General system theory was originally proposed by biologist ludwig van Bertalanffy in 1928. Since Discartes the "scientific method" had progressed under two related assumptions.
A system would be broken down in to individual components so that each component could be analysed as an independent entity, and the component could be added in linear fashion to describe the totality of the system.
Systems can be either controlled or not controlled (cybernetics) or uncontrolled. In controlled systems information is sensed and changes are effected in response to the system. Kuhn refers to this as the Detectors, Selectors and Effectors function of the systems. The detectors is concerned with the communications of information between systems. The selectors is defined by the rules that the system uses to make decisions, and the effectors is the mean by which transactions are made between systems. Communication between systems, Communications are transaction are the only inter systems interactions.
All organizational and social interaction involve communication and for transactions
Kuhn's Models stresses that the role decision is to move the system towards equilibrium. Communication and transaction provides the vehicle for a system to achieve equilibrium.
A subculture can be defined only relative to the current forms of attention. When society is viewed as a system, culture is seen as pattern in the system. Social analysis is the study of communication, learned patterns common to relatively large group of people.
The study of the systems can follow two general approached. A cross-sectional approach deals with the interactions between two systems while a developmental approach deals with the changes in a system over time.
There are three general approaches for evaluating subsystems. A holistic approach us to examine the system as a complete functioning unit. A reductionist approach looks downwards and examine the subsystem within the system. The functionalism approach looks upwards from the system to examine the role it plays in the large system.
Descartes and Locke both believed that words were composed of smaller building blocks. Both thought that one could strip away all the terms of ambiguity and be left with clarity of comprehension.
