Change is basic to the definition of a system, whereas a system is two or more units in relationship where change in any one unit changes ALL units. However, in a system there is no linear cause & effect relationship: change is recursive.

Change can lead to equifinality (multiple stimuli leading to the same result) or equipotentiality (single stimulus leading to multiple results, aka multifinality).

Change can take place within a system as first order (superficial, limited) or second order (morphogenetic) change.

Bateson described change (in part) as a self-regulating cybernetic process, driven by information via feedback loops in the system (output becomes input). A negative feedback loop (or, a deviation attentuating feedback loop) dampens change by returning the system to its original set point (my term). A positive (or deviation amplifying) feedback loop changes the system to a different level of organization (a la second order change).

Maturana looked at change differently. To him, a living system was organizationally closed, and thus, autonomous. As such, information which was external to the system could not induce change. (Actually, I think he said that there is no information, period.) Rather, change within a system was determined by the system structure, which is dynamic. Living systems have a structural plasticity which (when structurally coupled with another system or with its own environment) causes the coupled structures to co-evolve. The more "richly structurally coupled" the system was, the higher level of organization accomplished (negentropy).

If I put this all into a mathematical formula, it might look like this (with apologies to Maturana, because I just gotta go with the concept of information):

system(s) + intrasystemic patterns + stimulus (ie, information: action OR inaction) + time = CHANGE

Take a closed, non-living system; this is a VERY important part of this. It must be closed (without energy exchange) and non-living. Okay, now let everything in the system move toward equilibrium.

Beavers called it the degree of random disorder in a family. But then, Beavers was ignoring the caveat of closed, non-living systems.

For negentropy, you have a living system, one which is open (exchange of information). It is moving toward increasing complexity (a la Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary movement of the universe).

Beavers also defined negentropy as the degree of order and predictability in a family. At least he got the open, living system right that time.

Hegel defined dialectics as "Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis". Good but WAY too simple!

Within the GST context, dialectics refers to the relationship between two or more systems that produces an ecosystem. It is also the basis for that concept which was drilled into me during my clinical training: Both/And. (Actually, it makes a lot of sense that way: BOTH thesis + antithesis combined produce something beyond the two: synthesis (AND).

The more I think back on how Jim used dialectic in terms of what was happening in couple therapy, the more sense it makes. And I must admit, this was a term that baffled me until the last few weeks, and now I'm jazzed about it.

Hegel defined dialectics as "Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis". Good but WAY too simple!

Within the GST context, dialectics refers to the relationship between two or more systems that produces an ecosystem. It is also the basis for that concept which was drilled into me during my clinical training: Both/And. (Actually, it makes a lot of sense that way: BOTH thesis + antithesis combined produce something beyond the two: synthesis (AND).

The more I think back on how Jim used dialectic in terms of what was happening in couple therapy, the more sense it makes. And I must admit, this was a term that baffled me until the last few weeks, and now I'm jazzed about it.

Another, and perhaps better definition of it, is structural parallels throughout an ecosystem which reflects the nature of the entire system. I had a patient who had been sexually abused as a child by an older male relative. She had an extensive history of abusive domestic relationships as an adult. Finally she found the love of her life: unfortunately (or fortunately), he was incarcerated for life for murder. Issues of rage, violence and abuse permeated her entire existence; they were isomorphic within this system.

Suggestions? Changes?

When it comes to systems, autopoiesis would indicate that a system is defined by its structure (composed of bits and pieces and the relationships between them).

When applied to structure coupling, a system is conceived as being autonomous and having rigid boundaries that have been shaped (regenerated) through interaction with the environment over time (just as the environment has been shaped by its interaction with the system). There is a interplay or congruence between system and environment that emerges(!) from the "changes that each prompts in the other" (internet source).

In social systems, there is "behavioral coordination through mutual and recursive structural change." Language is one such activity that experiences change over time.

i gotta go...more later.
gregg

Ontology is the elephant -- what actually exists.

Information is the sensory data gathered by the blind men.

Epistomology is the process that each blind man has gone through which allows him to formulate his model (e.g., one has learned to evaluate phenomena via his hands, and he learned to recognize ropes from experiences in his life tying rope; hence, an elephant must be a rope).

A model is an attempt to describe the whole from data points, and used the process delineated by the individual's epistemology. Just like stats, the more data you have, the greater the probability of describing the whole. However, it will never be anything other than a description. Models are never real -- just approximations of reality.

Holism would be what you would get if one of those guys explored the elephant from top to bottom in all 3 dimensions, listened to its sounds, smelled it, checked out its innards, and behaviorally interacted with it, with all of this done in a dynamic process. More simply, it is what you would have had (to some degree) if all the blind men had sat down and traded their data, so they would have ended with a description of the whole, rather than all the parts.

If the elephant happened to poop during the exam by the blind guys, that would have been an emergent property. It is emergent because it was produced in concert with various systems within the elephant, not just one. And if you wanted to study just how it was produced, you would be looking at elephantine ecology when studying the interrelated systems and how the action of mastication was connected down the line to the impact of microflora, and how all of this impacted elephantine-perceived quality of life. These relationships between/among sub/meso/macro systems constitute part of the ecosystem of the elephant.

One more thing: is there any way to change the graphic format of the blog? As cool as it looks, I think one of the reasons I avoid it is because it is visually confusing to read and tires me out very fast.

Ciao, Mary

For example, overparenting and underparenting can lead to the same kind of underachievement in children. Most phenomena in family life do not follow a 1:1 cause-effect dynamic.

Another aspect is that one cause can lead to opposite effects in families. For instance, a parent who is a rigid disciplinarian could produce child who grows into an overly strict parent or one that is too permissive. Or a mother who struggles with alcoholism may produce a son or daughter who struggles with alcoholism or marries someone who does.

I am finally "really" reading your paper on "The Geometry of Family Theory." I have a question about your fundamental dialectical principle that involves "the relationship between a system and its environment, through which each is consituted as both a subsystem and an ecosystem" (p. 5). You may recall that I was going to use Evangelical couples as my subject for creating a model. Well, I've altered that a bit. I want to consider interracial families, specifically, and I've broadened the institution to the Christian church in America, specifically churches that are identified as multiracial (this is more researchable & definitive; plus, I've found a typology of 4 different types of multiracial churches). Anyway, my challenge is trying to see both family and church as both subsystem and ecosystem to each other...

Well? Am I close to the holy grail? I think I feel a light bulb starting to flicker...it began when I reflected on what Weeks meant by an "intersystems" approach, since both family and church are systems, but ever-evolving kinds of systems that interact upon (or transact) each other.

JIM'S COMMENTS

You're on the right track, I believe. In my view, "ecological dialectics" (or "dialectical ecology," if you prefer) reminds us of infinite multi-dimensionality rather than the more traditional linear dialectic (eg, Hegel's thesis/antithesis, etc.) Transactions are simplest and clearest between "near" or "adjoining" systems; however, GST, Gaia, etc. remind us that EVERYTHING is interconnected and multicausal. Thus, in principle, any given system can be endlessly explicated because it is infinitely interconnected with other systems that are infinitely interconnected, etc. etc. Practically speaking, to prevent overwhelming complexity we are forced to simplify--or "model"--a given part of a vast ecosystem. Therefore, to understand even a simplified model we should not lose track of the fact that, while we are designating something a "system" to be understood, we are actually studying a subsystem/ecosystem dialectic--which every system is. This, in turn, has methodological implications, the most important of which is: Work from the "top" (ecosystem) "down" (subsystem), because understanding the whole will be necessary to understand the parts. There are other corollary principles, but I won't go into those here. Hopefully, this clarifies the motivation and thinking behind my "Geometry of Systems" article, ie. three dimensional spherical modeling more closely approximates the "reality" of complex systems than two-dimensional "wiring diagrams" and X/Y axes graphs. I hope this helps rather than obfuscates.

He theorizes that development is more fluid when 2 or more of these areas are in synch with one another. That's an easy assertion, but I like the antithesis of this theory. He says that "Crises and developmental leaps occur when there is asynchronization between or among dimensions" (p.7). This is akin to the literature on spiritual transformation in individuals which points to crises or upheaval as an opportunity for a fundamental shift in one's paradigm. Of course, Riegel is pointing out the obvious and maybe missing the importance of the variety of contexts that the above levels are impacted by (I should read more Brofenbrenner and Hanson for more on that). Yet, something about this idea of these levels being asynchronized seems tolerable with dialectics. That is, a dialectical approach would hold the truths of all of these levels in tension, even when--and especially when--they seem contradictory.

Again, now, the challenge will be what this looks like in a model.

Eh?

JIM'S COMMENTS

See my earlier comments about Erik Erikson. His widely recognized life cycle development model is firmly rooted in dialectics, and he notes that developmental "crises" are necessary and inevitable (he defines "crisis" as "a turning poing in development, one way or the other,"). And each of his "stages" is a life cycle balance, e.g. "trust vs. mistrust," "autonomy vs. shame/doubt," etc. In my view, Erikson's developmental scheme is one of the most comprehensive yet detailed systemic models ever devised (based, interestingly enough, on the work of Freud). It has both theoretical elegance and practical utility.

Initially I thought I would point out some of the emotional legacies of the detached parenting styles, but then I realized I would be dismissing an important element--the overall system. It may be that the generations that emerged from the '40-50's were adaptive in spite of the misconceptions of medicine, but it may be that there were some practicies instituted that carried unforeseen benefits. I realized then that it would be easy to duck the system-at-large and argue from the details of a cause/effect viewpoint. Starting with a Wholes approach means opening up room for the consideration that both virtues and dilemmas emerged from the 40-50's approach. To prove my point, it is tempting to discount that which I want to discount, but it would mean I sacrifice a systems understanding.

It's easier to talk systems than to think with it!

JIM'S COMMENTS

Erik Erikson did some of his most creative work during the 1940s and 1950s, including writing a good deal about how the developmental processes of childhood underlie eventual "virtues" in adulthood. He was able to do this, I believe, because he was dialectical in his approach--thereby avoiding some of the pitfalls of the early attachment literature (particularly Bowlby, who was writing around the same time period). Erikson refers to children biogenetically scripted to respond to an "average expectable environment" (a term originally coined by Heinz Hartmann). When environmental conditions become extreme--in any direction--developmental challenges result. Today, there is widespread agreement that healthy attachments form when "good enough parenting" takes place. The inherent dialectic of this is sometimes missed when we focus on the problems of parental "neglect," which are indeed problems. But "too much" parenting can be as damaging as too little. Can you see how well this fits with the dialectical notion of differentiation, ie. a balance between autonomy and connection? In my own work over the past few decades, I have pointed out that no one will ever write THE definitive book on childrearing (even though some very good ones have been published). To do so, we would first have to have complete certainty that we had discovered exactly what we wanted to produce in an adult--and all agreed to it. This would, in turn, sabotage both the biogenetic and sociogenetic requirements for diversity that are required for survival.

One thing I found surprising is that the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere is comprised of chemicals that should react in a volatile manner, creating a state of disequilibrium. However, conditions on Earth have stayed favorable for life for 3.5 billion years without let up, (this is derived from the record of sedimentary rock). The so-called "ice-ages" (a hyperbolic term, apparently) only occured above north of the 45 degree North latitude and below the 45 degree South latitude. 70% of the remaining surface was mostly unaffected by these freezings. So, something about the Earth functions "like" a living organism to bring equilibrium; this implies design and Lovelock points to the Earth itself for answers.

I found a nice summary online of Lovelock's three points in this book:

"The 3 major principles he brings to light about Gaia are:
1. Gaia exhibits a tendency to keep conditions (e.g., temperature, air quality) constant for all terrestrial life.
2. Like other living systems, Gaia has vital organs at the core, and expandable or redundant ones on the periphery.
3. Under the worse conditions, Gaia responses similar to other cybernetic systems (i.e., where time constant and loop gain are important)"

A major implication of Lovelock's work is the interrelationality of all living things. Ecologically speaking, even so called "dead" things are interrelated with "live" things. We don't consider a redwood a mostly dead thing, and yet it is composed of mostly dead things. Similarly, humans in their environments are surrounded by things that seem unrelated or dead (at least in connection), but they should be considered according to Lovelock.

Whether we agree or disagree with Lovelock's conclusions, his method should inspire the way we create models. He asked expansively curious questions. Questions that would seem to resist even a sensical begninning point.

It seems that I should be gleaning more implications if Lovelock's theory has merit, that the Earth is a living organism. What else should I be considering?

JIM'S RESPONSE

Here's something to consider: That God IS the universe, i.e., Being-Itself (Tilllich), not a guy with a beard sitting around someplace a long way off waiting for us to show up there. You've got it right when you note that the questions raised by Lovelock resist a rational, sensible beginning point; they also resist a final answer ("I am that I am--the Beginning and the End"). Lovelock is doing post-modern science in relation to the age-old questions of life and reality.

JIM'S ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

One of the most significant learnings about ecology for me occurred a number of year ago when I attended a conference on epistemology at which Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana, Heinz von Forester, and others presented. I will always remember a presentation by a geologist (whose name I don't recall), during which he held up a large rack of test tubes in a darkened auditorium, and showed the audience all the colors of the rainbow in the light passing through them. He explained that these were layers of sedimentary rock obtained by taking core samples from the area of the Painted Desert in Utah. The colors were created by a broad spectrum of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, which over eons of time had found a way to co-exist in the same space by utilizing the atmospheric resources available. The concept of Gaia has been real (and concrete) to me ever since.

One issue that Dell tackles in comparing the worldview of Hopi Indians with that of white western family therapists is that of language. Dell reacts to Benjamin Worf’s linguistic relativism; namely, that what we think about reality is limited or enhanced by our linguistics. The wider the linguistic options, the more options of thought we have (hence, a prominent therapeutic technique is to expand a family’s conceptualization of its problem into something that promotes adaptation or choices). He goes on to show how grammar “is inherently metaphysical” because it determines how reality is delineated. For a westerner, grammar is divided between subjects and predicates (p. 124). The Hopi Indian “has a relational grammar that describes the world in terms of process” (p. 124).

One way this would impact a model of family life is to challenge notions that a model should avoid a sense of the past or future of a family’s trajectory. It seems that many couples interpret PREPARE / ENRICH with little sense of the transitions that a couple will experience pre and post-marriage and pre/post-children. A model that would encompass past and anticipated changes would benefit from considering key events, not to mention other significant OR mundance events that would impact the relationship. Plus, events don’t just fit neatly into cause and effect phenomena, there is a circularity of effects working at multiple levels: intrapsychically, familially, societally, politically, environmentally, etc. Dell calls this the “interactional context” of an event (p. 126).

Dell repeats Aristotle question of what the essential qualities are that give rise to change. Is it the essential qualities of an object that determines its behavior? Or is there a sense that objects are more of processes always in a state of becoming? So, reality is a tight knit stream of past-present-future out of which processes emerge. So, an alcoholic father could be viewed as somehow internally broken and that determines his drunkenness or he could be seen as an agent moving between the forces of past-present-future, exhibiting both self-determination and reaction to sequences of events, with the possibility of new behaviors or identities allowed to emerge within his context. The Hopi would view the alcoholic as a series of processes rather than an object within a process, which follows their space-time conceptualization. This doesn't make sense in western space and time delineations, because a spatial object can be pulled out of time/space and examined/defined. The Hopi cannot divorce these, so an individual is understood as a process. The Hopi perform dances with intensity and repetition; it is their belief that this activity--performed in the present--will store up "invisible change that holds into later events" (Dell quote Carroll, 1956, p. 151).

I wonder if a family model that had a units of analysis that encompassed dyads rather than individuals would be helpful? I don't want to lose the ontology of individuality, but I want to broaden an atomistic worldview to include individuals-as-distinct-processes within relational contexts. So, how would I know an individual-as-process if I experienced one? I would become part of the process, as the researcher or therapist, no doubt, but how would I define them as a unit of analysis? The very idea of a unit is a atomistic, isn't it? Ok, enough questioning on this topic...this article raises some good clarifying questions.

JIM'S COMMENT

You already know a table-as-process, a chair-as-process, a wife-as-process....so why is knowing a client family-as-process any different?

JIM'S ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

For more on "thing-ification," see Bandler & Grinder on Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). Also, the work of psychologist Eugene Gendlin, particularly Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning. A background in process philosophy/theology, e.g., A.N. Whitehead, Henry Nelson Weiman, Teilhard de Chardin, is helpful for a really thorough understanding of the assumptions lying behind this kind of thought. Also, it's important to keep the basic principle of GST firmly in mind: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, the ongoing transformational processes of all systems (from physical to biological to informational to linguistic) are always "adding up to something more," ie., the emergent properties of systems that are so central to ecological and evolutionary frameworks.

Social theories

Conflict theory
• Assumes human goodness & that economics drive society
• Based on Heglian dialectic, i.e. a struggle between opposite forces—the haves and the have-nots
• Based on view of macro systems, e.g. social structures
• Goal is to raise collective consciousness through awareness of historical analysis

Consensus theory
• Assumes human greed
• Social structures arise to contain “insatiable human desires”
• Parts of system help maintain homeostasis
• Competition dictates which person/skills get the more or less advanced parts
• Consensus about organization of the whole, although conflict occurs in areas of minor deviations within whole

Symbolic Interactionism
• Assumes humans are creative & able to reflect on their behavior
• Humans share meanings (symbols) about what is important, e.g. language
• Focus on micro level
• Subjective meanings of the self determine self-purpose, membership in groups, etc.

The micro/macro debate
• Debate between micro vs. macro OR interpersonal, subjective, personal vs. societal, objective, abstract.
• Assumes that either micro or macro has greater causal influence
• Assumes a linear causality and, therefore, blame
• Research--What is the unit of analysis? Raises the aggregate vs. context issue…this is maybe more salient than objectivity vs. subjectivity
o Aggregate—the societal or general social property is analyzed; data from individuals and generalized for whole
o Context—the particular and subjective are analyzed; data of majority response is contrasted with the largest proportion of a unified response.
Implications for building a research model:
• Aggregation to the universal may bias the most frequent response even though it’s not the majority response
• Even when the focus is on the majority, it may miss the subjective views of particular groups
The issue of [focusing on the particular context vs. proposing a generalization via aggregation] shows one way that “we move from the theoretical to the practical and what is means in terms of interpreting results.”
• Does the average represent the particular?
• Does the perceived statistical predominance represent consensus, or a lowest common denominator, or the views of the most powerful?

Theories of Individual Behavior:

Behaviorism:
• Humans and animals share similar characteristics
• Humans can be reduced to utilization of artifacts through series of behavioral rewards/punishments
• Based on logical positivism & nomotheism (deriving universal properties based on the observation of individuals & then aggregating these data into average properties).
o So, you can generalize from individual to general & from animal to human

Psychoanalysis:
• Assumes human subconsciousness (id, ego, superego)
• Goal is to dig into unconsciousness and release pent up frustrations
• Based on logical positivism—focuses on objectivity of the analyst although the response is to the subjective meanings of the human subject

These theories require you to accept their underlying assumptions. Because each approach is belief-based (beliefs form the foundation of the theory), it cannot be reduced beyond the basic assumptions. Any contrasting assumption must be rejected. This is how the classic debates proceed. However, starting with the whole first has promise to formulate a different process.

General systems is really an approach, not a theory. The beginning point of the approach is not the basic assumption, it is the “point of departure, nonsummativity, which states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” When you start with a Whole, it is not just an adding up of all the individual variables, it is literally a different animal.
There are two ways to view the current war in Iraq, as an illustration. One is that the war had a beginning and an end..."mission accomplished." This linear, short-term view only needs to look at a beginning and end point in order to determine whether the goals/outcomes were achieved. The war is a containable thing. In contrast, a view of nonsummativity would gather all variables and look at them as a Whole. From the preparations for war (impact on American economy/conscience) to the dovetailing effects of a regime change in Iraq upon the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the whole (precedents, ideologies, societal trends, etc.). Hanson puts it nicely, "a wholes approach means seeing not just the initial effects but how these effects are reacted to, how the process amplifies and mutates from the original" (p. 12).

So, here's my question. If we start with the Whole, do we end up with a thousand parts/pieces?

JIM'S RESPONSE

Yes...maybe more.

If you begin with the BIG PICTURE, you can make sense of an infinite number of small details. To put it epistemologically, the systemic/ecological approach necessarily requires model-building; it is not possible to communicate in "pure" systems terms, other than mathematically (which is also modeling, but at a very general level). All of the theories you have summarized above are models examining certain aspects of reality (and of necessity neglecting others, even though we know they are "there"). Modeling permits selecting a certain number of parts/pieces from an infinite number and focusing on them for the purpose of "simplifying" for understanding. As Weinberg puts it, models allow us to talk about something we are trying to understand in terms that we think we already do understand.