Demystifying

Having been away for a week I returned and on reading my last blog I was dismayed at the density of the content. When I began blogging I decided to avoid the use of technical terms and to try to describe ideas clearly, as often as possible by relating them to ongoing world events or common everyday experiences, and it looks as though I got an F on both those counts. So I'll start again to some extent.
Most young boys when given a toy or gadget want to know how it works and to satisfy his curiousity takes it to pieces. Usually once he has done this he will try to re-assemble it only to find out that he can't do it, particularly if he has had to use force to get at the various parts: he has found what the components are but he didn't realise when dismantling it just how important it is to know how the parts fit together - their relationships. They are as important as the pieces - in fact in many cases more important, since it is possible to replace broken parts, but changing the relations between them doesn't result in reconstructing the same toy.

This is a description of a system - any system: it consists of parts/components and the relations between them which will create the identity of the system. It may sound just too simple to think about, but it is far from that: it is a description of one of the most basic laws of nature that we all take for granted until some-thing goes wrong - there is some dysfunction. If all we are faced with is a faulty distributor in a car engine we will go through the necessary motions to correct the dysfunction. But sometimes it is not that simple. I recall an incident during the second world war when I was a member of the seventh armoured division of the British Army in North Africa and we had just taken Tobruk (for the first time!) and went on to take El Adem airport so that the RAF could use it. But a fierce sandstorm blew up as we approached it and all the vehicles, armoured and otherwise, stopped and couldn't be restarted. We had very competent mechanics but they couldn't find the reason for the stoppages, which didn't fill us with joy because the enemy were fairly close and we didn't know whether or not they too were immobilised. Eventually one bright spark looked at the distributors - and although they were tightly closed they were full of sand. We just didn't believe it - but when we cleaned them out the vehicles were mobile again. If I'd been on my own I doubt if I would ever have looked into what everyone thought was an airtight cover. It was an elementary example of a dysfunctional system in which the relations between the parts were disrupted but ignorance could have been every bit as dangerous.

You might object that some machines will continue to work even if they been damaged in some way, which in fact is quite common. I might still manage to ride my bike even if a couple of spokes are missing from the wheels or the frame is bent. It all depends on what the part is made of, how many spokes I could lose before the wheel would buckle and bend so much that the wheel wouldn't turn at all. In other words there are limits in the changes that can occur in a machine beyond which it won't function any longer.

This also applies to biological systems, which are infintely more
complex ranging from cells to organisms to communities of organisms
The most basic factors in our individual existence are the uses of oxygen and water, and everyone knows from experience just how what happens if we either run short of either or we have too much. As with machines as we gradually lose oxygen or water we still manage to function but with increasing difficulty until we just stop alto-
gether. For an infant being born, one of the greatest threats is the lack, partial or complete, of oxygen, and the consequences range from death to permanent disability the severity of which depends on the degree of damage done to which part of the brain. I have seen during my lifetime profound changes in the management of the delivery process which have resulted in far fewer cases of Anoxia -shortage of oxygen and therefore of disabled infants. And of course the same principle applies to water, again a matter of universal experience.

Reduced to practical experience it goes something like this: a person experiences some indigestion, recalls s/he ate too much or the wrong kind of food, takes an antacid and when the discomfort disappears thinks no more of it. It's just a mild degree of dys-
function from an identifiable cause. But it begins to recur both in severity and frequency which eventually leads to a visit to the appropriate professional who, after taking a thorough history pre-
scribes both advice on eating habits and bigger and better antacids
which may or may not result in a return to normal digestion, depen-
ding on the cause. But all too often this doesn't happen. The symptoms become worse and the physician suggests an X-ray to ascer-
tain if there is any actual structural change compared with a normal stomach. Ah, yes: there it is: an ulcer which means that from functional changes which have not been adequately dealt with, structural changes eventually will follow. The next step is exhaustion of the tissues involved and further deterioration such as erosion of an artery or of the stomach wall.

I shall deal with this in greater detail later: for now I was giving a simplified description of the gastric system to show how the organs of the body are subject to the same laws as any other system with inevitable dysfunction, structural deterioration and destruction of tissues as part of the reponse to some external
change that is unacceptable..

CONTEXT/METASYSTEM.
One of the most important, and all too often ignored, aspects of Systems Theory is the fact that no system exists in isolation: every system, no matter how complicated or simple it may be is always a part of a larger system. This may sound like another piece of abstract theoretical nonsense but it is the basis of all existence. During the past few weeks there has been a great deal of emotion fuelling the Conference on Global Warming, between those who admit there is a problem and those who don't. Those who
do want to do something effective about it: those who don't simply have refused to consider taking action. Without getting into the often sordid details one fact stands out clearly: No person or group, no matter how powerful, how primitive, can do anything without affecting the world we live in. Food, water, shelter, pro-ducing more humans - everything anyone does has some effect on the world. But until the last few decades wave not faced up to the fact that our world is a limited system: it can only stand a certain amount of change, as I pointed out above, beyond which it will start to deteriorate and become increasingly dysfunctional.
Unless something is done about this there will be structural damage
leading to fatal consequences for many global inhabitants.

It is so obvious to any systems thinker that this applies to any system, anywhere in the universe, and right now it applies to our particular corner of it. We appear to be doing our best to fulfil the worst nightmare instead o convincing people that this is as inevitable as the rising of the sun in the morning and its setting at night unless we change our habits. Our only chance of survival depends entirely on the vast majority recognising this, and being willing to do something effective about it. But recognising must come first. No awareness, no change: no change, no human species. And there is a time limit beyond which the world will become unable to support us.

So, once having accepted the need to change, just what is it we have to change, and how can it be done? This means both an under-standing of why individuals act the way we do, and a realisation by groups that joint action, at whatever level decisions are taken,
must be taken.