Three Laws of Systemics



My mission statement promotes becoming healthy, happy, and holy. Its meaning should be reasonably obvious when applied to individuals and community, but I also assert that goal for systems, which is perhaps somewhat unusual. I started using the word systemics to describe this attitude of looking at systemic problems, and as usual discovered someone else thought of it first -- in this case, fifty years ago, which gave birth to the International Society for the Systems Sciences, custodians of a genuine scientific discipline that has arguably has fallen off its prime.

I hope to eventually connect with them and see where they're going, but first I want to try to formulate my philosophy in systemic terms in the hopes of finding common ground. Here, with a nod to Isaac Asimov , are my Three Laws of Systemics:

1. Happy systems fulfill their purposes (cf. Matthew 6:33)

2. Healthy systems align with their purposes (cf. Matthew 22:37)

3. Holy systems achieve their purposes by others achieving theirs (cf. Matthew 22:39)

While I haven't done an exhaustive inquiry, these seem to fit what I know of the human body, organizational theory, and computer software.

Posted: Fri - November 19, 2004 at 07:29 AM        

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