
spontaneity was confronted to diverse cultural, economic and social
conditions determined peculiarly by the performance of those humans that
constitute every human society,...

...humanity faces a clear danger of being dehumanized, even destroyed, by
debasing self-images, created through mass persuasion by means of
behavioral engineering (conceived by Watson and developed by Skinner, who
were inspired by the Pavlov's conditioned reflexes in rats). Behaviorism
lead 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.

Bertalanffy aware of this danger consider 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"

Symposium (V) "Development of Perspectivism, as a Systems Epistemology"
aims at making explicitly how the validity of knowledge depends on the
PERSPECTIVE from which that knowledge is perceived and also at making
clearer how the disciplinary and mutidisciplinary validity of the
Bertalanffian Perspectivism is a way of getting closer and closer, though
diversely, to the 'absolute truth' of every aspect of the whole reality.
Obviously all the perspectives, as views explicitly expressed of a certain
aspect of the reality, are valid. At the same time none of them is more
authentic than the other.

The Bertalanffy's perspectivism oblige every learned person, while
learning, to be aware of his/her relative ignorance, 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". The result of every observation is partly the result of
the viewpoint and methodology of the observer

Symposium (VI) "Business based on Bertalanffy's Weltanschauung" aims at
searching how to build the optional circumstances that are needed for the
emergence of a new ENTREPRENEURSHIP SPIRIT, as required for leading
business to be oriented by the "Weltanschauung" suggested by Bertalanffy,
as the global awareness that may generate the ecological, 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.

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 between wealthy entrepreneurs and well paid workers and
employees on one side, and unemployed people and poor and miserable
customers who become desperate beings trying to learn, whatever the means,
how to survive the next day.

Symposium (VII) "Peace Research through General Systems Theory
(Weltanschaung)" aims at exploring how General Systems Theory might be used
as an approach to the prevention of wars - military, economic, political
and cultural ones.

The General Systems Theory that Bertalanffy conceived and developed is 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 the way a certain number of factors involved are
interacting among themselves and altogether -as an assumed entity or system
- with its environment.

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.

Further information:

http://www.bertalanffy.org

enquiries to: elohimjl <elohimjl@mail.zserv.tuwien.ac.at>
Received on Tue Oct 2 22:34:00 2001