title: Dialectics and Systems Theory
tags: [Systems theory, Dialectics, Materialism, Science, Philosophy]
author: Richard Levins
date: '1998'
Dialectics and Systems Theory
Continuity and discontinuity
Dialectical materialism has historically focused on some selected aspects of reality while ignoring others. Engels was persuaded to emphasize the materiality of life, calling life the mode of motion of "albuminous [protein/macromolecular] bodies," in opposition to the school of vitalism. This even though dialectical materialists are against reductionism (molecular reductionism in this case). This was an attempt to expose the continuity between inorganic and organic matter where the vitalists were exaggerating the discontinuity.
[T]he relation of continuity and discontinuity in process is an aspect of dialectics that systems theory does not deal with at all.
Contrary to this point, from Thinking in Systems (Meadows):
There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion—the questions we want to ask. [...] It’s a great art to remember that boundaries are of our own making, and that they can and should be reconsidered for each new discussion, problem, or purpose. It’s a challenge to stay creative enough to drop the boundaries that worked for the last problem and to find the most appropriate set of boundaries for the next question. It’s also a necessity, if problems are to be solved well.
But indeed in reading that book I found no schematic for encoding such (dis)continuity, besides a short mention of "transcending paradigms" in the final chapter. In this sense, it seems that such fluidity is incapable of being represented as within systems but must be understood as existing outside of or above systems.
History of systems theory
Systems theory has a dual origin.
In engineering it is known as cybernetics (the study of self-regulating mechanisms embedded in complex circuitry), control theory, servomechanisms, or systems theory. Here it is an application of the mathematics of feedback. This analytic trend was soon taken up by military designers in the design of weapons systems and scientific management of large enterprises.
The other origin is in critical attempts to counter reductionist science, prevalent over the past century. This can be described as philosophical holism. Holism in science is nothing new, but with "systems theory" it arose anew in light of the field of ecology.
The whole
From here, creative research was done to show the interconnectedness of phenomena that are otherwise typically treated as separate. This grew with the popular mystical understanding human "Oneness" with the universe.
Of course you caw separate the intellectual constructs "body" from "mind," "physical" from "biological," "biological" from "social." We do it all the time, as soon as we label them. We have to in order to recognize and investigate them. That analytical step is a necessary moment in understanding the world. But it is not sufficient. After separating, we have to join them again, show their interpenetration, their mutual determination, their entwined evolution and yet also their distinctness. They are not "One." [...] Psychotherapists work both with asserting connection in examining family systems and with criticizing "codependence," the pathological loss of boundaries and autonomy. There is a one-sidedness in the holism that stresses the connectedness of the world but ignores the relative autonomy of parts.
Regarding "functionalist" diagnostics, which alarmed me in Thinking in Systems (with all of the talk of system goals, rules, punishments, goods and bads):
To the extent that the development of systems theory has been dominated by designed systems, goal-seeking behavior appears as an obvious property of systems as such, and therefore it is sought also in the study of natural system.
In the study of society, this may lead to a functionalism which assumes a common interest driving the society. But a society is not a servomechanism; its component classes pursue different, both shared and conflicting goals. Therefore it is not a "goal-oriented" system, even when many of its components are separately goal-seeking.
The author of Thinking in Systems, being an ecologist, was guilty of diagnosing all ecological change as destructive (going so far as to condemn particularly the Soviet Union for its industriousness). Relevant:
Within the framework of static holism it is difficult to accommodate change as other than destructive, so that conservation biology often emphasizes preservation of a particular species or ecological formation, rather than conditions that permit continued evolution.
While dialecticians agree with the necessity of a holistic critique of reductionism, they cannot agree to the dichotomy between separation-connection and autonomy-wholeness.
Dialectics agrees with systems theory that problems are larger than we first imagine. Levins condemns systems theorists for their "too small" formulations, but Thinking in Systems at least was not very guilty of this and gave many warnings in its chapter on boundaries. I suppose Levins is criticizing the very idea of the system itself in that it necessarily prevents the analyst from freely transcending its boundaries. A given scope and taxonomy is given with a system. Relatively higher or lower (or qualitatively different) scopes are inaccessible to the analyst.
Thus a systems analysis of the regulation of blood sugar may include the interactions among sugar itself, insulin, adrenalin, cortisol and other molecules but is unlikely to include anxiety, or the conditions that produce the anxiety such as the intensity of labor and the rate of using up of sugar reserves, whether or not the job allows a tired worker to rest or take a snack.
This seems to relate to the above point regarding continuity and discontinuity. Levins is charging systems theory with a distinct type of systemic reductionism here: static holism.
Dialectics appreciates the pre-reductionist kind of holism, but not its static quality, its hierarchical structure with a place for everything and everything in its place, nor the a priori imposition of a purposefulness that may or may not be there. Thus it "negates" materialist reductionism's negation of the earlier holism, an example of the negation of the negation that Maynard Smith found so opaque but could have recognized as the non-linearity of change
Parts
In systems theory, systems are thought to be composed of elements (stocks and flows) that remain qualitatively unchanging as they change quantitatively.
It is the priority of the elements and along with it the separation of the structure of a system from its behavior—rational assumptions for designed and manufactured systems—that keeps systems theory still vulnerable to the reproach of being large-scale reductionism.
On the other hand, dialectical wholes are not composed of the most independent parts but rather as points where "properties of the whole are concentrated." These parts are not simply "interconnected" or "in interaction," but are interpenetrating. For example, in the oft-used systems illustration of the thermostat-controlled room, there is no place for the temperature of the area the qualitatively transform the behavior of the constituent parts of the system. The "temperature" variable is taken a priori to the system and changes only quantitatively (in response to flows, and in order to trigger flows). In the realm of biology, temperature is not just given to the organism but the organism creates its environment's temperature.
Although systems theory is comfortable with the idea that a certain equation is valid only within some limits, it does not deal explicitly with the interpenetrations of variables in its models, their transformations of each other. In a sense, Marx's Capital was the first attempt to treat a whole system rather than merely to criticize the failings of reductionism. His initial objects of investigation in Volume I, commodities, are not autonomous building blocks or atoms of economic life that are then inserted into capitalism, but rather are studied as "cells" of capitalism chosen for study precisely because they reveal the workings of the whole. They can be separated out for inspection only as aspects of the whole that called them forth. To Marx, this was an advantage because the whole is reflected in the workings of all the parts.
On hierarchy theory (which was briefly examined in Thinking in Systems):
Parts of a system may themselves be systems with their own structure and dynamics. This approach is taken by hierarchy theory in which nested systems each contribute as parts to higher level systems (O'Neill, et al., 1986). This allows us to separate domains for analysis. However, the reverse process, the defining and transforming of the subsystems by the higher level, is rarely examine
The parts (subsystems in this case) are still taken as a priori objects.
Causality
When separating variables as systems theory does, it's necessary to answer questions of causality in terms of independent and dependent variables.
Whether [a proposed causal pathway] is generally true or not is an empirical question. In a complex network of variables the driving forces for change may originate anywhere. When we attempt to ask "does economics or geopolitics determine foreign policy?" or "is the content of TV driven by sales or ideology?" the question is unanswerable in general. The complex network of mutual determinations requires a complex answer that is hinted at in the awkward term "overdetermination" which recognizes causal processes as operating simultaneously on different levels and through different pathways. Or it brings us back to Hegel: the truth is the whole.
Then where is the locus of historical materialism? Doesn't it require that the economy determine society?
No! "The economy" as a set of factors in social life has no inherent priority over any of the other myriad interpenetrating processes. Sometimes it is determinant of particular events, sometimes not. [...] Approached in this way, all is mediations, and the assignment of absolute priority is dogmatism.
But this is quite different from identifying the mode of production and reproduction, which is present not as a "factor" in the network but as the network itself. It is the structure of that network, that mode, that defines workers and capitalists as the actors or "variables" in the network, makes it possible for sexism to have commercial value, makes legislation a political activity, or allows major events to be initiated by the caprices of monarchs. It is the context within which the various mediations play themselves out and transform each other rather than a factor among factors.
Goals
Functionalism was treated above. Here Levins remarks that dialectics sees its "wholes" not in terms of the satisfaction of an organizing principle (harmony, maximization, efficiency, etc.). Wholes (or systems) are characterized by their structured sets of contradictory processes that give meaning to their elements, maintain temporary coherence, and eventually transform into some other wholes (or dissolve into another system, or disintegrate entirely).
Outcomes
There are limits to the predictive power of systems described by mathematical equations. Results may only be valid within certain variable bounds. Unrepresented variables (omitted because of ignorance or by choice) may lead to erroneous predictions.
There's a warning about the predictive failures of epidemiological models in this part. (Refer to the failures of COVID-19 science.)
Systems modelers tend to glorify quantitative information ("hard data") over qualitative information ("soft data"). In their eyes, data fitting necessarily leads to more accurate predictions. John Maynard Smith, for example, uses this rationale to argue systems theory supersedes dialectics. "Marxists argue for a more complex and non-hierarchical relation between quantitative and qualitative approaches to the world." The lust for data reminds me of Francis Galton's statistical applications detailed in Gould's The Mismeasure of Man.
Dialecticians seek practical and theoretical understanding rather than a good data fit.
Dialecticians turn the Newtonian explanation of stasis on its head: change is universal and much is happening to change everything at all times. The changing of "things" happens constantly due to external forces and internal dynamics. But "things" indeed sometimes persist long enough to be named and understood. Stasis and equilibrium are exceptional circumstances that must be explained.
When reading Thinking in Systems, it often seemed like homeostasis (balancing feedback loops) were inherently benevolent. The author explicitly identified the benevolence of homeostasis in ecology. Levins here denounces this explicitly (of course; capitalism is homeostatic enough to be analyzed). Negative feedback loops are those processes incurred by an initial impact which diminish the initial impact. Positive feedback loops are those processes incurred by an initial impact that magnify the initial impact. Positive and negative are not normative categories (although they sometimes seemed to be, in Thinking in Systems).
An increase in wages may lead to employers cutting the labor force, increasing unemployment and thus making it easier to reduce wages. A decrease in wages may lead to labor militancy that restores some of the cuts. The outcome (if nothing else happens) is a partial restoration of the original situation. Neither party is seeking homeostasis, and the wage/employment feedback is not designed or pursued by anyone to maintain economic stability. It is simply one possible manifestation of class struggle. Thus homeostasis does not imply functionalism, a view which assigns purpose to the feedback loop as such.
Then Levins explicitly refutes the perspectives of Meadows, the author of Thinking in Systems:
It is the contradictions among opposing forces (and between those of the ecology and the economy) rather than the failure of a good try by inadequate information systems and deficient homeostatic loops that are responsible for much of the present suffering and the threat of more.
Levins then critiques the systems analyst's confusion of the variable with the thing itself and not just a quantitative aspect of the thing. IN a simple predator-prey system, the analyst may condense the prey down to a single variable: number of prey organisms. They would be doing this at the expense of the important complexity introduced by considering e.g. the age or size of the prey and the resultant average propensity to escape the predator. Again, the importance of changing quality of system components is often missed in systems analysis.
Choosing the "right variables" for the system's equations in related to "the classical Marxist problem of abstraction (see Ollman, [Dialectical Investigations], 1993, for a detailed examination of dialectical abstraction)."
Parameters are those inputs into the system simulation that are given a priori not just in structure (like variables) but also in value. Choosing the "right parameters" is difficult. Analysts often refer to existing literature instead of measuring them anew.
[...] dialectics emphasizes the provisional nature of the system and the transitory nature of the systems model.
More on "the whole being reflected in the workings of all the parts:"
Because each variable reflects its history on its own time scale, they are generally not in "balance" or harmony. Ideology need not "correspond" to class position, political power to economic power, or forests to climate. Rather, the links between variables in a system identify processes: ideology responding, not corresponding, to class position, economic power enhancing political power, political power being used to consolidate economic power, colder climate trees such as spruce and hemlock gradually displacing the oak and beech of a warmer period. But all of these processes take time, so that a system does not show a passive correlation among its parts but a network of processes constantly transforming each other. [...] Complete adaptedness would have been an argument for special creation, not evolution, proclaiming a harmony that manifests the benevolent wisdom of the Creator.
Long-term changes alter the circumstances to which the short-term system responds as well as the means available for that response.
Conclusion
The art of modeling requires the sensitivity to decide when in the development of a science a previously necessary simplification has become a gross oversimplification and a brake to further progress. This sensitivity depends on an understanding of science as a social process and of each moment as an episode in its history, a dialectical sensitivity that is not taught in the "objectivist" traditions of mechanistic systems analysis.
Thus systems theory is best understood as reflecting the dual nature of science: part of the generic evolution of humanity's understanding of the world, and a product of a specific social structure that supports and constrains science and directs it toward the goals of its owners. On the one hand it is a "moment" in the investigation of complex systems, the place between the formulation of a problem and the interpretation of its solution where mathematical modeling can make the obscure obvious. On the other hand it is the attempt of a reductionist scientific tradition to come to terms with complexity, non-linearity and change through sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques, a groping toward a more dialectical understanding that is held back both by its philosophical biases and the institutional and economic contexts of its development.