W. Ross Ashby quote: “By a state of a system is meant any well-defined condition or property that can be recognised if it occurs again. Every…”

“[The environment of a system is] a set of elements and their relevant properties, which elements are not part of the system, but a change in any of which can cause or produce a change in the state of the system.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

1970s, Towards a System of Systems Concepts, 1971

“Our conception is that of a theory about the system in an inertial state… if the organism is a system in an inertial state, as our law expresses it, the metabolic processes generally have to follow the established system; the ever progressing findings must replace the general expression of 'a system in an inertial state' by a more and more detailed knowing about the nature of this system and its chemical, osmotic, fermentive system conditions.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Bertalanffy (1929, p. 95-97) as cited in: Felix Müller, M. Leupelt (1998) Eco targets, goal functions, and orientors . p. 308
1920s

“The plan of the present paper is to discuss properties of systems more or less abstractly; that is to define system and to describe the properties that are common to many systems and which serve to characterize them all.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

Source: Definition of System, 1956, p. 18: Introduction

“The matter of color is more confusing. Not every property of a system can be stated as a definite spatio-temporal state of affairs. A system's tendency, for instance, to move from State A to State B, but not from State B to State A... a tendency like this is not any specific event which you can point to in space and time. These nonspecific properties correspond to overall gestalts in the Hilbert Space coloring. Alternating bands of red and green light might, for example, represent a particle which is moving from left to right but which has no specific location. A good mood could be a golden haze not tied to any particular cause.”

Rudy Rucker (1946) American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author and philosopher

Source: The Sex Sphere (1983), p. 134

“The term system has a number of meanings. There are systems of numbers and of equations, systems of value and of thought, systems of law, solar systems, organic systems, management systems, command and control systems, electronic systems, even the Union Pacific Railroad system. The meanings of "system" are often confused. The most general, however, is: A system is a set of interacting units with relationships among them. The word "set" implies that the units have some common properties. These common properties are essential if the units are to interact or have relationships. The state of each unit is constrained by, conditioned by, or dependent on the state of other units. The units are coupled. Moreover, there is at least one measure of the sum of its units which is larger than the sum of that measure of its units.”

James Grier Miller (1916–2002) biologist

Source: Living systems, 1978, p. 16; As cited in: Sven Rasegård (2002) Man and Science: A Web of Systems and Social Conventions. p. 29

“Every stable system has the property that if displaced from a state of equilibrium and released, the subsequent movement is so matched to the initial displacement that the system is brought back to the state of equilibrium. A variety of disturbances will therefore evoke a variety of matched reactions.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behavior (1952), p.54

“L. Walras first formulated the state of the economic system at any point of time as the solution of a system of simultaneous equations representing the demand for goods by consumers, the supply of goods by producers and the equilibrium condition that supply equal demand on every market.”

Gérard Debreu (1921–2004) French economist and mathematician

Arrow, Kenneth J., and Gerard Debreu. " Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cp/p00b/p0087.pdf." Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society (1954): p. 265

“L. Walras first formulated the state of the economic system at any point of time as the solution of a system of simultaneous equations representing the demand for goods by consumers, the supply of goods by producers and the equilibrium condition that supply equal demand on every market.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Source: 1950s-1960s, "Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy." 1954, p. 265

“Without an analysis of women's status in the hierarchical system and the conditions under which she was enslaved, neither the state nor the class-based system that it rests upon can be understood.”

Abdullah Öcalan (1949) Founder of the PKK

Source: The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan (2017), Liberating Life: Women's Revolution, p. 69

“The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital which have marked the development of our industrial system, create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of state and the nation toward property.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Speak softly and carry a big stick (1901)

“By a state of a system is meant any well-defined condition or property that can be recognised if it occurs again. Every system will naturally have many possible states.”

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