"Now a system is said to be at equilibrium when it has no further tendency to change its properties." (Walter J Moore, "Physical chemistry", 1950)
"Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought." (Albert Einstein, "Out of My Later Years", 1950)
"Scientific discovery consists in the interpretation for our own convenience of a system of existence which has been made with no eye to our convenience at all." (Norbert Wiener, "Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society", 1950)
"[…] the characteristic tendency of entropy is to increase. As entropy increases, the universe, and all closed systems in the universe, tend naturally to deteriorate and lose their distinctiveness, to move from the least to the most probable state, from a state of organization and differentiation in which distinctions and forms exist, to a state of chaos and sameness." (Norbert Wiener, "The Human Use of Human Beings", 1950)
"Historically, Statistics is no more than State Arithmetic, a system of computation by which differences between individuals are eliminated by the taking of an average. It has been used - indeed, still is used - to enable rulers to know just how far they may safely go in picking the pockets of their subjects." (Michael J Moroney, "In Facts from Figures", 1951)
"In mathematics […] we find two tendencies present. On the one hand, the tendency towards abstraction seeks to crystallise the logical relations inherent in the maze of materials [….] being studied, and to correlate the material in a systematic and orderly manner. On the other hand, the tendency towards intuitive understanding fosters a more immediate grasp of the objects one studies, a live rapport with them, so to speak, which stresses the concrete meaning of their relations." (David Hilbert, "Geometry and the imagination", 1952)
"Life is a potentially self-perpetuating open system of linked organic reactions, catalyzed stepwise and almost isothermally by complex and specific organic catalysts which are themselves produced by the system." (J Perrett, "Biochemistry and Bacteria", New Biology Vol. 12, 1952)
"Our acceptance of an ontology is, I think, similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory, say a system of physics; we adopt, at least insofar as we are reasonable, the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged." (Willard v. O. Quine, "From a Logical Point of View", 1953)
"Prediction is all very well; but we must make sense of what we predict. The mainspring of science is the conviction that by honest, imaginative enquiry we can build up a system of ideas about Nature which has some legitimate claim to ‘reality’." (Stephen Toulmin, "The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction", 1953)
"We are driven to conclude that science, like mathematics, is a system of axioms, assumptions, and deductions; it may start from being, but later leaves it to itself, and ends in the formation of a hypothetical reality that has nothing to do with existence; or it is the discovery of an ideal being which is, of course, present in what we call actuality, and renders it an existence for us only by being present in it." (Poolla T Raju, "Idealistic Thought of India", 1953)
"We cannot define truth in science until we move from fact to law. And within the body of laws in turn, what impresses us as truth is the orderly coherence of the pieces. They fit together like the characters of a great novel, or like the words of a poem. Indeed, we should keep that last analogy by us always, for science is a language, and like a language it defines its parts by the way they make up a meaning. Every word in a sentence has some uncertainty of definition, and yet the sentence defines its own meaning and that of its words conclusively. It is the internal unity and coherence of science which gives it truth, and which makes it a better system of prediction than any less orderly language." (Jacob Bronowski, "The Common Sense of Science", 1953)
"We have thus assigned to pure reason and experience their places in a theoretical system of physics. The structure of the system is the work of reason: the empirical contents and their mutual relations must find their representation in the conclusions of the theory. In the possibility of such a representation lie the sole value and justification of the whole system, and especially of the concepts and fundamental principles which underlie it. Apart from that, these latter are free inventions of human intellect, which cannot be justified either by the nature of that intellect or in any other fashion a priori." (Albert Einstein, "Ideas and Opinions", 1954)
"A system is any portion of the universe set aside for certain specified purposes. For our concern, a system is set aside from the universe in a manner that will enable this system to be built without having to consider the total universe. Therefore, the system is set aside from the universe by its inputs and outputs - its boundaries. The system may be said to be in operation when its inputs are being transformed into the required outputs. (Incidently, we are not here concerned with completely closed systems.) The systems that do concern us all have a number of components within their boundaries which together effect the transformation of the inputs to the required outputs." (Kay Inaba et al, "A rational method for applying behavioral technology to man-machine system design", 1956)
"Every part of the system is so related to every other part that any change in one aspect results in dynamic changes in all other parts of the total system." (Arthur D Hall & Robert E Fagen, "Definition of System", General Systems Vol. 1, 1956)
"For understanding the general principles of dynamic systems, therefore, the concept of feedback is inadequate in itself. What is important is that complex systems, richly cross-connected internally, have complex behaviours, and that these behaviours can be goal-seeking in complex patterns." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"One advantage of exhibiting a hierarchy of systems in this way is that it gives us some idea of the present gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Adequate theoretical models extend up to about the fourth level, and not much beyond. Empirical knowledge is deficient at practically all levels." (Kenneth E Boulding, "General Systems Theory: The Skeleton of Science", 1956)
"The forms of a person’s thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of pattern of which he is unconscious. These patterns are the unperceived intricate systematizations of his own language - shown readily enough by a candid comparison and contrast with other languages, especially those of a different linguistic family." (Benjamin L Whorf, 1956)
"The forms of a person’s thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of pattern of which he is unconscious. These patterns are the unperceived intricate systematizations of his own language - shown readily enough by a candid comparison and contrast with other languages, especially those of a different linguistic family." (Benjamin L Whorf, 1956)
"This 'statistical' method of specifying a system - by specification of distributions with sampling methods - should not be thought of as essentially different from other methods. It includes the case of the system that is exactly specified, for the exact specification is simply one in which each distribution has shrunk till its scatter is zero, and in which, therefore, 'sampling' leads to one inevitable result. What is new about the statistical system is that the specification allows a number of machines, not identical, to qualify for inclusion. The statistical 'machine' should therefore be thought of as a set of machines rather than as one machine." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. […] We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or can in some way be calibrated." (Benjamin L Whorf, 1956)
"Life pushes its way through this fatalistically determined world like a river flowing upstream. It is a system of utterly improbable order, a message in a world of noise." (Joseph H Rush, "The Dawn of Life", 1957)
"One of the most basic principles of biology is organization, which means that two things put together in a specific way form a new unit, a system, the properties of which are not additive and cannot be described in terms of the properties of the constituents. As points may be connected to letters, letters to words, words to sentences, etc., so atoms can join to molecules, molecules to organelles, organelles to cells, etc., every level of organization having a new meaning of its own and offering exciting vistas and possibilities." (Albert Szent-Györgyi, "Bioenergetics", 1957)
"We can never achieve absolute truth but we can live hopefully by a system of calculated probabilities. The law of probability gives to natural and human sciences - to human experience as a whole - the unity of life we seek." (Agnes E Meyer, "Education for a New Morality", 1957)
"A system is primarily a living system, and the process which defines it is the maintenance of an organization which we know as life." (Ralph W Gerard, "Units and Concepts of Biology", 1958)
"Above all, we see from these formulations how difficult it is when we try to push new ideas into an old system of concepts belonging to an earlier philosophy, or, to use an old metaphor, when we attempt to put new wine into old bottles. Such attempts are always distressing, for they mislead us into continually occupying with the inevitable cracks in the old bottles, instead of rejoicing over the new wine." (Werner K Heisenberg, "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science", 1958)
"Modern mathematics can be kept alive only by a large number of mathematicians cultivating different parts of the same system of values: a community which can be kept coherent only by the passionate vigilance of universities, journals and meetings, fostering these values and imposing the same respect for them on all mathematicians." (Michael Polanyi, "Personal Knowledge", 1958)
"We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. […] We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or can in some way be calibrated." (Benjamin L Whorf, 1956)
"Life pushes its way through this fatalistically determined world like a river flowing upstream. It is a system of utterly improbable order, a message in a world of noise." (Joseph H Rush, "The Dawn of Life", 1957)
"One of the most basic principles of biology is organization, which means that two things put together in a specific way form a new unit, a system, the properties of which are not additive and cannot be described in terms of the properties of the constituents. As points may be connected to letters, letters to words, words to sentences, etc., so atoms can join to molecules, molecules to organelles, organelles to cells, etc., every level of organization having a new meaning of its own and offering exciting vistas and possibilities." (Albert Szent-Györgyi, "Bioenergetics", 1957)
"We can never achieve absolute truth but we can live hopefully by a system of calculated probabilities. The law of probability gives to natural and human sciences - to human experience as a whole - the unity of life we seek." (Agnes E Meyer, "Education for a New Morality", 1957)
"A system is primarily a living system, and the process which defines it is the maintenance of an organization which we know as life." (Ralph W Gerard, "Units and Concepts of Biology", 1958)
"Above all, we see from these formulations how difficult it is when we try to push new ideas into an old system of concepts belonging to an earlier philosophy, or, to use an old metaphor, when we attempt to put new wine into old bottles. Such attempts are always distressing, for they mislead us into continually occupying with the inevitable cracks in the old bottles, instead of rejoicing over the new wine." (Werner K Heisenberg, "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science", 1958)
"Modern mathematics can be kept alive only by a large number of mathematicians cultivating different parts of the same system of values: a community which can be kept coherent only by the passionate vigilance of universities, journals and meetings, fostering these values and imposing the same respect for them on all mathematicians." (Michael Polanyi, "Personal Knowledge", 1958)
"A deterministic system is one in which the parts interact in a perfectly predictable way. There is never any room for doubt: given a last state of the system and the programme of information by defining its dynamic network, it is always possible to predict, without any risk of error, its succeeding state. A probabilistic system, on the other hand, is one about which no precisely detailed prediction can be given. The system may be studied intently, and it may become more and more possible to say what it is likely to do in any given circumstances. But the system simply is not predetermined, and a prediction affecting it can never escape from the logical limitations of the probabilities in which terms alone its behaviour can be described." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"But in addition to what we decide to do by way of transformation, there are certain tendencies in the way systems behave of their own volition when left to their own devices. The convenient analogy for one of these processes is found in the second law of thermodynamics: an 'ordering' process goes on, for which the name is entropy. This can be explained without technicalities as the tendency of a system to settle down to a uniform distribution of its energy. The dissipation of local pockets of high energy is measured by an increase in entropy, until at maximum entropy all is uniform. According to this model, order is more 'natural' than chaos. This is the reason why it is convenient to discuss cybernetic systems, with their self-regulating tendency to attain stability or orderliness, in terms of entropy - a term which has been taken over to name a key tool of cybernetics." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"Control is an attribute of a system. This word is not used in the way in which either an office manager or a gambler might use it; it is used as a name for connectiveness. That is, anything that consists of parts connected together will be called a system." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"In fact, it is empirically ascertainable that every event is actually produced by a number of factors, or is at least accompanied by numerous other events that are somehow connected with it, so that the singling out involved in the picture of the causal chain is an extreme abstraction. Just as ideal objects cannot be isolated from their proper context, material existents exhibit multiple interconnections; therefore the universe is not a heap of things but a system of interacting systems." (Mario Bunge, "Causality: The place of the casual principles in modern science", 1959)
"It will be useful if we base the arbitrary classification of systems on two distinct criteria. One obviously valuable criterion is that of the system's complexity. Adopting this criterion, it will be possible to discuss systems according to a three-fold scheme. The least complex with which we shall be concerned may be called: simple but dynamic. A system which is not simple, but which has become highly elaborate and is richly interconnected, will be called: complex but describable. Thirdly, we may discuss systems which have be- come so complicated that, while they may still be designated as complex, they cannot be described in a precise and detailed fashion. Such systems will be called: exceedingly complex." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"The Systems Engineering method recognizes each system is an integrated whole even though composed of devices, specialized structures and sub-functions. It is further recognized that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between them may differ widely from system to system. The methods seek to optimize the overall system function according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum capability of its parts." (Jack A Morton, "Integrating of Systems Engineering with Component Development", Electrical Manufacturing, 1959)
"There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics. The former is supple and lifelike, it follows our experience. The latter is abstract and rigid, more ideal. The latter is perfectly necessary, perfectly reliable: the former is only sometimes reliable and hardly ever systematic. But the logic of mathematics achieves necessity at the expense of living truth, it is less real than the other, although more certain. It achieves certainty by a flight from the concrete into abstraction." (Thomas Merton, "The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton", 1959)
"The Systems Engineering method recognizes each system is an integrated whole even though composed of devices, specialized structures and sub-functions. It is further recognized that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between them may differ widely from system to system. The methods seek to optimize the overall system function according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum capability of its parts." (Jack A Morton, "Integrating of Systems Engineering with Component Development", Electrical Manufacturing, 1959)
"There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics. The former is supple and lifelike, it follows our experience. The latter is abstract and rigid, more ideal. The latter is perfectly necessary, perfectly reliable: the former is only sometimes reliable and hardly ever systematic. But the logic of mathematics achieves necessity at the expense of living truth, it is less real than the other, although more certain. It achieves certainty by a flight from the concrete into abstraction." (Thomas Merton, "The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton", 1959)
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