p.3 This book is about a new scientific understanding of life at all levels of living systems -
organisms, social systems, and ecosystems. It is based on a new perception of reality that has profound implications
not only for science and philosophy, but also for business, politics, health care, education, and everyday life... The
more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realize that they cannot be understood in isolation. They
are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.
p.4 There are solutions to the major problems of our time, some of them even simple. But they require
a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values... From the systemic point of view, the only viable solutions
are those that are "sustainable." .. "A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the
prospects of future generations." [Lester Brown, Worldwatch Institute]
p.5 The new view of reality was by no means easy to accept for physicists at the beginning of the century.
The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world brought them in contact with a strange and unexpected reality. In their
struggle to grasp this new reality, scientists became painfully aware that their basic concepts, their language, and their
whole way of thinking were inadequate to describe atomic phenomena. Their problems were not merely intellectual but amounted
to an intense emotional and, one could say, even existential crisis. It took them a long time to overcome this crisis, but
in the end they were rewarded with deep insights into the nature of matter and its relation to the human mind.
p.5-6 I have generalized Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm to that of a social paradigm, which
I define as "a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular
vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself." ... The new paradigm may be called a holistic
worldview, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts.
p.8 We need to be prepared to question every single aspect of the old paradigm. Eventually
we will not need to throw everything away, but before we know that we need to be willing to question everything.
p.11 In reality, scientific facts emerge out of an entire constellation of human perceptions,
values, and actions - in one word, out of a paradigm - from which they cannot be separated.
p.13 Today the paradigm shift in science, at its deepest level, implies a shift from physics to the life
sciences.
p.37 by applying the same concepts to different systems levels - for example, the concept of stress to an
organism, a city, or an economy - we can often gain important insights.
p.41 What makes it possible to turn the systems approach into a science is the discovery that there
is approximate knowledge. This insight is crucial to all of modern science.
p.41 If everything is connected to everything else, how can we ever hope to understand anything?
Since all natural phenomena are ultimately interconnected, in order to explain any one of them we need to understand all the
others, which is obviously impossible.
p.42 for systems thinkers the fact that we can obtain approximate knowledge about an infinite web
of interconnected patterns is a source of confidence and strength.
p.42 In science we always deal with limited and approximate descriptions of reality.
p.81 In the study of structure we measure and weigh things. Patterns, however, cannot be measured or weighed;
they must be mapped. To understand a pattern, we must map a configuration of relationships. In other words, structure involves
quantities, while pattern involves qualities.
p.81-82 Is there a common pattern of organization that can be identified in all living systems? ... this
is indeed the case. Its most important property is that it is a network pattern. Whenever we encounter living systems
... organisms, parts of organisms, or communities of organisms - we can observe that their components are arranged
in network fashion. Whenever we look at life, we look at networks.
p.82-83 The first and most obvious property of any network is its non-linearity - it goes in all directions.
Thus the relationships in network patterns are non-linear relationships. In particular, an influence
or message may travel along a cyclical path, which may become a feedback loop. The concept of feedback is intimately
connected with the network pattern.
Because networks of communication may generate feedback loops, they
may acquire the ability to regulate themselves. For example, a community that maintains an active network of communication
will learn from its mistakes, because the consequences of a mistake will spread through the network and return to
the source along feedback loops. Thus, the community can correct its mistakes, regulate itself, and organize
itself. Indeed, self-organization has emerged as perhaps the central concept in the systems view of life,
and like the concepts of feedback and self-regulation is linked closely to networks. The pattern of life, we might
say, is a network pattern capable of self-organization. This is a simple definition, yet it is based on recent discoveries
at the very forefront of science.
p.302 There is always the danger that the whole system will collapse when a fluctuation goes beyond
those limits and the system can no longer compensate for it. The same is true of human communities. Lack
of flexibility manifests itself as stress. In particular, stress will occur when one or more variables of the system
are pushed to their extreme values, which induces increased rigidity throughout the system. Temporary stress is an
essential aspect of life, but prolonged stress is harmful and destructive to the system.
p.302 what is the resilience of these ecological communities? How do they react to outside
disturbances? These questions lead us to two further principles of ecology - flexibility and diversity
- that enable ecosystems to survive disturbances and adapt to changing conditions.
The flexibility of an ecosystem is a consequence of its multiple feedback loops,
which tend to bring the system back into balance whenever there is a deviation from the norm, due to changing environmental
conditions.
