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Sustainable systems promote wholeness-extending transformations: The contributions of systems thinking

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  • Fath, Brian D.

Abstract

This paper reviews and compares systems thinking ideas originating from three individuals in diverse disciplines: American ecologist Bernard Patten, German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and Austrian-born architect Christopher Alexander. From all three, stem ideas promoting the importance of differentiation (boundaries), connectedness, relations, and feedback. The congruence of these ideas formed independently, in different disciplines, on different continents, at roughly the same time speaks to the deep resonance systems concepts have on understanding our world. Consistent as well, is the insight that individual objects emerge from the structural couplings of their physical and social environmental context. These systems concepts are applied here to classify diversity in a holistic and integrated fashion and then extended to inform the question of sustainability. Sustainable systems are ones that are able to maintain coherent self-organization and simultaneously, recursively extend interactions to neighboring coherent wholes.

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  • Fath, Brian D., 2014. "Sustainable systems promote wholeness-extending transformations: The contributions of systems thinking," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 293(C), pages 42-48.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:293:y:2014:i:c:p:42-48
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.01.002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Patten, Bernard C. & Straškraba, Milan & Jørgensen, Sven E., 2011. "Ecosystems emerging. 5: Constraints," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(16), pages 2945-2972.
    2. Fath, Brian D., 2007. "Network mutualism: Positive community-level relations in ecosystems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 208(1), pages 56-67.
    3. Whipple, Stuart J. & Borrett, Stuart R. & Patten, Bernard C. & Gattie, David K. & Schramski, John R. & Bata, Seth A., 2007. "Indirect effects and distributed control in ecosystems: Comparative network environ analysis of a seven-compartment model of nitrogen flow in the Neuse River estuary, USA—Time series analysis," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 1-17.
    4. Bata, Seth A. & Borrett, Stuart R. & Patten, Bernard C. & Whipple, Stuart J. & Schramski, John R. & Gattie, David K., 2007. "Equivalence of throughflow- and storage-based environs," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 206(3), pages 400-406.
    5. Schramski, J.R. & Gattie, D.K. & Patten, B.C. & Borrett, S.R. & Fath, B.D. & Whipple, S.J., 2007. "Indirect effects and distributed control in ecosystems: Distributed control in the environ networks of a seven-compartment model of nitrogen flow in the Neuse River Estuary, USA—Time series analysis," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 18-30.
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    Cited by:

    1. Alexandrov, G.A & Golitsyn, G.S., 2015. "Biological age from the viewpoint of the thermodynamic theory of ecological systems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 313(C), pages 103-108.
    2. Patrick Schroeder & Manisha Anantharaman, 2017. "“Lifestyle Leapfrogging” in Emerging Economies: Enabling Systemic Shifts to Sustainable Consumption," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 3-23, March.
    3. Gatti, Roberto Cazzolla & Hordijk, Wim & Kauffman, Stuart, 2017. "Biodiversity is autocatalytic," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 346(C), pages 70-76.
    4. Lercari, Diego & Defeo, Omar & Ortega, Leonardo & Orlando, Luis & Gianelli, Ignacio & Celentano, Eleonora, 2018. "Long-term structural and functional changes driven by climate variability and fishery regimes in a sandy beach ecosystem," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 368(C), pages 41-51.
    5. Jørgensen, Sven E. & Nielsen, Søren Nors & Fath, Brian D., 2016. "Recent progress in systems ecology," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 319(C), pages 112-118.

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