Targeting

[slapout9]

Hi Slap,

I suspect one of the problems is that when many people think of systems they use mechanical analogies. Systems theory, at least in its original form, was based on biological, not mechanical, analogies. At the same time, the original formulations of it (forget F.W. Taylor, he's a twit who doesn't count) implicitly include some form of evolutionary theory (through time) as well as process theory (at a spot in time). Shifting to a mechanistic analog, for which Taylor deserves to be reincarnated as a dung beetle, destroys the change over time component (evolution) and devalues the usefulness of the model to a large degree.

Hi Marct, I am not surprised you noticed that... being a Anthro Man and all The first book I think that became known to the General Population in th 60's was the one by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy's (General Systems Theory) who was a biologist if I remember correctly who was trying to make that exact point. Open systems are living systems and closed systems are usually mechanical. Living systems adapt and quickly if they are going to survive, closed ones don't until a living system acts to change it.
Somehow over time people have forgotten that systems theory started with living/biological systems....except our enemy hasn't forgotten and they seem to understand it very well.

[marct]

Hi Slap,

Hi Marct, I am not surprised you noticed that... being a Anthro Man and all The first book I think that became known to the General Population in th 60's was the one by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy's (General Systems Theory) who was a biologist if I remember correctly who was trying to make that exact point.

From the back cover of General Systems theory (1968):

Ludwig von Bertalanffy, recognized throughout the world as a pioneer in promoting the organismic view in biology and the role of symbol-making in the interpretation of human experience, is also acknowledged as a founder of General Systems Theory

Exactly. He was also drawing on earlier work (1957) by Alfred J. Lotka - Elements of Mathematical Biology - a great text that I find myself going back to fairly often.

Open systems are living systems and closed systems are usually mechanical. Living systems adapt and quickly if they are going to survive, closed ones don't until a living system acts to change it.

They other thing that most people forget is that "open" and "closed" and labels of convenience that really refer to the boundary conditions of the system. All boundary conditions are "fuzzy" in reality and this tends to be forgotten (one of the key observations from Chaos Theory).

Somehow over time people have forgotten that systems theory started with living/biological systems....except our enemy hasn't forgotten and they seem to understand it very well.

Sure they do - they are culturally predisposed to think of reality as a biological system rather than a mechanistic system . Personally, I blame Descartes for our mechanistic views; then again, I never really liked that guy .

[slapout9]

They other thing that most people forget is that "open" and "closed" and labels of convenience that really refer to the boundary conditions of the system. All boundary conditions are "fuzzy" in reality and this tends to be forgotten (one of the key observations from Chaos Theory).

I almost brought this up yesterday. Systems are evrything inside and evrything outside with the material that seperates them, and that material can be nothing more than a mental idea or a personal beleif System


Sure they do - they are culturally predisposed to think of reality as a biological system rather than a mechanistic system . Personally, I blame Descartes for our mechanistic views; then again, I never really liked that guy .

I agree, Descartes had to ride the little short yellow bus to school had to break everything down for him to learn it.

[wm]

I agree, Descartes had to ride the little short yellow bus to school had to break everything down for him to learn it.

That's what a Jesuit education does to you.

Actually, I think that Descartes was a very strong systems thinker. His problem was just that his systems needed a deus ex machina to make them all work. He never could get past the dualism and adequately explain how that mind-body interaction thing (a system of systems as the buzz phrase goes these days) really worked. Maybe its a genetic disposition in the French--look at how badly they botch their COIN opportunities.

[marct]

Maybe its a genetic disposition in the French--look at how badly they botch their COIN opportunities.

I will not mention Foucault, Derrida or Bourbaki - nope, I will just sit here and hold my tongue. Yup, oh c%!p......

Ever since the northern French played Attila on the Southern French, they have been trying to impress everyone and only showing the truth of PT Barnum's famous dictum .

[slapout9]

I have several of these human system maps that I was going to post later on but since we are well into this I will put them up now. You will have to scroll down several pages to see the map but it is pretty interesting. Also there are psychological/psychiatric methods based upon systems theory. Would be interesting to see how they would map a family from another cultural.

http://home.earthlink.net/~mattaini/Ecosystems.html

[slapout9]

The Crony Attack Strategic Attacks Silver Bullet


http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/...rt/Tolbert.pdf


Read this carefully before the flamethrower attacks..there is some really good stuff in here...if you read it with an open mind and realize all this could be done by the Army/Marines as well as the Air Force...except land forces have the option to capture an objective.... something Air Forces can not do.