“We find systems which by their very nature and definition are not closed systems. Every living organism is essentially an open system. It maintains itself in a continuous inflow and outflow, a building up and breaking down of components, never being, so long as it is alive, in a state of chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium but maintained in a so-called steady state which is distinct from the latter.”

—  Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Source: General System Theory (1968), 2. The Meaning of General Systems Theory, p. 39

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Ludwig von Bertalanffy 65
austrian biologist and philosopher 1901–1972

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“Conventional physics deals only with closed systems, i. e. systems which are considered to be isolated from their environment… However, we find systems which by their very nature and definition are not closed systems. Every living organism is essentially an open system. It maintains itself in a continuous inflow and outflow, a building up and breaking down of components, never being, so long as it is alive, in a state of chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium but maintained in a so-called steady state which is distinct from the latter.”

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

Source: General System Theory (1968), 7. Some Aspects of System Theory in Biology, p. 166-167 as quoted in: Eugene Thacker (2004) Biomedia. University of Minnesota Press. p. 150

“From the physical point of view the characteristic state of the living organism is that of an open system. A system is closed if no material enters or leaves it; it is open if there is import and export and, therefore, change of the components. Living systems are open systems, maintaining themselves in exchange of materials with environment, and in continuous building up and breaking down of their components.”

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

Von Bertalanffy (1950) " The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology http://vhpark.hyperbody.nl/images/a/aa/Bertalanffy-The_Theory_of_Open_Systems_in_Physics_and_Biology.pdf" In: Science, January 13, 1950, Vol. 111. p. 23
1950s

Erwin Schrödinger photo

“How would we express in terms of the statistical theory the marvelous faculty of a living organism, by which it delays the decay into thermodynamical equilibrium (death)?… the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness… really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment.”

Erwin Schrödinger book What Is Life?

What Is Life? (1944)

Ervin László photo

“In some regions, under especially favorable conditions, the level of organization reaches that of enormously heavy organic substances, such as protein molecules and nucleic acids. Now the basic building blocks are given for the constitution of self-replicating units of still higher organizational level: cells. These systems maintain a constant flow of substances through their structures, imposing on it a steady-state with specific parameters. The inputs and outputs may achieve coordination with analogous units in the surrounding medium, and we are on our way toward multicellular phenomena. The resulting structures — organisms — are likewise steady-state patterns imposed steady-state patterns imposed on a continuous flow… The organic systems themselves, define the supra-organic (ecological or social) community. Ultimately the strands of communication straddle the space-time region within which the primary systems have come together, and those of its layers which provide conditions favorable to such structuration become organized as systems in their own right. We reach the level of the global (ecological, and on earth also sociocultural) system.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 83.

“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

Starhawk photo

“Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)
Context: Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.
To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

“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

“Whole organization systems. At one limit these would be plants or equivalent self-standing workplaces. At the other, they would be entire corporations or public agencies. They persist by maintaining a steady state with their environment.”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

Ilya Prigogine photo

“The functional order maintained within living systems seems to defy the Second Law; nonequilibrium thermodynamics describes how such systems come to terms with entropy.”

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) physical chemist

Part 1; Cited in: Evgenii Rudnyi (2013) " Thermodynamics of evolution http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/thermodynamics-of-evolution.html" on blog.rudnyi.ru, April 20, 2013. ·
Thermodynamics of Evolution (1972)

“My analysis of living systems uses concepts of thermodynamics, information theory, cybernetics, and systems engineering, as well as the classical concepts appropriate to each level. The purpose is to produce a description of living structure and process in terms of input and output, flows through systems, steady states, and feedbacks, which will clarify and unify the facts of life.”

James Grier Miller (1916–2002) biologist

Source: Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969), p. 126

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