OLD PERCEPTIONS, NEW THINKING

摘要

Bela Antal Banathy’s call for this 1999 meeting of the International Society for thernSystem Sciences brings the sentiments and goals of the General Systems Theory foundersrnback to the forefront again - the universe is a concurrence of many diverse processes - arnsingular and compatible concurrence. So, it is not unreasonable to assume that thatrn“compatibility” may indeed be understood as shared qualities and fundamentalrncharacteristics, which have simply been seen in alternative expressions of form andrnguises prior to now. By examination and careful evaluation it should be possible torndetermine what those shared characteristics, relationships, and mechanisms are.rnThis presentation will be an effort to examine and specifically example what thernchallenge of a search for such truly new ways of thinking entails. We start fromrnpreconditioned biases, forcing ourselves to become aware of those constraints first, andrnthen move on toward generic interpretations of events and processes that we see, markingrnsimilarities and setting criteria standards for how the search should best proceed. Wernbring all our previous knowledge with us, placing it on the observation table, and allow itrnto be dissected as if it were something totally new and unknown. No vested interests, nornseniority, and the obligation to account for divergent perceptions. The old thoughts arernassumed to harbor inherent insights, even as our goal is a new, more complete, and allrnencompassing vision. By determining the shared characteristics of ‘systems’ andrn‘processes’ we can producing a true General Theory.rnThe result can only be as Banathy has phrased it ... we will literally re-vision ourselves ...rnand give humanity the choice of trying new behaviors that re-synchronize values withrncompanion universe that throngs in and around us.