Systems Literacy (eBook)

In April 2016, the IFSR Conversation had chosen the theme Systems Literacy. Here I will describe how this theme came to be and provide background information on similar efforts in the ocean sciences, earth sciences, atmospheric sciences, and other related disciplines. This is also a personal reflection on a systems journey that began for me in 1979 in the United Kingdom and continued when I moved to the USA in 1980.

IFSR has on its website at the top the slogan “Uniting the world in Systems Science”. And the IFSR website http://www.ifsr.org displays this statement: “The overall purpose of the Federation is to advance cybernetic and systems research and systems applications in order to serve the international systems community “. (What is the IFSR?, 2016) Many, if not all, of us reading this will have varying degrees of commitment to this purpose, and will be pursuing it as best we can. The IFSR has 45 member organizations around the world. The total number of people represented by these organizations is hard to determine, but I expect that the international systems community is in the thousands. Uniting the world and advancing systems and cybernetic ideas then is a major undertaking to unite the world in systems science with a population of nearly 7,500,000,000 at the end of 2016. (World Population 2016)

Moreover, attempting to unite the systems community is an ongoing challenge. Charles Francois produced the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics in 1997 (Francois 1997) which has over 20 columns devoted to the definition of system. Similarly, Dr. Eric Shwarz mapped “Some Streams of Systemic Thought”. He color coded twelve streams of historic development: general systems, cybernetics, physical sciences, mathematics, computers and informatics, biology and medicine, symbolic systems, social systems, ecology, philosophy, systems analysis, and engineering. The vast number of contributions to these systemic thought streams presents a complex set of relationships and dependencies. A large map demonstrates the density and complexity of the field and can be seen at http://www.cybertech-engineering.ch/index.php/en/blog-de/research-development/item/14-some-streams-of-systemic-thought

There are many authors of books and journal articles who are contributing to ways that bring varying degrees of clarity to this diversity and complexity in various ways. They come from a variety of perspectives, philosophy, science perspective originating in biological sciences, or cognitive and learning science to systems engineering to systems software programming, to name just a few. Rousseau et al. (Rousseau 2016) is on a “Search for General Systems Theory” towards what he calls GST* which is an overarching encompassing philosophical work of the transdisciplinary nature of systems. Troncale (Troncale 2013) offers Systems Processes and Pathologies: Creating an Integrated Framework for Systems Science, which is a culmination of a career researching and teaching systems. Cabrera et al. (Cabrera 2008) have identified four fundamental patterns that connect the system universe: Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspective. Specific communities are also pursuing ways to clarify systems sciences for their applications. Martin and Ferris have summarized systems as it impacts the practice of systems engineering. (Martin 2008) Another compilation of system sciences is described by Mobus and Kalton in their book “Principles of Systems Sciences” (Mobus 2015) in which they list 12 Systems Science Principles. Esbjorn-Hargans and Zimmerman (Esbjorn-Hargens 2009) describe an “Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World. Cajete (Cajete 2000) articulates the view of Native Thinking towards all systems, with an Indigenous view of reality, examining natural forces and all forms of life. Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi in “The Systems View of Life” show how over the past 30 years “a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science.” (Capra 2014).

The Millennium Project identifies 15 Global Challenges. (Glenn 2015) The top 3 are: 1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change? 2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict? and 3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? Many responses to these 15 challenges are from the systems community, for example Ray Ison (Ison 2010) suggests ways to act using systems practice in a climate-change world while Angela Espinosa and Jon Walker (Espinoza 2011) give practical examples of cybernetic models used to understand and manage eco systems in their book “A Complexity Approach to Sustainability”. The ideas and approaches exist in so many ways, yet most students and adults do not know they exist let alone have ways to apply the rich possibilities of approaches, management, and sustainable practices to their lives.

From some of my earliest days in junior and high school in North London, England in the 1960’s and early 1970’s I have wondered why the teaching was delivered in 45-60 minute segments in what I came to know in the USA as stove-piped subjects. On many occasions, I was frustrated by the reaction of teachers to the question of how one subject related to another subject. I was told to concentrate on the specific discipline. I sought ways to find connections. I did find some help by taking an A Level called Physical Science. This was an innovative attempt by the Nuffield Foundation (Nuffield Foundation 1973) to produce an attempt at a curriculum change that was a largely conceptual course of study that dealt with the structure and properties of matter at the borders of physics and chemistry. I wonder if that was an introduction for me to the questions of boundary determination and perspectives? After school I joined the British Army Corps of Royal Engineers as a 2nd Lieutenant, where the beginning of the motto is “Ubique” in English “Everywhere”, a beginning for me of a quest to make connections.

My first introduction to the language and field of systems was in 1978 in Unit One on the first page of an Open University course in the United Kingdom called Approaches to Industrial Relations. (Beishon 1976) The authors of the first course reader, Brian Barrett and John Beishon, described the importance of defining “problem areas” knowing the who, why and where of boundary drawing, the description of the environment, the role of the observer, and distinctions about unitary and pluralist frameworks. Before proceeding with the content of the Industrial Relations course a whole section was devoted to “Systems and Systems Approaches” with a focus on using systems terms and concepts to describe systems behaviors. I was intrigued and excited by this approach. The following year I enrolled in a second Open University course called Systems Behaviour. (Peters 1977) This course presented case studies of activities in nature and society and human relations and then offered different systems approaches to describe, define, model and build simulations of them. This course is no longer offered.

Furthermore, the Systems Department at the United Kingdom’s Open University is no longer a separate department and is now a group that is a part of the Faculty of Computing Mathematics and Technology. Over the 35-year history the systems group has reached more than 30, 000 people. (SysWeb - The Open University of Systems Group Website 2016).

At the very time all sectors of society could be benefiting from cybernetic and systems research and systems applications there seems to be a diminishing appreciation of the depth and breadth of the possibilities.

I rejoined the systems and cybernetic academic community at the joint International Society for Systems Sciences (ISSS) conference and American Cybernetic Society in Washington D.C. in 2014 and then again in Berlin in 2015 (International Society for Systems Sciences Annual Conference Berlin 2015). There I found numerous systems and cybernetic voices seeking primacy. Many of the attendees at the ISSS conference were also members of IFSR and the International Council of Systems Engineers (INCOSE). I have also been a member of the American Society for Cybernetics. All of these systems community organizations and their members are producing a cacophony of systems and cybernetic ideas, messages, theories, practices and methodologies.

However, while in Berlin I began to share my experience over the past 15 years with the geoscience education, science, and policy community in the USA. The lack of clarity in the systems and cybernetic communication situation is not dissimilar to the one I encountered in the ocean science community in the USA in 2002 and the Earth science community in 2009. There was a level of frustration in the ocean science, ocean education and ocean policy communities that no, or very little, education on the ocean and its role in the planet and our lives was a part of any school curriculum.

Think about your own education, did you learn much or anything about the sea and ocean? The ocean covers over 70% of the planet surface, is a major influence on weather and climate, has significant influences on our food, security, economic, social, spiritual, scientific, artistic, transportation and recreational lives and experiences, yet is virtually unknown.

Yet we started a project in 2004 to resolve the lack of ocean education and lack of agreement about what ocean science topics should be taught, or could be used to teach science, in schools in the USA. An...