“Any attempt to reduce the complex properties of biological organisms or of nervous systems or of human brains to simple physical and chemical systems is foolish.”

— Kenneth E. Boulding

Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 20

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Kenneth E. Boulding 163

British-American economist 1910–1993

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 159

“A physical system is just that: a physical system. What is systematized is matter itself, and the processes in which the system is realized are also material. But a biological system is more complex: it is both biological and physical — it is matter with the added component of life; and a social system is more complex still: it is physical, and biological, with the added component of social order, or value. … A semiotic system is still one step further in complexity: it is physical, and biological, and social —and also semiotic: what is being systematized is meaning. In evolutionary terms, it is a system of the fourth order of complexity”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Michael Halliday (2005, p. 68) as cited in: Andrew Halliday and Marion Glaser (2011) "A Management Perspective on Social Ecological Systems". In: Human Ecology Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2011.
1970s and later

“An organization is a subordinate system of a specific larger system, the cooperative system, whose components are physical, biological, and personal systems. The relations with other organizations… are outside this specific cooperative system. Other organizations are a part of the social environment of the organization. It is for this reason I have used the phrase "complex of organizations" rather than "system." Usually the most significant relationships of a unit organization are those with the specific cooperative system of which it is a part. It is this system which primarily and on the whole in most instances determines the chief conditions of the organization's existence.”

Chester Barnard book The Functions of the Executive

Source: The Functions of the Executive (1938), p. 98-99, footnote

“[… language, as an example of a semiotic system, contains all four levels of organization as follows:]
First, it is transmitted physically, by sound waves traveling through the air; secondly, it is produced and received biologically, by the human brain and its associated organs of speech and hearing; thirdly it is exchanged socially, in contexts set up and defined by the social structure; and fourthly it is organized semiotically as a system of meanings”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Michael Halliday (2006, p. 68) as cited in: Andrew Halliday and Marion Glaser (2011).
1970s and later

“(Systems science) does not aim to ﬁnd the one true representation for a given type of systems (e. g. physical, chemical or biological systems), but to formulate general principles about how different representations of different systems can be constructed so as to be effective in problem-solving.”

Francis Heylighen (1960) Belgian cyberneticist

Francis Heylighen, 1990, "Classical and non-classical representations in physics I." Cybernetics and Systems 21. p. 423; As cited by: Hieronymi, A. (2013), Understanding Systems Science: A Visual and Integrative Approach. Syst. Res.. doi: 10.1002/sres.2215

“The projected form does make some impression upon the physical system. It is possible for it to be detected. It is a kind of pseudo-image, materialistically speaking, but it has definite electromagnetic reality and chemical properties. Animals have sensed such apparitions. They react to the chemical properties and build up [the perception] from these. These chemical properties are more diffused in such an apparition than in a physical form, however.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 338 quoting from Session 269

“Things evolve to evolve. Evolutionary processes are the linchpin of change. These processes of discovery represent a complexity of simple systems that flux in perpetual tension as they teeter at the edge of chaos. This whirlwind of emergence is responsible for the spontaneous order and higher, organized complexity so noticeable in biological evolution—one–celled critters beefing up to become multicellular organisms.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 335

“If we now reintroduce the conception of the complex organization as an open system subject to criteria of rationality, we are in a position to speculate about some dynamic properties of organizations.”

James D. Thompson (1920–1973) American sociologist

Source: Organizations in Action, 1967, p. 11

“What do you know about the activities of the brain and the nervous system?”

George Alec Effinger book When Gravity Fails

I laughed. “About as much as any hustler from the Budayeen who can barely read and write his name. I know that the brain is in the head, I’ve heard that it’s a bad idea to let some thug spill it on the sidewalk. Beyond that, I don’t know much.” I did, truthfully, know some more, but I always hold something in reserve. It’s a good policy to be a little quicker, a little stronger, and a little smarter than everybody thinks you are.
Source: When Gravity Fails (1986), Chapter 12 (p. 160).

“The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 5

“Any attempt to reduce the complex properties of biological organisms or of nervous systems or of human brains to simple physical and chemical systems is foolish.”

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Kenneth E. Boulding 163

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