SYSTEMANTICS. THE SYSTEMS BIBLE by John Gall

Author:John Gall [Gall, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Publisher: GENERAL SYSTEMANTICS PRESS
Published: 2012-12-05T14:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 9. THE SYSTEM IS ALTERED BY THE PROBE USED TO TEST IT.

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36. The Problem in the Solution

The Observer Effect

We have already noted the unpredictable, sometimes almost hysterical, response of a System to the mere appearance of a Change Agent or Efficiency Expert upon the scene. Vast and previously unsuspected reserves of Anergy are suddenly mobilized and made available for preservation of the Status Quo. Though known and deplored since ancient times, this effect has only in our own day received the scientific study it deserves. In a famous experiment conducted less than a year after Heisenberg’s (1925) enunciation of the Principle of Indeterminacy, Winnie- the-Pooh (1926) probed the depths of his honey-potto be certain that it was truly honey within, all the way to the bottom. The probe was successful. On completion of the probing, however, the honey-pot nolonger contained honey. Furthermore, Pooh’s head was stuck in the pot.[cxxxiii]

We conclude, with Pooh and Heisenberg:

THE SYSTEM IS ALTERED BY THE PROBE USED TO TEST IT

—and, mindful of Pooh’s head, we add:

THE PROBE IS ALTERED ALSO

Unfortunately, the experience of Pooh was not reported in those prestigious journals that sway the thinking of scientists and it was therefore largely ignored. Nevertheless, the Observer Effect would not Go Away. It Persisted, it Encroached. And as probes became more sophisticated, it Expanded to Fill the Observable Universe. When pioneering Primate researchers looked through the peephole of the cage and saw a large round eye staring back, they were made uneasily aware of the Observer Effect. And when Anthropologists began to study tribes in their native habitats, they increasingly began to notice that the typical New Guinea family consisted of father, mother, three children, and one or more Anthropologists. In brief, there can be:

NO SYSTEM WITHOUT ITS OBSERVER

and

NO OBSERVATION WITHOUT ITS EFFECTS

Systems and Self-Reference:

We have previously noted that Systems do not solve problems; they represent attempted solutions. But even today one still occasionally hears a slogan, asserted as if it were a genuine Systems-Axiom, to the effect that:

IF YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM

—Catchy, but specious. The correct form of the Theorem is as follows:

THE SOLUTION IS OFTEN PART OF THE PROBLEM

—and usually the hardest part, we might add. Were it not for that elusive beast, the Problem-in-the-Solution, the task of troubleshooting complex Systems might eventually become a matter of checking lists in a Technical Manual. Let us, therefore, take a closer look at the example we have just cited from Primate Studies:

PRIMATE PEEPER PEEPS, SEES PRIMATE PEEPING AT PRIMATE PEEPER

Stated thus, the self-referential quality of the interaction is apparent[cxxxiv][cxxxv]

Self-reference is often signaled by a momentary confusion or double-take, a fleeting urge to laugh, or a feeling of exasperation that somehow just fails to come to a specific focus. We (or some of us) feel it on being asked to watch a movieentitled THE MOVIES. The feeling returns in force when our television schedule announces a special programentitled “TV Guide—the First 25 Years.”[cxxxvi]

Now, when a Primatologist observes Primate

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