SYSTEMS THEORY 559 Systems Theory: Synchronicity, Indeterminacy and Doubt DARLA LINDBERG Pennsylvania State University Synchronicity 40 voices have arrived in "Spem in alium," the piece is magical, living well beyond its end The idea of systems presented here will be because we have been introduced to an more like the theme in a canon or fugue. indeterminate "theme," not a song. The Douglas Hofstadter in Godel, Escher, Bach: an fanciful and generative accomplishment of the Eternal Golden Braid describes the musical canon or fugue theme as a system is that it canon as a puzzle game made popular in the uses the countersubject to provide rhythmic, day of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. harmonic and melodic contrasts to the Johann Sebastian Bach wrote ten canons in subject. Unlike a pointlcounterpoint the Musical Offering for King Frederick. The deterministic system to expose difference, the canon lends itself to this kind of canon and the fugue are opportunistic in their systernlpuzzle because the theme is played intent to align similarities. The system as against itself. The canon introduces its single theme is played against itself making diversity theme along with some tricky hints and the into harmonic sustainability. canon theme is to be "discovered" by someone else. A round is a canon. "Three Early work contributing to thinking about Blind Mice" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" systems in this way can be traced to Ludwig are simple canons (Hofstadter, 1999). Canons von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), an important use time (staggered copies) and pitch theoretical biologist researching comparative (harmonic when voices overlap) and physiology, biophysics, cancer, psychology complexity (to invert the original theme below and philosophy of science. Working from a the copy), yet all the information about the humanistic worldview, he developed a kinetic original theme is always recoverable from any theory of stationary open systems (perhaps of the copies. This kind of transformation is like the canon and the fugue) and a holistic called an isomorphism and contributes epistemology keenly critical of the machine significantly to our understanding of metaphor (deterministic if-then statements) similarities in form, structure or for explaining existence. His main goal was to correspondences in identity of systems. unite metabolism, growth, morphogenesis, and sense physiology in his research toward a A more complex musical puzzle is a fugue. methodology of science known as the General The Tallis Scholars directed by Peter Phillips Systems Theory (GTS). Based on observations present "Spem in alium," a 40-voice motet that organic systems progress towards a (Gimell Records, 2001). The telltale sign of steady state, he reasoned that a non- this fugue is the way it begins: a single voice equilibrium state was not only possible but sings the theme. When the first voice is done, that it actually created opportunities for the it continues with a secondary theme while the generative and systemic processes necessary second voice and then the third, the fourth, for adaptation. and so on, until full 40 voices, enter in harmony with some accompaniment of the GTS represents a set of interrelated countersubject in some other voice. You components - could be social, biological, cannot compose a fugue by formula. When all situational - but existing in a complex space- 560 GElTING REAL: DESIGN ETHOS NOW time relation to one another. The important into intelligent and flexible systems of being, point here is not that a relation exists but that complexity thinking is made possible because the structural similarities for expression, of technology. Values characteristic of metabolism and interacting, like the basic and vulnerable ecosystems are framed by the fundamental processes of the human cell, are most comprehensive collection of data making not lost in the transformation from one realm significant biodiversity possible. Recalling the to the next. So, like the Human Genome fugue, complexity thinking finds rhythmic, Project with its long string of simple Ts, As, Cs harmonic and melodic contrast in the and Gs, and like the isomorphism or the informational possibility because of the canon and the fugue, the basic theme is technology made available to us in the voice recoverable from one copy to the next. But if of Modernism and enhanced by multiple we are to learn anything from the HGP, the harmonic voices to follow. isomorphism or the canon and the fugue, we cannot be impressed with how simple things Indeterminacy are but how complex they must become in order to produce life, meaning and beauty. Marcel Proust puzzled over the self- Von Bertalanffy's work with GTS revealed satisfaction felt by "busy men" at not having these similarities exist even more importantly time to do what they needed to do. Poets and between living organisms and social systems. musicians express the spectacular gaps in Institutions, economies, laws and mores understanding created with the unexpected regulate practice and frame values. They can and hurtful behavior of another. Accountants be as destructive to human existence and the and lovers might possibly agree the letter that planet as any hurricane or biological needs to be written holds far more truth and pandemic. Based on these understanding one affection than the letter that gets sent. De can then begin to imagine a similar approach Botton wrote in his delightful How Proust Can to understanding the basic and fundamental Change Your Life, "Afraid of losing her, we processes critical to sustainability and natural forget all the others. Sure of keeping her, we systems design. Taking cues from the fugue, compare her with those others whom at once which aligns data thematically, this is made we prefer to her." (de Botton, 1997). possible with technology. Complexity thinking Similarly, Adam Smith set out to be a moralist depends on vast amounts of information made but became an economist instead (Levitt and physically possible because of the advances Dubner, 2005). Upon seeing how economic available to us through search and knowledge factors shaped the way a person thought or aggregation technologies that allow co- behaved it became apparent the incentives, evolutionary feedback, evolving probability, the innocuous choice, and the friction between asset mapping, parallel processing and individual desire and societal norms were the indeterminacy in the study of true complexity. more significant stuff of the modern moral life. In nature and society, systems of probability Ironically, in the early 1950s, when von and indeterminacy are realistic. Many of life's Bertalanffy shifted his research from the most compelling puzzles are indeterminate, biological sciences to his seminal work on the riddled with approximation, probability and General Systems Theory, computers had chance. Stochastic systems become even already sparked our imaginations, and we more realistic as they apply chance to the believed that mechanized intelligence was just structure of probability. Entries can be added, around the corner. A seeming paradox then changed or removed in a stochastic system becomes simply synchronicity. Computers are creating mutations. A Markov Chain is a by their very nature the epitome of rational stochastic system, a transition or thought - far from the borderless transformation table made up of a matrix of characteristic of intelligent behavior and probability. While it takes longer for a complexity thinking. Yet, logic is simply condition of probability to achieve equilibrium systems that factor in change or create rules and even a final result of stability is uncertain, for inventing new rules. So it is possible to over time the behavior of the system can be imagine the computer and technology as a analyzed and predicted statistically (e.g., a critical and interacting part of a paradigm shift coin toss has a 50°/o probability of being heads essential to von Bertalanffy's work. Equipped and a 5O0/0 chance of being tails). Marchov to manage enough information, with rules Chains are a significant part of Game about turning inflexible systems of thought Theoretic analysis to consider choice and SYSTEMS THEORY 561 consequence. Metamorphosis is a stochastic irrelevant to the engineering problem. The mutation over time and influence. Larger significant aspect is that the actual systems increase variety and with it message is one selected from a set of probability. World economies, natural possible messages. The system must be resources, population dynamics, disease designed to operate for each possible spread and ecological relationships are selection, not just the one which will complicated and intricate legacies of the "what actually be chosen since this is unknown if?" of probability and chance. De Certeau's at the time of design." (Shannon, 1948) observation that "The imaginary landscape of an inquiry is not without value, even if it is This was possible as a logarithmic function. without rigor...( I)t thus keeps before our eyes Time, bandwidth and number of relays tend to the structure of a social imagination in which vary logarithmically, doubling or squaring the the problem constantly takes different forms possible messages with each addition. and begins anew" (de Certeau, 1988). For Likewise, the logarithm measures by linear example a deeper look at the root causes of comparison with common standards - loglo or world hunger reveal a different problem - that x2. So, a base 2 gives us resulting units called of access to land and economical farming binary digits, or bits. If the base of 10 is used, practices. And researchers show a high the resulting units may be called decimal probability that the same industrial practices digits. Work like Shannon's contributed to the that force tens of millions of farmers off the notion that systems consist of vast amounts land by growing primarily high-profit exports of interrelated parts; engineering that also creates a production model for crop problem means operating in terms that can be acreage that contributes to a loss of scalable and random.