A Definition of Systems Theory

Systems theory is a set of principles applying to complex, interacting wholes, as a way to understand them. These principles are a tool to help us understand not just how things happen or are related in a linear way, but instead to conceptualize how processes, events and things are interrelated, from cell to universe to time - to everything else. That is a difficult idea for our linear minds to grasp. Systems theory is an attempt to grasp the ungraspable - to understand reality in a larger way than just what we can see and measure.

Many of the world's religions honor the interrelatedness of everything to a greater whole and acknowledge that individual actions or events create change. According to Buddhist scholar and systems theorist Joanna Macy (1991), Buddha's writings teach that everything is connected, is part of a larger system, and that every act results in a change to some part of the greater whole.

Cells, organs, organisms, communities, galaxies - all can be described as systems within systems within systems - all organized in some way and all interacting in some way and changing or being changed. If something happens in one part of the system it causes change in other parts of the system. If something happens to one's body - such as a wound - not just the area of the arm or leg that was wounded but many other parts of the body change to accommodate and respond to that wound.

In the second World War, engineers studied, built and refined a new kind of missile - one that could take in feedback about air patterns, temperature, the movement and path of an enemy plane, the missile's own path, and more. It could collect these bits of data throughout its whole flight, and with each new bit of data could adjust and adapt its own angle and path to accommodate for these changes and eventually hit the moving target. The self-guided missile was almost a participant with its target and everything that it passed through and what was happening all around it. It was in a relationship to all of these things, and all of these things affected it. Both missile and target were interrelated - no longer two individual parts but instead part of a greater whole, a greater system that is constantly changing and in many cases, creating change.