Teoria General De Sistemas

General Systems Theory:
A Knowledge Domain in Engineering Systems
Fleming Ray
October 25, 2000
ESD.83 Research Seminar in Engineering Systems

1. Introduction
General Systems Theory (GST) arose out of several disciplines, including biology,
mathematics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As the discipline has emerged, its goal
has changed. Von Bertalanffy began thinking about GST inthe 1930s, but did not
articulate his vision until 1954 at the AAAS conference. Originally, his goal was to get
biologically minded scientists to consider their work from a holistic perspective. As his
thoughts evolved, the goal became to construct a mechanism for reducing duplication of
theoretical effort in the sciences. It was proposed that GST could serve as a unifying
theoretical constructfor all of the sciences. To this end, mathematicians and
philosophers became engaged in creating a rigorous theory. This paper traces the
evolution of GST, including its institutional history, and its current areas of use.

2. Definition
General Systems Theory arose out of the efforts of researchers who were searching for
homologies between work in the biological, physical, and socialsciences. Different
definitions of GST have propagated, depending upon the background and focus of the
researcher. According to Klir [1972], "General Systems Theory in the broadest sense

refers to a collection of general concepts, principles, tools, problems, methods, and
techniques associated with systems." In this case, a system is "an arrangement of certain
components so interrelated as toform a whole." This systems approach arose in contrast
to the Newtonian method of separating an object into its component parts and trying to
understand the behavior of the object by understanding the properties of the individual
parts while ignoring their interactions. A related definition is given by Miller [1978],
"General systems theory is a set of related definitions, assumptions, andpropositions
which deal with reality as an integrated hierarchy of organizations of matter and energy."
The mathematics of General Systems Theory is based largely upon set theory.
Using these tools, formal system components and their relationships can be defined.
Basic concepts are introduced axiomatically, and the system's properties and behavior
can be investigated in a precise manner. GeneralSystems Theory is particularly
applicable to systems with goal seeking behavior; biological and social systems are the
primary domains of such goal seeking behavior. Although precise, the model of the
system often has to be simplified to high level of abstraction to make the computations
tractable.

3. Institutional History and Development of GST
General Systems Theory, along with otheraccompanying theories of systems
such as cybernetics and control theory, came to prominence after World War II. There
are multiple reasons for such concurrent emergence; important contributing factors
included the creation of new systems tools, the presence of important work by multiple
investigators in cybernetics, control theory, information theory and General Systems
Theory, and the presenceof computational capacity.

General Systems Theory arose in the 1950s when other mathematically oriented
systems techniques were also popular. Von Bertalanffy began thinking of General
Systems Theory in the 1930s, but due to the unfavorable intellectual climate, did not air
his ideas until much later [von Bertalanffy, 1968]. In 1954, Boulding, an economist,
Rapoport, a biomathematician,Gerard, a physiologist, and von Bertalanffy, a biologist,
founded the Society for General Systems Theory at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Later, the organization changed
its name to the Society for General Systems Research. The journal General Systems was
launched at the same time to serve as the organ for the society.
The purpose of the...