General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications

by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy

There is some sense in considering a real organization as an organism, that is, there is reason to believe that this comparison need not be a sterile metaphorical analogy, such as was common in scholastic speculation about the body politic. Quasi-biological functions are demonstrable in organizations. They maintain themselves; they sometimes reproduce or metastasize; they respond to stresses; they age, and they die. Organizations have discernible anatomies and those at least which transform material inputs (like industries) have physiologies.

Institutions grow, repair themselves, reproduce themselves, decay, dissolve. In their external relations they show many characteristics of organic life.

The biological model for social organizations—and here, particularly for industrial organizations—means taking as a model the living organism and the processes and principles that regulate its growth and development. It means looking for lawful processes in organizational growth.

We have hoped to show in this survey that General System Theory has contributed toward the expansion of scientific theory; has led to new insights and principles; and has opened up new problems that are “researchable,” i.e., are amenable to further study, experimental or mathematical.

Considering the organism as a whole, it shows characteristics similar to those of systems in equilibrium

We are possessed of a vast knowledge of physicochemical processes in the cell and in the organism; but we must not overlook the fact “that even after complete explanation of individual processes, we are worlds away from fully understanding the total metabolism of a cell”

Continuous working capacity is, therefore, not possible in a closed system which tends to attain equilibrium as soon as possible, but only in an open system. The apparent “equilibrium” found in an organism is not a true equilibrium incapable of performing work; rather it is a dynamic pseudo-equilibrium, kept constant at a certain distance from true equilibrium; so being capable of performing work but, on the other hand, requiring continuous import of energy for maintaining the distance from true equilibrium.

It can, therefore, be seen that the properties indicated as characteristic of organismic systems, are consequences of the nature of open systems: maintenance in “dynamic equilibrium,” independence of composition of the absolute quantity of components, maintenance of the composition under changing conditions and nutrition, reestablishment of dynamic equilibrium after normal catabolism or catabolism increased by a stimulus, dynamic order of processes, etc.

living systems are not closed systems in true equilibrium but open systems in a steady state.

An aspect very characteristic of the dynamic order in organismic processes can be termed as equifinality. Processes occurring in machine-like structures follow a fixed pathway. Therefore the final state will be changed if the initial conditions or the course of processes is altered. In contrast, the same final state, the same “goal,” may be reached from different initial conditions and in different pathways in organismic processes.

never reaches a state of equilibrium.

The present discussion may be started with one of those trivial questions which are often only too difficult to answer scientifically. What is the difference between a normal, a sick and a dead organism?

A machinelike structure of the organism cannot be the ultimate reason for the order of life processes because the machine itself is maintained in an ordered flow of processes. The primary order, therefore, must lie in the process itself.

We express this by saying that living systems are basically open systems

Up to comparatively recent times physical chemistry, in kinetics and thermodynamics, was restricted to closed systems; the theory of open systems is relatively new and leaves many problems unsolved.

Even simple open systems show remarkable characteristics

The steady state is maintained in distance from true equilibrium and therefore is capable of doing work; as it is the case in living systems, in contrast to systems in equilibrium.

The steady state shows remarkable regulatory characteristics which become evident particularly in its equifinality. If a steady state is reached in an open system, it is independent of the initial conditions, and determined only by the system parameters, i.e., rates of reaction and transport.

In open systems, phenomena of overshoot and false start (FIG. 6.2) may occur, with the system proceeding first in a direction opposite to that eventually leading to the steady state. Conversely, phenomena of overshoot and false start, as frequently found in physiology, may indicate that we are dealing with processes in open systems.

From the viewpoint of thermodynamics, open systems can maintain themselves in a state of high statistical improbability, of order and organization.

Schrödinger’s statement that “the organism feeds on negative entropy.”

open systems compared with conventional closed systems show characteristics which seem to contradict the usual physical laws, and which were often considered as vitalistic characteristics of life,

The theory of open systems is part of a general system theory. This doctrine is concerned with principles that apply to systems in general, irrespective of the nature of their components and the forces governing them. With general system theory we reach a level where we no longer talk about physical and chemical entities, but discuss wholes of a completely general nature.

In an open system increase of order and decrease of entropy is thermodynamically possible. The magnitude, “information,” is defined by an expression formally identical with negative entropy. However, in a closed feedback mechanism information can only decrease, never increase, i.e., information can be transformed into “noise,” but not vice versa.

In summary, the feedback model is preeminently applicable to “secondary” regulations, i.e., regulations based on structural arrangements

Since, however, the structures of the organism are maintained in metabolism and exchange of components, “primary” regulations must evolve from the dynamics in an open system. Increasingly, the organism becomes “mechanized” in the course of development; hence later regulations particularly correspond to feedback mechanisms (homeostasis, goal-directed behavior, etc.).

At present, we do not have a thermodynamic criterion that would define the steady state in open systems in a similar way as maximum entropy defines equilibrium in closed systems.

it should be pointed out that selection, competition and “survival of the fittest” already presuppose the existence of self-maintaining systems; they therefore cannot be the result of selection.

we know no physical law which would prescribe that, in a “soup” of organic compounds, open systems, self-maintaining in a state of highest improbability, are formed.

Production of local conditions of higher order (and improbability) is physically possible only if “organizational forces” of some kind enter the scene; this is the case in the formation of crystals,

Such organizational forces, however, are explicitly denied when the genome is considered as an accumulation of “typing errors.”

Presently the genetic code represents the vocabulary of hereditary substance, i.e., the nucleotide triplets which “spell” the amino acids of the proteins of an organism. Obviously, there must also exist a grammar of the code; the latter cannot, to use a psychiatric expression, be a word salad, a chance series of unrelated words

Without such “grammar” the code could at best produce a pile of proteins, but not an organized organism.

The mechanistic concept of nature predominant so far emphasized the resolution of happenings into linear causal chains; a conception of the world as a result of chance events, and a physical and Darwinistic “play of dice” (Einstein); the reduction of biological processes to laws known from inanimate nature.

As a matter of fact, when you take supposedly simple data in our field—say, determination of Qo2, basal metabolic rates or temperature coefficients—it would take hours to unravel the enormous amount of theoretical presuppositions which are necessary to form these concepts, to arrange suitable experimental designs, to create machines doing the job—and this all is implied in your supposedly raw data of observation.

metaphysics. If you are lucky, your data can be plotted in a simple fashion, obtaining the graph of a straight line. But considering the unconceivable complexity of processes even in a simple cell, it is little short of a miracle that the simplest possible model—namely, a linear equation between two variables—actually applies in quite a number of cases.

The choice is not whether to remain in the field of data or to theorize; the choice is only between models that are more or less abstract, generalized, near or more remote from direct observation, more or less suitable to represent observed phenomena.

I believe a certain amount of intellectual humility, lack of dogmatism, and good humor may go a long way to facilitate otherwise embittered debates about scientific theories and models.

that the living organism as well as its components are so-called open systems, i.e., systems maintaining themselves in a continuous exchange of matter with environment

conventional kinetics and thermodynamics are not applicable to many processes in the living organism; for biophysics—the application of physics to the living organism—an expansion of theory is necessary.

One fundamental difference is that closed systems must eventually attain a time-independent state of chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium; in contrast, open systems may attain, under certain conditions, a time-independent state which is called a steady state,

In the steady state, the composition of the system remains constant in spite of continuous exchange of components.

the same time-independent state may be reached from different initial conditions and in different ways—much in contrast to conventional physical systems where the equilibriu...

living organisms maintain themselves in a fantastically improbable state, preserve their order in spite of continuous irreversible processes and even proceed, in embryonic development and evolution, toward ever higher differentiations.

In open systems with intake of matter rich in high energy, maintenance of a high degree of order and even advancement toward higher order is thermodynamically permitted.

The living organism is a hierarchical order of open systems.

Instead of the theory of open systems, another model construct is more familiar to the American school. It is the concept of feedback regulation, which is basic in cybernetics

As is generally known, the basic model is a circular process where part of the output is monitored back, as information on the preliminary outcome of the response, into the input (FIG. 7.2a), thus making the system self-regulating; be it in the sense of maintenance of certain variables or of steering toward a desired goal.

Thus the feedback concept sometimes has assumed a monopoly suppressing other equally necessary and fruitful viewpoints: The feedback model is equated with “systems theory” in general

It is therefore important to emphasize that feedback systems and “homeostatic” control are a significant but special class of self-regulating systems and phenomena of adaptation