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Modelling and mastering of technical, economical and social systems
Book Reviews I'lea~ s~nd ~+ok+ ior r~vl~ to C i{ t'dam++n,< [~hndhoven Llntversity ol "fechnolt~y. P(; B~x 513, ShOOMB t Indh,wen, 'l'~e Netherlands
. ':a/~";.r,.a, ca|~,.d+':c to "h~reca,;t..wll. ip.+te, pi,~je~t
. UlOlllatlt~.', tua!Tltaln, suP.e~,-, l e a d . e~,Pn op',l~nlse S)'~,tetns arlt."1 nlOle generally orleetat : their e ' , o h ] t i o l l " :
and not to forget that 13 invited speaker~,, a:qongst whom. a ph.vaco-che hist. a biophysician, a routephysiologist, an ardutect..¢,evera! economists, etc., have treated pure5 theoretical sul+i.cts! M e covet. the congress tt~lf, with ntore than 4Lk"mparlwtpants, took place Ill an 3tnlosphete of coll~uMOrl and e~en aroused qLllte tmttsu3] echoes tr, the prt ;s. to st,oh an extent thai the headlines read in daily or weekly, newspapers covering a wide number of reade's, announced :hat "'five ht.ndred philo:;ophers and ~'lentists h~ve me: to have a toffee,ion about , the systemb.'" 2 and put "'the carted'an way t~f tt'tthkln~
AFCET: M o d d i s a t i o n et MaRrise des S y s t e m e s Techniques, E c o n o m i q u e s e! S o c i a u s {Mc,delling and Mastering of Tcchmcal. Fconornical
and Social Systems} Editions Hommes el Techniques, St, resnes, France. 2 volumes, bOO and e,.q0 pages in the two volumes of this work are gathered the acts of the Congress, orgam~d by the French Association for Economical and Technical Cybemencs (AFCET). m Versailles frol~ the 21 st to the 24th November IO77. They include the text of the I I I contmunications that were ~elected atnongst tit+.' 250 pro tx+s,ed to the program committee, and also a preface, a foreword and annexes providing the theme~ of the workshops and forums that were held in parallel with the sessions. Of various lengths (the longest one being 33 pages and the smallest only 3L these paper,s can be classified into three groups t. Theoretical communications (47 i.e, 42%I. semi.prachcal (41 i.e. 37%} and prachcal ~2:~ i.e. 21%}. This unusual abundance of theoD-oriented papers i>. no doubt, due to the fact that the call for comntunications made an explicit reference to n,stcn~s
l n | o accl.lgdllon '' .I
It IS Inlp,O~Mh]¢ n o t tc, I,ike i n l o a~..-fout'l| l~ILs alnlosphete u, hetl, at | h a t tittle ~n the very ,ooTn. one could ha~e cot:tied harJl.v more than one {professional) philosopher an ~ a dozen scientists, and when none of them h.,'.e even ever p onounced the name of Descartes +. Therefore the a l a c k came from e l f where and one reall " ~onders ,,'here it could be fi'om. When. tn the world :veryone i. irl favour of'systems . "~ : the col.rsdlors of~he U+S. president and analysis" also of Mr. L Brejnev. general secretary of the soviet P.C. who quoted it m his report w the \ X l V t h Copgress (1071 }: when i;1 France. in pamcu]ar, Mr, Gi~'ard dTs*aing is fa~ ourable to its emDo~ meat, being a former 'us.'r" at the head ot the Mmk;l~ of Fin,Incl,, a n d a h t ' l ] MI. J. A L l a h , ¢c,'.tle.tl|~.a[ 4OUlt.
~cllo/ ol Mt Mlttcland, .,,hov, -, hlm,.'lf ',veii dtst'~sed tcwatd', its practice, one reaD, ~vond~rs about the g~ound.~ mot~valtng thss unexpected ca%l: was it It, eras+ tb,e re.tsontn~ method o( t',te "Fr race des lumt&es", to tile benefit ,q an eclecnc choice of ,d,ead), ,qd 91ologtcal theories, recently e'c.+Hed m the L'.SA. ,as also apt hcal'tc to soc~at >~s:~ n>'7 Aiso. ~,ho n.~ght b.a~e ~ anied t~' Certamb izol h e M:CFT, an old respectable ,ad~. '.~ ell rose;ted m the s',stem., . h~ m,~kmg con iecIurcs, ~ e wot~fd t,,~.e our~'!~cs unless ~e 4,u¢ to deter:, here at!d lhele, 11! sevela]
I By theo~Ce'al a+mmunication, we mea~ a genei,;I communication not referring to a ¢
2 L'Exp~e*-*.21 '~ovembct 1977. 3 Le Matin de P~ri~ 27 November 1977 4 Tile words Carrc.,t~n/fm. Oe~"aergi were rarely ptt-n'~,unced by other ¢ong~K~st.%and one of the mes~ con ,qntx'd ~pp.+rter* o:" systemic ~.l.[. R~ai) felt the wtd to defend the tour ruks of the "'lSi%%',Ul'~de la m,.'+hcd¢"+ S We will ~ t'u.~thc~ that it ~ not al~ a~,,~undt'r:,;t,.'~,:~d a~, the same thing.
ITI~C[~Cn|IoI'I~., Oil OI~q h.lt't t a ~ e c ~ ~iI[erll¢~,~. {t.',%va[ds
the d~sap[:.m~lm~ re~uh:, .cached so ta~ b} g,wemmenls {of dt tendencies} aud moiety,, and ou the ether ha'~J the idea that scholars - fo r certain, under these c,.~t'~dttion$ - could do better So that l~we of
& 'R*"rth+Holt'q'~d ~bll~l~mt~ Company
Eurep.'an I~,grn:d of ¢.~tation.d Re~ar~ 3 (19"0) 3-.t-',- 354. ~,-13
344
Book
syste~nies could, under these conditions, express and serve a kind of thirst for po~ver. Three ot Ibur communications actually deal with the fields o f the hi~.tory and d,.velopment o f systems analysis (or systemics) (for in: tance, Vol. 1 : Morin, p.44: Bloeh, p.106; Ribeill, p. 185; Vol. 2: Paulr6, p.47), the range o f which is o'~viously to be ~mtlined in this report, First o f all, it appears as a mc,dem conception of theoretical biol,~gv, the father o f which is the G e r m a biologist Ludwig yon Bertat:mffy, w h o proved him. s e l f - as early as 1931 - as the declar~'d e n e m y o f vitalism and mechanism ~. It would be a maj~-r error to imagine (which, as appears, E. MeAn like+ to do), that Bertalanffy's organismic biology, i.e. the theory o f open and - in the first stage o f his reflection equifinal living systems can be connected with the emerging evolution theory or with LC. S m u t s and F. Dcssauer's holism theory 7 etc. which is a variant o f the more c. less mystical organicism, after Shirehead, , , o f the neo.vitalism s. As a matter o f fact. it is a decidedly mateialist theory, when all the rest goes back to the rnoqt trivial idealism. Several wellknown biologists-, such as E. Bauer or T.H. Morgan. have pointed thi~ out. The eminent contribution o f the atom physicist E. Schr6dinger - when Nl~is Bohr was failing with b;s ~.omplementarity theory - consisted in notici ,g the astonishiag ability of living
6 Ludwig V. Bertalanffy, Theot~tisehe Biologie, Berlin 1937. 7 It should be noticed 6+at :trouts and Dessauer are wellknown theologians. 8 M. Beekner, The biological way of thought. New York, 1959.
9 Even if the explanation he provided in 1944 was still mechanistic. 10 L Sch.malhausen, Bases of evolution ~o~esses in the light of cybernetics, Problemi Kiberae:iki 4 t19601: E. Mayr. Cause and effect in biology, Science 134 (I 961 ) p. 1502. C.H. Waddington, Towaxds a Theoretical Bic.lo£3 (Edinburgh, 1968). 1 ! Not to quote the m,sunderstanding of te Moigne, The Theory of the C.¢neral System, p,20, in interpreting the "psineip¢ des d6nombrements cornplets" of the fourth p~ecept of the cartesian method, a trap into which Gervois fell ('COL 2, p.377), in mistaking it with the sheer c~meratJon of n objects permutaticng! 12 The only point of view omitmd facing eleven other ones quoted by Ribeill (VoL 1, p.lP9). It should be noted that Bernard Well et at.. mention the rtegelian dialectic (Vol. 1, p.211) and tl+at Pault~ fVol. 2, pp.49-.;0) uses this word, but perhap.~net witt;ngly.
Reviews organisms not to fall into the 'aloft ic chaos' and to absorb the suitable order o f the environment 9. Hence, the development of th~ sys:e, nico-slmctural analysis, constantly combined with m e historism principle, as can be tbund in the works of I Schma]hausen, E. Mayr and C.H. Waddir.gton in+ With these authors, dialectic plays a fundamental role, and it will have to bc employed again, as H. Atlan tries to do (Vol. I, p.118) but somewhat formally, in order to integrate the complexity w~th the noise concept due to Von Foerster. As a matter o f fact, if I may insert m y opinion in this report, the systemic has n• reason to sink into ~he most worn-out, hen-vitalist, non-finalist idealism: the rejection o f redut tionism in the name of globalism l l the surrender o f determinism fo + the sake o f the teleological principle; nor to bring into quest ion h u m a n reason, whilst veiling one's face to make the objective re',dity disappear. The straight reduction o f life to the laws o f mechanics, physics and chemistry hides -- indeed -- its sp' :ificity, but the global point of view should not be ~-onsidered as the alternative to reductionism. The n<,int of view o f dialectic 12 a m o u n t s to not considering reductionism as a separate principle intended to identify completely the biological with the physicochemical processes. Physico-chemical analysis must taken into accoanl the form under which processes take place, i.e. the systemic organization. Thus, the false a~temative between globalism and reductionisn, vanishes. The structural systemic analysis implies the study of the object from the IR~int of view o f the interaction between the whole and its naris o f the discovery of the organisation and o f the older that cotmects the elements of +.he living system and constitutes its structure. Hence, naturally eme.-ges the cybemeticat model. It becomes more complicated when autoorganismg systems are considered, capable, under the influence of signals, to change state whilst choosing the relevant reactions: auto-regulating systems liable to retain the most useful effect amongst these reactions, to seize information from other systems or from the environment, which ensures their autoconservat~t~n, the auto-reproduction o f thei+ s'_ructure an~ their ua~pt~vement. However, the s h u c t m a l systemic ana!ysis would only reach statical :haracteristics in space, whilst omitting the dynarlical characteristics in time, if it were not combined with the histc rism principle, the only way to grasp 'he irreversible and specific evolution of the liv~flg systen~
a45 Tile an:l'dopom,,:phic:d con, , i s 13 o, aim and :,tr.~,~. nality, tile u~si, ~,atit.n "' delerml~is,,1 It* the direc~ causality of the mecllantsl and unequ:,o~a! t, p.r always cause useless as :~ u~l~ as, loun ied d~>c,,urses The statistical cr r e t r o uive Cah,..Hit',., tire tele< n,mucal explanation ta cover the e:msal relathms defined b" program and retroaction, replace for the livnlg system the ,lotion t,f unequ!, neat c : w ,.ity between isolated o0jecls of the ~atit~:lal mech into. Likewise. the interaction of different states it, an auto-regulating system brm~,s to ;ig{it tile notion Of .ausality. l: i" not suitable to oppose, but ob the contrary, to conlbine dialectically the causality principle to the rationalRy one, the stud)' of complex systems f w m the point of view of rationality being part of fuvctional analysis. At this point we must set ti~e grave prcolem of the transposition to h u m a n 'sciences' of the methods and models tha~ proved successful in theoretical biology'. As a matter of fact, does n,,t the Congress them," con,'ern the technical, ec(monucaf and social sy,4ems'~ is it possible, in particular, to establish a link between natural living system,, and nlan-created artificial systents? The most important contribuiion in that respect seems to me that o f B. Ensellem (Vci. 1, p.68), particulad: as ~ counterpoint to the 'readiness¢s" and "evidences', uf Jean-Louis Le Moigne, who presents systemic as a "'beacon for navigators.. on the ocean o f the at,ion sciences" (Vol. I, p.20) and who al.,.o writes: "'Everyone pert, eWes the Iransdisciplinary slips el" ,t eau~e vast parts of scrences of life and of soc',al sciences In converge into the lap of the Engineer sciences" IVol. I., p.21 ), since he is convinced that systems analysis allows the modelling if not the designing (quotation from H.A. Simon) o f
13 A whole :'atervention (Vet. I. p.199~ wanted to reduce systems analysis to it. la And not teleoiogical, since the ari
all d~< , ,re.vnisu,! ~ ' . t p L ' ~ i r i c ~
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~.
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I t.. B l:nse!J'm ~ .i~
(3!IHI~2 ~,l. ,~O;1~NnHItCAIIIHD,
( I)lal ,a..;i l~s'led ~!) prospect c!" t he , on~rcss ), ";;flee.
UI his {lllnd, ';',>Ion~.lclall ;, rla'~c clot ~,0[ xJloA~.,l ]!t~ ~. ~O
pass (rein the,~r~ to ptactt:e, lle :~ nol ul la',OUl {neither ~:nl 1) of rejecli:lg the res~Lr,cs of!-eled b) ssstelllS allal)'M.,.. Bill tills Congresx :qN~eared lo him :~s ":l r, eed for smety tu inaed w i t h a s~rcng sense o t m~,rkelinf', Perhaps he ~as ~rru.k h~ tile fact !hat :lrnonfs:t 2t~ c~nm:unicalion.~ 3.call!!b"cYpli,'ir[v ~ ilh ~., %lelnic Ollb, h'ail were favourable to tilt" thesis, ue~eloped b} tilt, "here theorctica! and teleguidcd inte~'entions. ~hen the othe, $5 ,rely concern system dynamic~ ( I 1), classicel theory t6 of systems (14) or even do not evoke the very notion of system., so that in spite c f all the pre-:uticps that were taken (for the session t;tles, for e~a rpk o~ papers, arnt.ngst which all these rek vane to practwe, against 13. wih;~-~s m favour of uh ra-t'lassica! lnetilods! Fhmlly, it is in the name of analo,~cal "reasoning' that the applica:ion of systems analysis, rnce con. ceived for theoretical biology, would be transterable to technical, economical and social systems and would cause the disatsp~arance of the 'barrier of rationality" beyond which lke anab.'tical approach integrates too n-any variables for a 'nan to assimilate all o f them" ~Laban, Vet. 2. p.a.81 ). But ihc relation of analogy i~ ,.tot transitive t7 and can only cart)' detestable amalgams when considered as valid in logics. Y. Friedman is well aware of this, s,rc~ he writes: "" when examining u systemic description of two phenomena, tl'.e vidual analogy that could be found in between the two descriptiona, does not guarantee a real analogy for the bdmviour o f these two p h e n o m e n a " (Vol. i p.200), and proposes his own variant o f finalisrn w~th a viev, to anthropomorphising science Sorrowfully. in the preface of the book, the President of AFCET (alto mesident o f the Congress) acknowledges that, in some commuaications. "the words (used roeaninglessly at random) may appear as a sinlple onlalnent a.ming to dress, after the current fasl, ion, a representation of phenomena and/or a justification t\~r an action :aket~ in their favour, not at all new ~ ." (Vol. I, p.ITI. In Iris opening speech (p.4), he attempts to reply to those who estimated tha" the carl ti~, communications ~,as ++the reflectior of ," little too Messianic tendency in systems theo*y". At ',ast, he writes (p.7) about the congress itself: "'one shouM nol seek (m the congress) ..- or want to transform it into a consecration of a vague mi,acu-
Book Reviews
346
lous theory, nor ~ trim of such or such an out-of-date tendency". Alas, these lines were pronounced at the opening session and only distributed in the room; they do not appear at the beginning ofVol. 1 of Congress Acts, ;,.'ace they had been printed beforehand. Obviously, i:" it had been wanted to discuss the application of systematic in the engineer or economist domains and to examine its adequacy in the artificial systems modelling processes, then a colloquy ~ o u l d have been organised, not a congress. So that everyone could have intervened and the debates would only have concerned 'specialists' or 'good amateurs'. To have thought it was possible to impos ~. a ma~n iine - such as systems analysis - to mort than a hundred contributors, could only lead to failure m the first place. It is a pity, since a good half of the commun~.:ations presented, and not necessarily linked with the central theme, is quite interesting. The reader, moreover, will find some help to ease his task: very luck:iy, each interventit,n is ?receded by an abstract, th, rks to which, most often, it will be relatively easy 'o choose whether to read this paper ... or to pass to th~ next. Pesides, in the major part of Chapters 2, 3, ,!, 6, 7 and 8, appears to explicit raterence to the k~eaologicat current some organisers thought they had to put forward. Also a great number of papers, like those of R. Thorn, E. Prigogine, C.P. Bruter, H. Atlan, etc. (Voi. 1, resp. p. l c~, 22, 54, 118), even J. M~16se {Voi. 2 p.13), that explicitly deal with the theme of the congress, deserve to be treated with high consid,:tat ion. For, eventually, the matter is not to deny the systemic contribution and to miss its efficacity, but really to vfu~e the more or less obscurantist philosophies wtth which ,~ome and only some - believe the}' ought to acc,::,z~.:r:y ~;5~, terns analysis. -
-
Robert FA tiRE Conservatoire National de~ Arts et M~tters, Paris. France
Bern,~rd 1". LEWIS (ed.) Management Handbook for Plant Engineers McGraw.Hill, New York, 1977, 710 page, 315 ills., $29.95 There is, unfortunately, a kind of OR Practitioner who regards Management as almost exclusively, a rather superior intellectual activity to be advanced
only by profound ph:Josophic, scientific or mathematical analysis. The ordinary day-to-da~ business which most Managers conduct he regards as mere'.y (!) the application of common sense and he rather despises them for 'managing' rather than 'practising Manage. n ~ n t ' He is usually frustrated by their failure to appreciate this point and by their reluctance to tear themselves away from their humdrum daffy routine to assimilate and approve some elegant piece of mathematical theory. At the other end of the scale, equally unfortunately, there is the kind of Manager who believes that Management is a rather peculiar blend of technical expertise of the business and a special kind of leadership. Success in such a Manager's eyes ceonires only experience, dedication and. of course, a natural inborn ability. What these two kinds of people have in common is a similarity of attitude, ranging from distrust to outright condemnaticm towards a large body of knowledge coming under the heading of management technique. One consequence of this is, of course, that each group denies itself any chance o¢ finding a common ground with the other while both hamper themselves either by having to discover the techniques for themselves or by making their lives needlessly diffi. cult through lack of knowledge. Such knowledge about which the work reviewed concerns itself can be taught and can be used to great advantage so long as it is neither regarded as dogn'a nor applied blindly. The present ~olume is a substantial work containhag contributions from 60 authors drawn from the ranks of practising engineering Managers, Consultants ~i~clacademics in the USA. It is designed according te its Foreword "to answer the question of how best t . manage the plant engineering function with the ]~test techn,'logy'. It does not quite do that but it noes quite succ~fully form a practtcal manual on a large number of everyday skills which an engineering m:~nager needs to acquire to do his job i r a reason ably ~uc,~essful manner. The ,0,~,rk ;s divided int,' ten parts covering: ( I ~ Orgamsat ion and S t ffing(6 chapters), (21 Facilities P;ar-ttmg ~i~dProgramming (6 chap;ers), (3) Engineering and Construc t ion Man age ment (9 chapters), (4) Maintenance Management (7 chapters~, (5) Utilities Management (8 chapters), (6) Materials Management (2 chapters), (7) Systems and Reports (5 chapters), (8) Budgets and Costs (I i chapters),
. ':a/~";.r,.a, ca|~,.d+':c to "h~reca,;t..wll. ip.+te, pi,~je~t
. UlOlllatlt~.', tua!Tltaln, suP.e~,-, l e a d . e~,Pn op',l~nlse S)'~,tetns arlt."1 nlOle generally orleetat : their e ' , o h ] t i o l l " :
and not to forget that 13 invited speaker~,, a:qongst whom. a ph.vaco-che hist. a biophysician, a routephysiologist, an ardutect..¢,evera! economists, etc., have treated pure5 theoretical sul+i.cts! M e covet. the congress tt~lf, with ntore than 4Lk"mparlwtpants, took place Ill an 3tnlosphete of coll~uMOrl and e~en aroused qLllte tmttsu3] echoes tr, the prt ;s. to st,oh an extent thai the headlines read in daily or weekly, newspapers covering a wide number of reade's, announced :hat "'five ht.ndred philo:;ophers and ~'lentists h~ve me: to have a toffee,ion about , the systemb.'" 2 and put "'the carted'an way t~f tt'tthkln~
AFCET: M o d d i s a t i o n et MaRrise des S y s t e m e s Techniques, E c o n o m i q u e s e! S o c i a u s {Mc,delling and Mastering of Tcchmcal. Fconornical
and Social Systems} Editions Hommes el Techniques, St, resnes, France. 2 volumes, bOO and e,.q0 pages in the two volumes of this work are gathered the acts of the Congress, orgam~d by the French Association for Economical and Technical Cybemencs (AFCET). m Versailles frol~ the 21 st to the 24th November IO77. They include the text of the I I I contmunications that were ~elected atnongst tit+.' 250 pro tx+s,ed to the program committee, and also a preface, a foreword and annexes providing the theme~ of the workshops and forums that were held in parallel with the sessions. Of various lengths (the longest one being 33 pages and the smallest only 3L these paper,s can be classified into three groups t. Theoretical communications (47 i.e, 42%I. semi.prachcal (41 i.e. 37%} and prachcal ~2:~ i.e. 21%}. This unusual abundance of theoD-oriented papers i>. no doubt, due to the fact that the call for comntunications made an explicit reference to n,stcn~s
l n | o accl.lgdllon '' .I
It IS Inlp,O~Mh]¢ n o t tc, I,ike i n l o a~..-fout'l| l~ILs alnlosphete u, hetl, at | h a t tittle ~n the very ,ooTn. one could ha~e cot:tied harJl.v more than one {professional) philosopher an ~ a dozen scientists, and when none of them h.,'.e even ever p onounced the name of Descartes +. Therefore the a l a c k came from e l f where and one reall " ~onders ,,'here it could be fi'om. When. tn the world :veryone i. irl favour of'systems . "~ : the col.rsdlors of~he U+S. president and analysis" also of Mr. L Brejnev. general secretary of the soviet P.C. who quoted it m his report w the \ X l V t h Copgress (1071 }: when i;1 France. in pamcu]ar, Mr, Gi~'ard dTs*aing is fa~ ourable to its emDo~ meat, being a former 'us.'r" at the head ot the Mmk;l~ of Fin,Incl,, a n d a h t ' l ] MI. J. A L l a h , ¢c,'.tle.tl|~.a[ 4OUlt.
~cllo/ ol Mt Mlttcland, .,,hov, -, hlm,.'lf ',veii dtst'~sed tcwatd', its practice, one reaD, ~vond~rs about the g~ound.~ mot~valtng thss unexpected ca%l: was it It, eras+ tb,e re.tsontn~ method o( t',te "Fr race des lumt&es", to tile benefit ,q an eclecnc choice of ,d,ead), ,qd 91ologtcal theories, recently e'c.+Hed m the L'.SA. ,as also apt hcal'tc to soc~at >~s:~ n>'7 Aiso. ~,ho n.~ght b.a~e ~ anied t~' Certamb izol h e M:CFT, an old respectable ,ad~. '.~ ell rose;ted m the s',stem., . h~ m,~kmg con iecIurcs, ~ e wot~fd t,,~.e our~'!~cs unless ~e 4,u¢ to deter:, here at!d lhele, 11! sevela]
I By theo~Ce'al a+mmunication, we mea~ a genei,;I communication not referring to a ¢
2 L'Exp~e*-*.21 '~ovembct 1977. 3 Le Matin de P~ri~ 27 November 1977 4 Tile words Carrc.,t~n/fm. Oe~"aergi were rarely ptt-n'~,unced by other ¢ong~K~st.%and one of the mes~ con ,qntx'd ~pp.+rter* o:" systemic ~.l.[. R~ai) felt the wtd to defend the tour ruks of the "'lSi%%',Ul'~de la m,.'+hcd¢"+ S We will ~ t'u.~thc~ that it ~ not al~ a~,,~undt'r:,;t,.'~,:~d a~, the same thing.
ITI~C[~Cn|IoI'I~., Oil OI~q h.lt't t a ~ e c ~ ~iI[erll¢~,~. {t.',%va[ds
the d~sap[:.m~lm~ re~uh:, .cached so ta~ b} g,wemmenls {of dt tendencies} aud moiety,, and ou the ether ha'~J the idea that scholars - fo r certain, under these c,.~t'~dttion$ - could do better So that l~we of
& 'R*"rth+Holt'q'~d ~bll~l~mt~ Company
Eurep.'an I~,grn:d of ¢.~tation.d Re~ar~ 3 (19"0) 3-.t-',- 354. ~,-13
344
Book
syste~nies could, under these conditions, express and serve a kind of thirst for po~ver. Three ot Ibur communications actually deal with the fields o f the hi~.tory and d,.velopment o f systems analysis (or systemics) (for in: tance, Vol. 1 : Morin, p.44: Bloeh, p.106; Ribeill, p. 185; Vol. 2: Paulr6, p.47), the range o f which is o'~viously to be ~mtlined in this report, First o f all, it appears as a mc,dem conception of theoretical biol,~gv, the father o f which is the G e r m a biologist Ludwig yon Bertat:mffy, w h o proved him. s e l f - as early as 1931 - as the declar~'d e n e m y o f vitalism and mechanism ~. It would be a maj~-r error to imagine (which, as appears, E. MeAn like+ to do), that Bertalanffy's organismic biology, i.e. the theory o f open and - in the first stage o f his reflection equifinal living systems can be connected with the emerging evolution theory or with LC. S m u t s and F. Dcssauer's holism theory 7 etc. which is a variant o f the more c. less mystical organicism, after Shirehead, , , o f the neo.vitalism s. As a matter o f fact. it is a decidedly mateialist theory, when all the rest goes back to the rnoqt trivial idealism. Several wellknown biologists-, such as E. Bauer or T.H. Morgan. have pointed thi~ out. The eminent contribution o f the atom physicist E. Schr6dinger - when Nl~is Bohr was failing with b;s ~.omplementarity theory - consisted in notici ,g the astonishiag ability of living
6 Ludwig V. Bertalanffy, Theot~tisehe Biologie, Berlin 1937. 7 It should be noticed 6+at :trouts and Dessauer are wellknown theologians. 8 M. Beekner, The biological way of thought. New York, 1959.
9 Even if the explanation he provided in 1944 was still mechanistic. 10 L Sch.malhausen, Bases of evolution ~o~esses in the light of cybernetics, Problemi Kiberae:iki 4 t19601: E. Mayr. Cause and effect in biology, Science 134 (I 961 ) p. 1502. C.H. Waddington, Towaxds a Theoretical Bic.lo£3 (Edinburgh, 1968). 1 ! Not to quote the m,sunderstanding of te Moigne, The Theory of the C.¢neral System, p,20, in interpreting the "psineip¢ des d6nombrements cornplets" of the fourth p~ecept of the cartesian method, a trap into which Gervois fell ('COL 2, p.377), in mistaking it with the sheer c~meratJon of n objects permutaticng! 12 The only point of view omitmd facing eleven other ones quoted by Ribeill (VoL 1, p.lP9). It should be noted that Bernard Well et at.. mention the rtegelian dialectic (Vol. 1, p.211) and tl+at Pault~ fVol. 2, pp.49-.;0) uses this word, but perhap.~net witt;ngly.
Reviews organisms not to fall into the 'aloft ic chaos' and to absorb the suitable order o f the environment 9. Hence, the development of th~ sys:e, nico-slmctural analysis, constantly combined with m e historism principle, as can be tbund in the works of I Schma]hausen, E. Mayr and C.H. Waddir.gton in+ With these authors, dialectic plays a fundamental role, and it will have to bc employed again, as H. Atlan tries to do (Vol. I, p.118) but somewhat formally, in order to integrate the complexity w~th the noise concept due to Von Foerster. As a matter o f fact, if I may insert m y opinion in this report, the systemic has n• reason to sink into ~he most worn-out, hen-vitalist, non-finalist idealism: the rejection o f redut tionism in the name of globalism l l the surrender o f determinism fo + the sake o f the teleological principle; nor to bring into quest ion h u m a n reason, whilst veiling one's face to make the objective re',dity disappear. The straight reduction o f life to the laws o f mechanics, physics and chemistry hides -- indeed -- its sp' :ificity, but the global point of view should not be ~-onsidered as the alternative to reductionism. The n<,int of view o f dialectic 12 a m o u n t s to not considering reductionism as a separate principle intended to identify completely the biological with the physicochemical processes. Physico-chemical analysis must taken into accoanl the form under which processes take place, i.e. the systemic organization. Thus, the false a~temative between globalism and reductionisn, vanishes. The structural systemic analysis implies the study of the object from the IR~int of view o f the interaction between the whole and its naris o f the discovery of the organisation and o f the older that cotmects the elements of +.he living system and constitutes its structure. Hence, naturally eme.-ges the cybemeticat model. It becomes more complicated when autoorganismg systems are considered, capable, under the influence of signals, to change state whilst choosing the relevant reactions: auto-regulating systems liable to retain the most useful effect amongst these reactions, to seize information from other systems or from the environment, which ensures their autoconservat~t~n, the auto-reproduction o f thei+ s'_ructure an~ their ua~pt~vement. However, the s h u c t m a l systemic ana!ysis would only reach statical :haracteristics in space, whilst omitting the dynarlical characteristics in time, if it were not combined with the histc rism principle, the only way to grasp 'he irreversible and specific evolution of the liv~flg systen~
a45 Tile an:l'dopom,,:phic:d con, , i s 13 o, aim and :,tr.~,~. nality, tile u~si, ~,atit.n "' delerml~is,,1 It* the direc~ causality of the mecllantsl and unequ:,o~a! t, p.r always cause useless as :~ u~l~ as, loun ied d~>c,,urses The statistical cr r e t r o uive Cah,..Hit',., tire tele< n,mucal explanation ta cover the e:msal relathms defined b" program and retroaction, replace for the livnlg system the ,lotion t,f unequ!, neat c : w ,.ity between isolated o0jecls of the ~atit~:lal mech into. Likewise. the interaction of different states it, an auto-regulating system brm~,s to ;ig{it tile notion Of .ausality. l: i" not suitable to oppose, but ob the contrary, to conlbine dialectically the causality principle to the rationalRy one, the stud)' of complex systems f w m the point of view of rationality being part of fuvctional analysis. At this point we must set ti~e grave prcolem of the transposition to h u m a n 'sciences' of the methods and models tha~ proved successful in theoretical biology'. As a matter of fact, does n,,t the Congress them," con,'ern the technical, ec(monucaf and social sy,4ems'~ is it possible, in particular, to establish a link between natural living system,, and nlan-created artificial systents? The most important contribuiion in that respect seems to me that o f B. Ensellem (Vci. 1, p.68), particulad: as ~ counterpoint to the 'readiness¢s" and "evidences', uf Jean-Louis Le Moigne, who presents systemic as a "'beacon for navigators.. on the ocean o f the at,ion sciences" (Vol. I, p.20) and who al.,.o writes: "'Everyone pert, eWes the Iransdisciplinary slips el" ,t eau~e vast parts of scrences of life and of soc',al sciences In converge into the lap of the Engineer sciences" IVol. I., p.21 ), since he is convinced that systems analysis allows the modelling if not the designing (quotation from H.A. Simon) o f
13 A whole :'atervention (Vet. I. p.199~ wanted to reduce systems analysis to it. la And not teleoiogical, since the ari
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pass (rein the,~r~ to ptactt:e, lle :~ nol ul la',OUl {neither ~:nl 1) of rejecli:lg the res~Lr,cs of!-eled b) ssstelllS allal)'M.,.. Bill tills Congresx :qN~eared lo him :~s ":l r, eed for smety tu inaed w i t h a s~rcng sense o t m~,rkelinf', Perhaps he ~as ~rru.k h~ tile fact !hat :lrnonfs:t 2t~ c~nm:unicalion.~ 3.call!!b"cYpli,'ir[v ~ ilh ~., %lelnic Ollb, h'ail were favourable to tilt" thesis, ue~eloped b} tilt, "here theorctica! and teleguidcd inte~'entions. ~hen the othe, $5 ,rely concern system dynamic~ ( I 1), classicel theory t6 of systems (14) or even do not evoke the very notion of system., so that in spite c f all the pre-:uticps that were taken (for the session t;tles, for e~a rpk o~ papers, arnt.ngst which all these rek vane to practwe, against 13. wih;~-~s m favour of uh ra-t'lassica! lnetilods! Fhmlly, it is in the name of analo,~cal "reasoning' that the applica:ion of systems analysis, rnce con. ceived for theoretical biology, would be transterable to technical, economical and social systems and would cause the disatsp~arance of the 'barrier of rationality" beyond which lke anab.'tical approach integrates too n-any variables for a 'nan to assimilate all o f them" ~Laban, Vet. 2. p.a.81 ). But ihc relation of analogy i~ ,.tot transitive t7 and can only cart)' detestable amalgams when considered as valid in logics. Y. Friedman is well aware of this, s,rc~ he writes: "" when examining u systemic description of two phenomena, tl'.e vidual analogy that could be found in between the two descriptiona, does not guarantee a real analogy for the bdmviour o f these two p h e n o m e n a " (Vol. i p.200), and proposes his own variant o f finalisrn w~th a viev, to anthropomorphising science Sorrowfully. in the preface of the book, the President of AFCET (alto mesident o f the Congress) acknowledges that, in some commuaications. "the words (used roeaninglessly at random) may appear as a sinlple onlalnent a.ming to dress, after the current fasl, ion, a representation of phenomena and/or a justification t\~r an action :aket~ in their favour, not at all new ~ ." (Vol. I, p.ITI. In Iris opening speech (p.4), he attempts to reply to those who estimated tha" the carl ti~, communications ~,as ++the reflectior of ," little too Messianic tendency in systems theo*y". At ',ast, he writes (p.7) about the congress itself: "'one shouM nol seek (m the congress) ..- or want to transform it into a consecration of a vague mi,acu-
Book Reviews
346
lous theory, nor ~ trim of such or such an out-of-date tendency". Alas, these lines were pronounced at the opening session and only distributed in the room; they do not appear at the beginning ofVol. 1 of Congress Acts, ;,.'ace they had been printed beforehand. Obviously, i:" it had been wanted to discuss the application of systematic in the engineer or economist domains and to examine its adequacy in the artificial systems modelling processes, then a colloquy ~ o u l d have been organised, not a congress. So that everyone could have intervened and the debates would only have concerned 'specialists' or 'good amateurs'. To have thought it was possible to impos ~. a ma~n iine - such as systems analysis - to mort than a hundred contributors, could only lead to failure m the first place. It is a pity, since a good half of the commun~.:ations presented, and not necessarily linked with the central theme, is quite interesting. The reader, moreover, will find some help to ease his task: very luck:iy, each interventit,n is ?receded by an abstract, th, rks to which, most often, it will be relatively easy 'o choose whether to read this paper ... or to pass to th~ next. Pesides, in the major part of Chapters 2, 3, ,!, 6, 7 and 8, appears to explicit raterence to the k~eaologicat current some organisers thought they had to put forward. Also a great number of papers, like those of R. Thorn, E. Prigogine, C.P. Bruter, H. Atlan, etc. (Voi. 1, resp. p. l c~, 22, 54, 118), even J. M~16se {Voi. 2 p.13), that explicitly deal with the theme of the congress, deserve to be treated with high consid,:tat ion. For, eventually, the matter is not to deny the systemic contribution and to miss its efficacity, but really to vfu~e the more or less obscurantist philosophies wtth which ,~ome and only some - believe the}' ought to acc,::,z~.:r:y ~;5~, terns analysis. -
-
Robert FA tiRE Conservatoire National de~ Arts et M~tters, Paris. France
Bern,~rd 1". LEWIS (ed.) Management Handbook for Plant Engineers McGraw.Hill, New York, 1977, 710 page, 315 ills., $29.95 There is, unfortunately, a kind of OR Practitioner who regards Management as almost exclusively, a rather superior intellectual activity to be advanced
only by profound ph:Josophic, scientific or mathematical analysis. The ordinary day-to-da~ business which most Managers conduct he regards as mere'.y (!) the application of common sense and he rather despises them for 'managing' rather than 'practising Manage. n ~ n t ' He is usually frustrated by their failure to appreciate this point and by their reluctance to tear themselves away from their humdrum daffy routine to assimilate and approve some elegant piece of mathematical theory. At the other end of the scale, equally unfortunately, there is the kind of Manager who believes that Management is a rather peculiar blend of technical expertise of the business and a special kind of leadership. Success in such a Manager's eyes ceonires only experience, dedication and. of course, a natural inborn ability. What these two kinds of people have in common is a similarity of attitude, ranging from distrust to outright condemnaticm towards a large body of knowledge coming under the heading of management technique. One consequence of this is, of course, that each group denies itself any chance o¢ finding a common ground with the other while both hamper themselves either by having to discover the techniques for themselves or by making their lives needlessly diffi. cult through lack of knowledge. Such knowledge about which the work reviewed concerns itself can be taught and can be used to great advantage so long as it is neither regarded as dogn'a nor applied blindly. The present ~olume is a substantial work containhag contributions from 60 authors drawn from the ranks of practising engineering Managers, Consultants ~i~clacademics in the USA. It is designed according te its Foreword "to answer the question of how best t . manage the plant engineering function with the ]~test techn,'logy'. It does not quite do that but it noes quite succ~fully form a practtcal manual on a large number of everyday skills which an engineering m:~nager needs to acquire to do his job i r a reason ably ~uc,~essful manner. The ,0,~,rk ;s divided int,' ten parts covering: ( I ~ Orgamsat ion and S t ffing(6 chapters), (21 Facilities P;ar-ttmg ~i~dProgramming (6 chap;ers), (3) Engineering and Construc t ion Man age ment (9 chapters), (4) Maintenance Management (7 chapters~, (5) Utilities Management (8 chapters), (6) Materials Management (2 chapters), (7) Systems and Reports (5 chapters), (8) Budgets and Costs (I i chapters),