…and if you can pin any “ideology” on me for making these arguments, it would be the “ideology” of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems theory as it applies to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system

When you are talking about human systems, and living systems, it is my stance that you are talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system

This is important if you are saying “let’s change the nature of this system”

Ok, what is the “system” you are trying to change? How does it work? How will it react to change? I think many of our systems are collapsing now in part because people imagined that they are linear, and fixed, and so acted accordingly. Only to find out that the mechanisms they into place collapsed when these complex adaptive systems…adapted in complex ways over time.

I hope this helps explain what I am getting at.

If not, it may be useful to keep in mind the central theory of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn

“…science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions, also called “paradigm shifts” (although he did not coin the phrase), in which the nature of scientific inquiry within a particular field is abruptly transformed.”

…rival paradigms are incommensurable—that is, it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm.”

You may not understand what I am talking about, because you are thinking about it through a different “paradigm”, a different way of viewing the world.

If so, is my way fo viewing the world “better”? That is for you to decide.

Also, just because people talked about things in a certain way, eg:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22closed+society%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

..does not mean that it reflects the way things are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn discusses this in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”: how paradigms in science come to be.

So, I can accept that it is an existing paradigm to apply “open” and “closed” to all systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn can help you understand that when people raise objections to existing norms in science, they are not always coming from a position of ideology, nor ignorance.

Sometimes instead they are coming from a different way of viewing existence.

It is my viewpoint that it is very difficult to apply the label of “closed system” to many, if not most living systems, that can adapt and change over time. it is difficult to apply this in accurate ways. I accept that many people are doing this, I accept that it can be accurate in technical systems as a description. I accept that it is present in sociology (as in “closed society”).

My position is that I don’t see how “closed” applies accurately to living things which can adapt and change over time, and which affect one another in non-fixed, complex adaptive ways.

You can explain to me how parts of some system on a certain *scale* may have a nature which you are calling “closed”, and if that system contains living things, i will show you how on other scales, and/or within the same scale, it is not “closed”. (because, it is complex adaptive)

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22closed+society%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I think you’ll find many links there that describe *relatively* closed human systems with all kinds of attendant problems and undesirable properties.

Similarly, closed loop industrial ecologies do exist: your technical nutrients stay in the *closed* system, and do not leak out into the environment. Things like this really exist – closed loop coolants in various kinds of industrial processes, closed vs. open cycle OTEC systems… closed has a technical means: crap, often toxic crap, does not escape into the world.

Closed is a useful property of systems which contain things you do not want to spread. Things which are toxic-but-useful – *solvents* are a great example – stay in closed systems under ideal conditions.

This is a real engineering term. It is used, every day, in industry, in science, even in ecology, to describe a property of systems.

You might not *like* the word “closed” because of one ideological stand or another, but I think that if you are going to do any *actual systems engineering* you’d do well to actually understand what the term “closed system” means and learn to recognize where and when to apply it.

Similarly, if you want to discuss societies, the “open society” vs. “closed society” model is one way that people discuss the issues, although it’s not a way of discussing the issues that I have a particularly deep allegiance to, but it is common enough in the field.

We should have a closed system in mind as the ideal, not a local system. Closed in the sense that the system is as much as possible self-contained and does not need continuous input of external resources. The term “local” does not have that connotation.

Think of the biosphere, where we experiment to see whether humans can live completely closed off from the environment for long periods of time. We do this to see whether long space voyages are possible, where everything on the ship is re-cycled including what we normally see as “waste”.

There can be closed systems on a local scale, as in the idea of permaculture.

But there could and there should also be closed systems that are regional. And ideally, humanity should fit into the planetary environment in a way that is as near as possible a closed system. Let’s face it. We are resource hogs. We spend resources that are for the most part not renewable as if there was no concern whatsoever. And there should be concern. We don’t want to use up the earth’s resources in the blink of an eye of geological time. It has only taken us a hundred years of industrialized existence to make a serious dent in resources that – if we look at it in a serious way – should last us for thousands of years.

So yes, closed systems is the ideal. Lean systems would approach that ideal. Let’s go for it.

I think it is a real mistake to call these systems “closed”.

“Local” is better. I totally agree that we need what he is talking about. I just think his systems-language is off.

In fact, I think what he is talking about is what Janine Beynus calls “Type 2” and “Type 3” systems. http://www.massivechange.com/2006/07/11/janine-benyus-interview-october-14-2003/

Our systems are now largely centered around what Beynus calls “Type 1” ecology, which is part of natural cycles. It is a mass/monoculture system based on rapid growth. After a damaging forest fire, this is the ecology that emerges.

In nature, systems tend to move to towards a “permaculture”, Shrubs and then trees grow and establish a more permanent system that is far more self sustaining. Conversion of sunlight into resources is increased, biodiversity is increased. Much of the activity happens “locally”, but there are larger regional systems, and even global systems which are affected by the local system, and vice-versa. This larger regional/global system scale is something that we tend to ignore, because it’s temporal pace is different than systems that have emerged on human-sense scales. (of course, they are getting a lot of attention now that climate change is happening).

There is no closed living system, including any human system, in my opinion. People would be better off understanding the nature of things this way, then going along thinking that what some people describe as “local” means “closed”. This may seem frivilous. But in my opinion, it is important that people understand the nature of what they are looking at.