Managing Complexity and Change in Human Systems: The Contributions of Living Systems Theory and Social Entropy Theory -- Kenneth Bailey, August 3, 2002

46th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), Shanghai, P.R. China, August 2-6, 2002.

Saturday, August 3, 2002, 2:40 p.m.

This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker's presentation(s) and comments from the audience. These should not be viewed as official transcripts of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. These notes have been contributed by David Ing (daviding@systemicbusiness.org) at the IBM Advanced Business Institute ( http://www.ibm.com/abi ).

Introduction by Mike Jackson

• Change in the program
• Len Troncale cancelled, as a result of

Professor Ken Bailey, professor of sociology, UCLA

• Long time member of ISSS
• Has published on Social Entropy Theory -- application of James Grier Miller's approach.

In the 1800s, society was less complicated.

• However, the sociology books were more complex.
• Herbert Spencer, Pareto used the systems approach.

Now in the 21st century, the society is complex, but the sociology book is not complex.

• Opinion: Only the systems approach is sufficiently complex to study society.

Three parts

• How to study complexity and change in society
• Living Systems Theory, by James Grier Miller
• Social Entropy Theory, his approach

A book, Methods of Social Research, 4th edition, translated into Chinese into 1987.

• Another book, Social Entropy Theory will be discussed.
• Another book, Sociology and a New Systems Theory.

How to study complexity in the whole society.

• What most people do: they specialize, and have a narrow study.
• How do they study complexity? They don't.
  • e.g. study migrationomics or populationomics, but not complexity.
• "I can still study complexity, because I'll take the small study (e.g. migration in Shanghai, migration in Beijing, migration in London), and I will then aggregate them into a complex study".
  • Problem: There's no common basis in sociology to add up these studies together.
• So, if we want to study the whole society, how can we do it?
  • A lot of people think it's too hard.
• In systems science, we have the burden of studying complexity.
  • Specialized models won't work.

Part 2: Living Systems Theory, James Grier Miller

It's good for studying complexity, because it's a very complex approach.

Two basic parts:

• Vertical hierarchy
• Subsystems.

Vertical hierarchy has 8 levels: cell, organ, organism, individual, group / organization, community, society, supranational (more than one nation, e.g. United Nations, since not all of society is in the world system)

Dr. Miller talked about how living systems theory relates to non-living systems (although he didn't write about them).

20 subsystems, all complex.

• First two: reproducer (related to autopoesis) and boundary
  • Most studies don't look at boundaries.
  • Process matter, energy and information.
  • 20 different functions
• Next 8: ingestor, digestor ... excretor, motor, ...
  • When energy comes into the system, then these things move and process it, and make the system work.
  • Without energy, the system won't work (by going into high entropy).
• Last 10 systems process information
  • Input transducer, ... channel, ..., time, decoder, decider ...

Thus, 20 subsystems x 8 levels = 160 different categories that can be used to analyze living systems.

An example of how this works with non-living systems.

• If you look at energy systems, non-living systems also process information in the same way.
• e.g. automobile has mostly used the energy processing subsystems.
  • Last few years, more computers, satellite technology, getting maps.
  • They're processing more information.
  • Thus, the non-living systems in your car are becoming more like living systems.

What about studying change?

• It's also good for studying change.
• e.g. information in an organization -- an e-mail with a document attachment.
  • If you send a document with MS Word attached, then it's easy to invoke the 10 information processing subsystems.
  • Suppose there's a change, and the person sends Wordperfect.
    • Then would need to use a decider.
• Other systems will also handle change.

Third part of talk: Social Entropy Theory

• The 20 subsystems of Miller are all different functions (or jobs) that need to be done in the society, almost every day.
  • Need to bring in energy and process it, bring in information and process it.
  • What Miller doesn't provide is a series of structural varieties to compare different societies, e.g. American society in the 1800s, and today.
  • Thus, propose 6 factors: Population, Information, Technology, Bureaucracy ... Space
• The second part of this model is theoretical, and third part is methodology.
• Second part: Physical entropy versus social entropy.
  • Entropy is controversial: a physics approach that shouldn't be used in sociology? Disagree.
  • e.g. in physics, have a force and distance, defined as work, can construct a low-entropy structure such as a building.
  • Humans can also use energy and information, and build a low-entropy organization, e.g. the modern bureaucracy.
    • Modern bureaucracy is very difficult to destroy, because it has a life of its own.
• Third part of methodology: Cognitive models.
  • In sociology, how do we get social order?
    • If have no entropy, then have order. High entropy == high degree of disorder.
    • Order comes from replicated action, doing the same thing over and over again.
    • If it's predictable, then it's not random.
  • Three levels:
    • Cognitive level, e.g. idea of a house
    • Document level, e.g. drawing of a house
    • Empirical level, e.g. workers to build house.
  • Some people in ISSS study duality theory.
    • Dichotomy isn't enough: need to talk about 3 levels simultaneously.
    • Can see this in Internet.
  • Social order in this conference is due to the program -- a document.

The problem we face in ISSS is that we want to study complex objects, but have to do it in 30 minutes!

• This talk just gave an idea of the approach.