This area is devoted to the study of whole systems.
Nature is a whole system. But also an economy, a family, a company, a community, or many other things, can be looked at as whole systems. A whole system view would include all the factors involved and examine how they relate to each other and how they work as a whole. To deal with a whole system we can't leave anything out as irrelevant. Intuition is as important as rationality, we must address both scientific and artistic approaches, both material and spritual needs, the small as well as the big, what we feel as well as what we think, what we perceive as well as what we imagine.
Whole systems are dynamic, they change they move, they develop. Frozen pictures of how things are supposed to be might do us no good, we need to deal with the live systems, whichever surprising directions that might take us in.
There is no one authority in the field of whole systems. Luckily nobody has monopolized it by putting it into a standard curriculum defining what it IS. So, we all have the opportunity to discover together what whole systems are about.
There is a Whole Systems mailing list for the exploration of whole systems principles, particularly in regards to economic, ecological, sociological and metaphysical transformation of our civilization.
4/24/2004: Note that this page has not been actively updated for a long time. Many of the links are unfortunately invalid now. However, it seems most useful to still keep it up, while we figure out a new format for keeping it current.
Whole Systems Design
Networking - (50+) The Networking Institute. Learning Organizations (100+) Mind MappingTotal Quality Management, Kaizen home page Holographic Universe Holonomics Cybernetics and Systems Theory - (200+) Principia Cybernetica
General Semantics Neuro-Linguistic Programming (50+) NLP and the Existential Quest Complex Systems Modeling and Simulation Fuzzy
Logic Memetics - understanding the spreading of
useful ideas. Patterns Home Page - patterns
and pattern languages. Also check Anamorph and Patterns-Discussion
FAQ Geomancy The Enneagram
System Dynamics (20+) Technocracy Spiral Dynamics
Kevin Kelly: "Out of Control" Peter M. Senge: "The Fifth Discipline"
Buckminster Fuller:
"Critical Path" Buckminster Fuller:
"Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth" James P. Carse: "Finite and Infinite Games" Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey
Stamps: "The Age of the
Network" Joel Arthur Barker: "Paradigms" Jose Arguelles: "Earth Ascending" Michael Talbot: "The Holographic
Universe" David Bohm: "Wholeness
and the Implicate Order" Tony Buzan: "The Mind Map Book" James Redfield: "The Celestine
Prophecy" Alfred Korzybski: "Science and Sanity" Alan Watts: "The Book - about the taboo against knowing who
you are" Tara Singh: "The Future
of Mankind" Peter Drucker: "Post-Capitalist
Society" T.Kun: "Project
Mind" Ken Wilber: "No Boundary" Fritjof Capra: "The Tao
of Physics" Charles Hampden-Turner:
"Maps of the Mind"
Creating a New Civilization - book by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Daniel Quinn: Ishmael Whole Earth Catalog - (50+)
Whole Earth Review (50+) The Futurist Cybernetics and
Systems The Systems Thinker Popular Science
Buckminster Fuller - Spaceship Earth.
Gregory Bateson - Ecology of Mind.
Arthur Koestler - Holarchies of nature Karl Popper - Open Society Ludwig von Bertalanffy - General
Systems Theory
Alfred Korzybski - General Semantics Barbara Marx Hubbard - Foundation for Conscious Evolution Rupert Sheldrake - Morphogenic fields David Bohm - Holographic
physics Edwards Deming - Total Quality Peter M. Senge - The Learning Organization Tony Buzan - (50+) Mind Maps, memory. Jean Houston - Waking World. Mystery
School. Jessica Lipnack & Jeffrey Stamps -
Networking Alan Watts (10+) Edward de Bono Jack Sarfatti - (100+) New physics and consciousness, post-
modernism.
Jay Forrester - (20+) System Dynamics. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Stafford Beer Arthur Young - Theory of Process
Anthony Judge - Integrative Global Action. Lots of articles and
studies. Heiner Benking - Club of Budapest.
New
Civilization Network - (100+) Cooperation for a better world. The World Game Institute - (20+) Making the world work.
Soros Foundations, Open Society Institutes - (50+)
The Networking Institute (50+)
Integrative Global Action - Union of International Associations. A
monumental site. The Change Project - change in organizations,
communities, families and individuals.
International Institute for Sustainable Development
Institute for Global Communications - The Progressive Directory Idaho Systems Institute
Institute for Business and Social Architecture
Global Business Network
World Future Society Buckminster Fuller Institute Center for Process Studies Whole Systems Design Program - Antioch Center for Creative Change at
Antioch University Seattle.
Institute of Noetic Sciences
Santa Fe Institute - (50+) multi-displinary studies, complexity. OneWorld Online - (500+) global justice, conflict, aid, trade,
education, health, human rights, population. Netherlands Design Institute - economics, knowledge
systems. University of Houston - Future Studies MIT Organizatonal Learning Network
Leading Edge Research - far out science
Geosphere Project - visualizing
planet Earth. Intentional Communities - (100+) The
Venus Project (10+) Redesigning a culture. Arcosanti - (40+) arcology project. Paolo Soleri.
Global Energy Network
Oceania - (20+) the Atlantis Project. The Quality
Community Page (7) Tetworld - Global game and peace
through development project
Mind
Mapping New
Civilization Game by Bill Robertson.
Infinite Games - A vision of life as play and possibility.
Activity Alignment
Domains
Holarchies
Meta Programs
Symbol Test - Test people's attitude to work. Cognitive Tools - for collaboration between teams. The Fourth Wave: A Normative Forecast for the Future of
"SpaceShip Earth - by Oliver W. Markley.
Fourth Wave Concept Overview by Bob Debold. Open Network and the Emergence of Freeorder - Pattern
research.
Monetary System for the New Millenium - by Roger Langrick. A
Warning to Humanity - from the leading scientists of the planet. Global Resource Bank - proposal to U.N. conference. An
afternoon with Jeremy Rifkin - long transcript.
Shared Energy Grid? - a thread of messages. The Web and the new civilization - by Tom
Munnecke.
Whole Systems Quotes
The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World - by Vaclav Havel,
president of the Czech Republic. A
Call for New Values Mikhail Gorbachev. The
Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes.
Chief Seattle Declaration of Evolution by
Timothy Leary. Onar Am - (30+) the origins of knowledge.
Buddhist Economics by E.F.Schumacher.
Gaia, Our Living Earth Alexander Chislenko - futurism, knowledge,
and more. ISWorld Net - information technology,
information infrastructure. Virtual Chaos - a theory of everything.
alt.society.futures alt.society.paradigms bit.listserv.geodesic
sci.systems
Whole Systems
Whole Info Learning Organizations
Geodesic Synergetics
Cybsys-l
Cybcom
Abundance Economics The
Whole View Re-
cycling/re-using
Holons
Scarcity Money The
Eyes of a Child
Holonomics
The Great Pirates The
Whole Reality
Synergy
Paradigms
Science and Sanity
Myth
Radiant Thinking Society and Culture The
Fifth Discipline
Fundamental Social Laws - proposed basic rules.
Knowing who you Really are - Alan Watts. Shifting the Burden - a system template. Resource Ethics - principles for dealing with resources. Ephemeralization - doing more with less. New
Civilization Network - proposal for new network of teams. Just
in Time Proactive Money
Free Resources
Economy - how the money system works.
Going beyond Normalcy
Government
Backlogged Progress
Pattern Languages
Master and Apprentices
Teen-age Society
Eco-Village
Social Artistry Profit Reframed
Universal Wholeness Math
Discontinuious Trends
Trust
Starship Earth Nate
Tour and his mother
New Circuit Designs for Planet Earth
The General Theory of Relativity of Suffering and Enjoying
Various postings to wholesys-l
| "The essential new quality implied
by the quantum theory is... that a system cannot be analyzed into parts. This
leads to the radically new notion of unbroken wholeness of the entire universe.
You cannot take it apart. For if you do, what you end up with is not contained
within the original whole. It is created by the act of analysis." - David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order |
Whole System Glossary under construction.
Return to World Transformation home page
(1000+).
New Civilization Network home page (100+)
Translations of this page: Belarusian