THE MANAGER AS A TEACHER: SELECTED ASPECTS OF STIMULATION OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING
Evolution of our
World. We always say that the objects (systems) exist in our World /Unietse/and
they operate in it. Therefore it is necessary to give a definition of the
concept “our World”. We call “our World” the greatest and universal system in
which based on the law of hierarchy all objects exist as its subsystems which
can be part of it without coming into conflict with the laws of conservation
and cause-and-effect limitations. Such objects are target-oriented associations
of systemic functional units (SFU, elements) – the groups of elements
interacting with specific goal/purpose (systems, or rather subsystems of our
World). These include both the objects which existed before and are
non-existent now and those that exist now and will appear in the future as a
result of evolution. Absolutely all objects of our World have one or another
purpose. We do not know these purposes and we can only guess them, but they are
present in all the systems without exception. The purpose determines the laws
of existence and architecture (“anatomy”) of objects, limits interaction
between them or between their elements and stipulates the hierarchy of both
sub-goals and subsystems for the achievement of these sub-goals. But this
architecture is continually found insufficient (limited) because it is
determined by the law of cause-and-effect limitations. It forces the systems to
continuously seek the way to overcome these limitations, develops them and
determines direction of evolution of the systems. That is why the systems
develop towards their complexification and enhancement of their possibilities
(evolve). If there would be no limitations, there would be no sense in
evolution because ultimately the goal of evolution always consists in
overcoming the limitations. All objects of our World have at least two primary
goals: to be/exist in this World (to preserve themselves) to fulfill the goal
and to have maximum possibilities to perform the actions for the achievement of
the goal. However, any object of our World is limited in its possibilities to
varying extent due to the law of cause-and-effect limitations and moreover, since the
objects are continually exposed to various external influences destroying them,
the systems have to continually protect themselves from such destruction.
Therefore, the systems at first “have invented” passive and then active ways of protection
against such destructive influence. The process of “invention” of these ways of
protection and the enhancement of their possibilities is what evolution of
objects of our World means exactly, at that it implies not only the evolution
of living beings, but evolution of everything that exists in the world.
Consolidation of objects in groups strengthens them and ensures the possibility
for them to co-operate against destruction in a target-oriented manner. It is
for the reason of “survival” of elements that the systems came into being, and
complexification of elements just magnifies their possibilities. The simplest systems
are those having only simple control block. Such objects include all objects of
mineral nature, as well as plants. The possibilities of elementary particles
are too small, and the lifespan of many of them is too short. The lifetime and
possibility of an electron, proton or neutron are tenfold. Grouping of elements
not only increases their lifetime, but also increases their possibilities. What
can be done by electron (proton, neutron) cannot be done by elementary particles
constituting them. What can be done by atoms can not be done separately by
protons, neutrons and electrons. Grouping of atoms in
molecules has enabled the development of more complex systems, up to human
being, construction of which would have been impossible using elementary
particles. However, although in process of further consolidation of atoms and
molecules in conglomerates (mineral objects: gas clouds, liquid and solid
bodies) the possibilities of these objects increase, but their lifetime starts
to decrease sharply because the law of negative entropy works. Destruction is
the loss by the object of its SFU. There are only two ways to prevent from
destruction: increase in durability of connections/bonds between the SFU,
restoration of the lost SFU, prevention of the SFU losses. The first one is
passive, while the other two are active ways of protection. The increase in
durability of connections/bonds between the SFU (the first way) is the passive
way of protection against destruction. Mineral bodies have only these
passive means of protection from the destructive effect of the external medium.
The weakest of them are gaseous objects, while the strongest are crystalline.
But even the strongest crystal may be destroyed. Metabolism is aimed at the restoration
of the lost SFU (the second way) and is the active way of protection of systems
from destruction. It is carried out at the expense of capture of necessary
elements from the external medium. There is no metabolism in mineral objects,
but it is present in all living objects, including plants. Hence, our World can
be divided conditionally into two sub-worlds: inanimate/inorganic and animate
nature. The criterion for such division is metabolism – the purposeful process
of restoration of the lost SFU. But for such process the system should contain
corresponding elements (metabolism organs) which are not present in the objects
of mineral inorganic nature, but do exist in plants. Prevention of SFU losses
(the third way) is also an active way of systems’ protection from their
destruction. Systems may be prevented from destruction for the account of their
behavioral reactions depending on the external situation. If the situation is
threatening the system needs to escape from the given situation. But for this
purpose it is necessary to be aware about this situation, to be able to see it,
as well as to have organs of movement which are nonexistent in the systems of
mineral and vegetative nature. For this purpose it is necessary to have at
least complex control block. Hence, in the animate nature it is possible to
single out two more sub-worlds/natures: flora and fauna. The criterion for such
division is the complexity of the control block and its ability (the availability of
possibility) to show behavioral reactions. The more complex the control block,
the higher is the development of animal as a system. But at that, note should
be taken of the fact that the development of systems from plants to animals was
basically solving only one problem – to be/exist in this World. The purport of
existence of plants and the majority (if not of all) of animals, except for
humans, is only in the metabolism. If the system is hungry it operates, if is
satiated it stays idle. Yes, with complication of the control block simultaneous
increase in the possibilities of systems occurred too, but it still pursued the
goals of metabolism. More adapted animal feeds better. If the system plays and
lives jolly (emotional tint of behavioral reactions), such reactions as a rule
are still directed towards self-training of systems for better hunting for
other systems. Therefore such reactions are basically inherent in young
animals. More adult individuals do not play any more. Note should be also taken
of that division of animals into predators and herbivorous animals is quite
conditional, since it is not eating meat that is a distinctive feature of a
predator and plants may also be carnivorous (for example, sundew and the like).
Absolutely all animals, and not only them, but plants as well, are predators,
since they represent the systems which feed on other systems. Even among the
objects of mineral nature mutual relations of a victim-predator type may be
found. Some systems (plants and herbivores) feed on systems with simple control
blocks (mineral objects and plants) because it is easier thing to do. However,
other systems (carnivorous) feed or try to feed on systems with complex control
blocks (other animals), although it is much more complex to do so. That is why
the donkey is more stupid than a tiger. The human being differs from other
objects of animate nature first of all in that it is not metabolism which is
the main purport of his/her life, but cognition. Yes, the higher the level of
knowledge, the better the nutrition. But the process of cognition in itself
prevails over all other processes aimed at metabolism. And even the metabolism
itself is raised to the rank of art (the cookery). It is also possible to
single out the human nature in that way as well, since only a human being out
of all objects of our World has second signaling system (the intellectual
control block) and aspiration towards cognition. Hence, the purpose of our
World was evolution which has stipulated the development of systems in the
direction towards complexification of their control blocks up to a human being.
And the purpose of this evolution was to develop systems to such a degree that
they have learnt to cognize the World. We can look back and see the
confirmation of it throughout the entire history of development of our World in
general and biosphere in particular. We do not know what was before the Big
Bang, and we do not even know to which extent such statement is qualified.
However, after it only the emergence and complexification of systems in the
Universe was taking place, at that it occurred only at the expense of
complexification of their control blocks, because their primary SFU
(elementary particles) practically have not changed since then neither
qualitatively, nor quantitatively. And we, the people, are the consequence and
the proof of this development either. The human being is the most complex
system, the top of evolution which has occurred till nowadays. Experience of
this evolution shows that major distinctive feature throughout the entire
process of advanced development was only the development of control blocks of
systems. We do not know the purposes of the majority of systems of our World,
although we can fabricate a multitude of speculations on many issues of this
subject. For example, nuclei of atoms of chemical elements that are heavier
than iron in those quantities which exist now in our Universe, could only and
only appear as the result of explosions of supernovas. Hence, is the purpose of
stars with evolution of a supernova type is the production of nuclei of atoms
harder than iron? It may be true, although no one would avouch for it for the
present. But we can surely state that a human being in the shape it exists
today and is known to us would not have been existent without the elements
having atomic weight heavier that iron, because the structure of its organism
requires the presence of such elements. So, there are sufficient grounds for
the assumption that stars of a supernova type are necessary for the development
of the humans. It sounds strange and extraordinary, but still it’s the fact.
But we know for sure and without speculations the purposes of some of the
World’s systems, in particular, the purposes of many systems of organism. We
know one of the main objectives of any living organism – to survive in the
environment, and we know the hierarchy of sub-goals into which this purpose is
broken down. We see how living systems develop on the way of evolution, we see
the differences of systems standing at different levels of evolutionary process
and we can explain the advantage of some systems over the others. In other
words, the possibility is opened to us to construct classification of all
systems of our World, including that of living systems. Today there is no uniform classification
of all objects of our World, but there are only separate classifications of
various groups of these objects, including classifications of astronomical,
geological, biological and other groups. At that, nowadays the underlying
principle of the majority, if not of all of these classifications, including
classification of both the entire animate nature and the diseases, is the
organic-morphological analysis. But probably it is necessary to substitute it,
as well as classification of diseases, for the classification based on systemic
analysis – the analysis of the goals/purposes. And the basic principle of the
new classification should be not external distinctions, such as the number of
feet or cones on the teeth, but two basic differences: differences by types of
control blocks and types of executive elements. Moreover, it is necessary to
include all objects of our World in this classification – animate and
inanimate, because our World is replete only with systems which differ from
each other only in the degree of development of their control blocks and in the
ways of protection against destruction by the external media. The world is
uniform, because it is a system in itself. Therefore, it is necessary to create
common and single classification of all systems of our World. And systems are
any objects, including animate/organic and inanimate/inorganic. Then it will be
possible to distinguish four worlds/natures (sub-natures) of objects in our
World: the world of minerals/mineral nature/, vegetative, animal
worlds/natures/ and the world of humans/the human nature/. The population of
each world differs from each other, as it was repeatedly underlined, only in
control blocks and metabolism. The objects of mineral and vegetative nature
have simple control blocks. But the objects of mineral nature have only passive
ways of protection against negative entropy (destruction). And all living subjects,
including plants, have active ways of protection against the same negative
entropy, i.e. active substitution of the destroyed SFU at the expense of
metabolism. Animals, unlike plants, in addition to metabolism, have more
complex control blocks which enable behavioral reactions and thus allow them to
control in a varying degree surrounding situation. And the humans have the most
complex control block which contains the second signaling system and
consequently it is capable of cognizing the whole World, including themselves,
but not just what happens/exists nearby. And within each type of nature
classification we should also proceed further to include the criteria of
complexity of control blocks and then the criteria of presence and the degree
of development of executive elements, including the number of feet or cones on
the teeth. In this case classification will be the one of cause-and-effect type
and logical. For example, vegetative nature/the flora/ includes not only
plants, but all the Earth’s population which possesses only simple control
block and metabolism. And those are not only plants and not only metazoan.
Procaryotes and eukaryotes, bacteria, phytoplankton, sea anemones, corals,
polyps, fungi, trees, herbs, mosses and lichens and many others possessing and
those not possessing chlorophyll are all flora. They simply grow in space and
they have no idea of it because they “do not see” it. However, some plants, for
example, trees or herbs, unlike corals, fungi or polyps, contain
chlorophyll (specific executive element). Such classification of systems has
one incontestable advantage: it aligns everything that populates our World –
the systems. The whole World around us is classified by a single scale, where
the unit of measure is only the complexity of control block and executive
elements used by it. In that way it would be easier for us to understand what
life is. May it be so that inanimate nature does not exist at all? Perhaps,
“animate” differs from “inanimate” only in that it “has comprehended” its own
exposure to destruction under the influence of environment and first has learnt
self-restorability and then it learnt how to protect itself from destructions?
Then Pierre Teyjar De Chardin is right asserting that
evolution is a process of arousal of consciousness. Currently existing classifications do
not provide the answer to this question. New classification of systems based on
the systemic target-oriented analysis will make it possible to understand,
where the “ceiling” of development of systems of each of the worlds is and
which of its subjects are still at the beginning of the evolutionary scale and
which of them have already climbed up its top. But this classification is based
on the recognition of the first-priority role of the goal/purpose on the whole
and purposefulness of nature in particular, which idea is disputable for the
present and is not accepted by all. Therefore, queer position was
characteristic for the XX century: the position of struggle with nature,
position which is still shared by a great many. This position is fundamentally
erroneous, because the nature is not our enemy, but the “parent”, the tutor and
friend. It “produced” us and “nurtured” us, having provided a cradle, the Earth
for us, and it has been creating greenhouse conditions throughout many millions
years, where fluctuations of temperature were no more than 100ºC and the
pressure about 1 atmosphere, with plenty of place, sufficient moisture and
energy, although Space is characterized by range of temperatures in many
millions degrees and of pressure in millions atmospheres. It has brought us up
and made us strong, using evolution and the law of competition: “the strongest
survives”. It is not our task “to take from it”, nor to struggle with it, but
to understand and collaborate with it, because it is not our enemy, but the
teacher and partner. It “knows” itself what we need and gives it to us,
otherwise we would not have existed. This is not an ode to the nature, but the
statement of fact of its purposefulness. Some may object that such combination
of natural conditions which has led to the origination of human being is just a
mere fortuity which has arisen under the law of large numbers only because the
World is very large and all kind of options are possible in it. However, that
many incidental occurrences are kind of suspicious. The nature continually
“puts stealthily” various problems before us, but every time the level of these
problems for some reason completely corresponds to the level of development of
an animal or a human being. For some reason a man “has discovered” a nuclear
bomb at the moment when he could already apprehend the power of this discovery.
Nature does not give dangerous toys to greenhorns. If there were no problems at
all, there would be no stimulus to development and as of today the Earth would
have been populated by the elementary systems, if it were populated at all.
However, if the problems sharply exceed the limit of possibilities of systems,
the latter would have collapsed and the Earth would have not been populated at
all, if it would be existent in abstracto. And in any case there would have
been no development on the whole. But we do exist and it is the fact which has
to be taken into account and which requires explanation. And the explanation
only consists in the purposefulness of Nature.
Systemic analysis
is a process of receiving answer to the question “Why is the overall goal of
the system fulfilled (not fulfilled)?” The notion of “systemic analysis”
includes other two notions: “system” and “analysis”. The notion of “system” is
inseparably linked with the notion of the “goal/purpose of the system”. The notion
“analysis” means examination by parts and arranging systematically
(classification). Hence, the “systemic analysis” is the analysis of the
goal/purpose of the system by its sub-goals (classification or hierarchy of the
goals/purposes) and the analysis of the system by its subsystems
(classification or hierarchy of systems) with the view of clarifying which
subsystems and why can (can not) fulfill the goals (sub-goals) set forth before
them. Any systems perform based on the principle “it is necessary and
sufficient” which is an optimum control principle. The notion “it is necessary”
determines the quality of the purpose, while the notion “is suficient”
determines its quantity. If qualitative and quantitative parameters of the
purpose of the given system can be satisfied, then the latter is sufficient. If
the system cannot satisfy some of these parameters of the goal, it is
insufficient. Why the given system cannot fulfill the given purpose? This
question is answered by systemic analysis. Systemic analysis can show that
such-and-such object “consists of... for…”, i.e. for what purpose the given
object is made, of what elements it consists of and what role is played by each
element for the achievement of this goal/purpose. The
organic-morphological analysis, unlike systemic analysis, can show that
such-and-such object “consists of... “, i.e. can only show of which elements
the given object consists. Systemic analysis is not made arbitrarily, but is
based on certain rules. The key conditions of systemic analysis are the account
of complexity and hierarchy of goals/purposes and systems.
Complexity of
systems. It is necessary to specify the notion of complexity of system. We have
seen from the above that complexification of systems occurred basically for the
account of complexification of control block. At that, complexity of executive
elements could have been the most primitive despite the fact that control block
at that could have been very complex. The system could contain only one type
SFU and even only one SFU, i.e. to be monofunctional. But at the same time it
could carry out its functions very precisely, with the account of external
situation and even with the account of possibility of occurrence of new
situations, if it had sufficiently complex control block. When the analysis of
the complexity of system is made from the standpoint of cybernetics, the
communication, informo-dynamics, etc. theories the subject discussed is the
complexity of control block, rather than the complexity of the system. Note should
be taken of that regardless of the degree of the system complexity two flows of
activity are performed therein: information flow and a flow of target-oriented
actions of the system. Information flow passes through the control block,
whereas the flow of target-oriented actions passes through executive elements.
Nevertheless, the notion of complexity may also concern the flows of
target-oriented actions of systems. There exist mono- and multifunctional
systems. There are no multi-purpose systems, but only mono-purpose systems,
although the concept of “multi-purpose system” is being used. For example, they
say that this fighter-bomber is multi-purpose because it can bomb and shoot
down other aircrafts. But this aircraft still has only one general purpose: to destroy
the enemy’s objects. This fighter-bomber just has more possibilities than a
simple fighter or simple bomber. Hence, the notion of complexity concerns only
the number and quality of actions of the system, which are determined by a
number of levels of its hierarchy (see below), but not the number of its
elements. Dinosaurs were much larger than mammals (had larger number of
elements), but have been arranged much simpler. The simplest system is SFU
(Systemic Functional Unit). It fulfills its functions very
crudely/inaccurately as the law that works is the “all-or-none” one and the
system’s actions are the most primitive. Any SFU is the simplest/elementary
defective system and its inferiority is shown in that such system can provide
only certain quality of result of action, but cannot provide its optimum
quantity. Various SFU may differ by the results of their actions (polytypic
SFU), but they may not differ either (homotypic SFU). However, all of them work
under the “all-or-none” law. In other words, the result of its action has no
gradation or is zero (non-active phase), or maximum (active phase). SFU either
reacts to external influence at maximum (result of action is maximum – “all”),
or waits for external influence (the result of action is zero – “none”) and
there is no gradation of the result of action. Each result of SFU action is a
quantum (indivisible portion) of action. Monofunctional systems possess only
one kind of result of action which is determined by their SFU type. They may
contain any quantity of SFU, from one to maximum, but in any case these should
be homotypic SFU. Their difference from the elementary system is only in the
quantity of the result of action (quantitative difference). The monofunctional
system may anyway perform its functions more accurately as its actions have
steps of gradation of functions. The accuracy of performance of function
depends on the value of action of single SFU, the NF intensity and the type of
its control block, while the capacity depends on the number of SFU. The
“smaller” the SFU, the higher the degree of possible accuracy is. The larger
the number of SFU, the higher the capacity is. So, if the structure of the
system’s executive elements (SFU structure) is homotypic, it is then
multifunctional and simple system. But at that, its control block, for example,
may be complex. In this case the system is simple with complex control block.
The multifunctional system is a system which contains more than one type of
monofunctional systems. It possesses many kinds of result of action and may
perform several various functions (many functions). Any complex system may be
broken down into several simple systems which we have already discussed above.
The difference of multifunctional system from the monofunctional one is that
the latter consists of itself and includes homotypic SFU, while complex system
consists of several monofunctional systems with different SFU types. And at
that, these several simple systems are controlled by one common control block
of any degree of complexity. The difference between monofunctional and
multifunctional systems is in the quantity and quality of SFU. In order to
avoid confusion of the complexity of systems with the complexity of their
control block, it is easier to assume that there are monofunctional (simple) and
multifunctional (complex) systems. In this case the concept of complexity of
system would only apply to control block. In monofunctional system control
block operates a set of own SFU regardless of the degree of its complexity. In multifunctional
system control block of any degree of complexity operates several
monofunctional subsystems, each of which has its SFU with their control blocks.
It is complexity of control block that stipulates the complexity of the system,
and not only the type of system, but the appurtenance of the given object to
the category of systems. The presence of an appropriate control block
conditions the presence of a system, whereas the absence of (any) control block
conditions the absence of a system. Systems may have control blocks of a level
not lower than simple. The full-fledged system can not have the
simplest/elementary control block, whereas the SFU can.