THE SCIENCE OF EVERYTHING

The Systems Thinking

Have you got an idea what ‘holistic view’ is all about? If you have an interest in Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, Naturopathy, Ecology, Environmental Sciences, Spirituality etc. this word is oft-repeated. Its nothing but a bird’s eye-view. You take everything into account instead of concentrating on just one part. The road ahead with markers is in full view as well as the shanties by the side of it. Are you inclined to believe that it is just impossible to live without free-ways and fast lanes?  In that case, you can’t afford to slow down. It is an offense too! In short, you can’t afford to look sideways…you are in a race. Well, join the race, if you feel like, And be prepared to face the risks involved.

K.P.Reji- "Taste Seller"

If you enter a race, you are bound to miss all flowers and greenery.

A race-horse jockey with his eyes covered with blinkers! Having said this, let me explain Holistic View as clear frontal vision with equally clear side and rear vision, while you are on a mission.

 The System Thinking has been developed from the Holistic View. The System is a mechanism which is complete in itself.  It can have an input and output and various parameters for control. The output can even be the input for another system. I other words, while being complete in itself, a system can be a part of a greater system.

Imagine a circle. Draw another circle with the same centre and larger radius. Draw yet another. Each circle is complete in its own way, sharing the same centre and enclosed in other larger circles.

The Systems Thinking is diametrically opposite to the cartitian thinking put forward by Rene Descartes. (1596-1650). The cartitian coordinates tend to reduce everything into basic building blocks. According Descartes and his innumerable followers, the Universe can be compared to a well-built house. Obviously, its foundation should be really strong. The Systems Thinking negates this and refutes the idea that Science needs a solid base! Nobody believes anymore that the Universe is a massive house and there is any such thing called its foundation. The old metaphor of the House is already replaced by the new concept of ‘Net’. Where is the relevance of foundation in a Net/Web?

K.P.Reji- No Place to Die

However, Descartes has already had his toll. Isaac Newton (1643-1727) compared the Universe with a clock. William Harvey (1578-1657) who detailed the Blood Circulation again equated the human body to a machine. The organs were just part of it. The heart was an efficient, high capacity pump. Antony Lavosier, adjudged as the Father of Modern Chemistry, reduced the human breathing to a process of oxidation. Even now, Descartes makes a remnant impact and many scientists believe that Natural Sciences can be explained with laws of physics and chemistry!  If at all, these biological processes can be explained only with Systems Thinking. For the simple reason that everything we see around us is a system by itself. Systems Thinking could be extended to Engineering, Management, Cybernetics etc., to name a few. Probably by now, you might have got a grip on techie-terms such as Systems Engineering, Systems Management and Systems Analysis.

The unique characteristic of a system is that of interconnectivity and inter-dependence.

See the figure. As we said earlier, a system has got several sub-systems. The Biological system is given below.

Starting with

ATOM

MOLECULE

ORGANELLE

ORGANS

NERVES SYSTEM

BLOOD CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

MAN

FAMILY

SOCIETY

NATION

K.P.Reji-To Move the Mountains- Oil on canvas - 2009

We can see that each of these systems, while complete in itself is part of a bigger system. The system can be physical, biological or societical. All the three are interconnected and inter-dependant. For structuring the economy or anything  better, Systems Analysis is a pre-requisite. First, you are going to find out the inter-relations and subsequently, you are to integrate it. A unified mode is not possible in any other way. The Whole determines the characteristics of the Part! Take sugar for example. It contains Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. None of these elements has the characteristic that is unique to sugar - i.e., sweetness. According to cartitian thinking, the complexity of any system can be fully analysed by breaking it into constituent parts. In fact, if you do so, the characteristic of a system is bound to loose, forever. The Nature cannot be broken into separate parts like forest, rivers, deserts etc. Conversely, if you add up all these, the sum is not Nature! It’s an organic whole. Experiments carried out in particle physics have proved that sub-atomic particles have no separate entity and they should be expressed as relationships. Extrapolating this, we should say that the Universe is not the sum-total of its constituent parts. Science cannot exist by itself, it is also inter-related and inter-dependant. Science is a system. Quantum Physics has already proved that sub-atomic particles are just networked patterns. No use breaking an atom into its constituent parts, because, you just can’t add it up to get back the original entity.  It is an absurdity too, a networked pattern cannot be added up.

Our Universe is a Web, a Web of Life, a Web of Relationships.