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Systerns One: cln In!roduc/ion / o Sys!erns Thinking 1980 by Future Sybterns, Inc.
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reserved. Printed i n the United States of America. No p a r t o f this p u b l i c a t i o n may be r e p r o d u c e d o r u s e d i n a n y manner w h a t s o e v e r w i t h o u t t h e w r i t t e n permission of the publisher. For information, or additional copies, write F u t u r e Systems, I n c . , S u i t e 900, Minnesota Building, Cedar a t F o u r t h S t s . , S t . P a u l , MN 55 10 1 . ( 6 1 2 ) 227-8866 Second E d i t i o n The Second E d i t i o n o f Systems One: An I n t r o d u c t i o n t o S y s t e m T h i n k i n q is b e i n g p u b l i s h e d f o r F u t u r e Systems, I n c . , by TLH Associates. T h i s t e x t o r i g i n a l l y e n t i t l e d The Human Environment: An Introduction to E n v i r o n m e n t a l Systems was d e v e l o p e d u n d e r a g r a n t from t h e O f f i c e of E n v i r o n m e n t a l E d u c a t i o n , O f f i c e of Education, Department o f H e a l t h , E d u c a t i o n , and W e l f a r e . The Future Systems Series was made possible, in part, by a g r a n t f r o m t h e of Counc i 1 Employees' Contribution N o r t h w e s t e r n N a t i o n a l Bank o f M i n n e a p o l i s . Illustration: Frederick Stout Dorothy McNaughton
Design Consultant:
Human beings are warm-blooded, of course, and our temperature control systems are usually quite accurate. Most people have body thermostats that are set for around 98.6 degrees. If your body temperature starts t o fall below that, your thermostat makes a number of things happen. First, it turns up your "furnace" causing you to burn fuel (food) faster, thus creating more heat. Then it will start you shivering, which makes your muscles work harder even when you are not doing anything, and that creates even more heat. And while these and other things are going on, your body sends a message t o your brain saying, "I'm cold!" and you start looking around for hot food, heavier clothes, or a warmer location. Similarly, if you get t o o hot, you start t o sweat. the blood vessels under the skin e x ~ a n d so that your blood can carry body heat t o the suiface more quickly, and you are likely t o get a strong urge t o slow down, loosen your clothes, and find a cold drink and a spot in the shade.
Float Valves: Another kind of simple, self-regulating machine was probably invented long ago by a farmer to keep a pond from either flooding or drying up. What this early genius did was t o pivot a stick in the middle, fasten one end t o a chunk of wood floating in his pond, and fasten the other end t o the gate o r valve which let water into the pond. Then, whenever the water level in the pond dropped, the float pulled one end of the stick down, which pulled the other end up, which opened the gate and let more water in.
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As the water rushed into the pond, it pushed the float up, allowing the gate t o settle back into place, gradually shutting off the flow of water.
As the water evaporated or was used up, the water level dropped, and the whole cycle started all over again. T h e feedback diagram of the cycle looks like this:
Like thermostats, float valves a r e simple, reliable, and cheap t o make, and they save people a lot of time and hassle. As a result, they have found a lot of uses. There are more than a billion of them in use today
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each case. It does mean, however, that no society can be perfect-solving one problem almost always creates others-and people need t o understand and have tolerance for some degree of sloppiness and unfairness in the system. The Distortion of Feedback: Still another information problem is that complex systems depend on information t o control the behavior of their subsystems, and this often creates an incentive for the subsystems t o "lie" or at least t o distort the information flow. For example, good academic grades and test scores are intended t o be indicators of learning and achievement, but they are also the basis for admission to other schools and to good jobs. Since the students know about these potential rewards, a feedback loop is created which is supposed t o look like this:
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But if there are other ways t o get good grades besides working harder and learning more, students will be tempted t o take a short cut, such as studying only what will be o n the exam, o r cramming for the exam, o r cheating, o r trying to persuade the teacher to raise the grade, o r falsifying the records of the grades. In other words, the student can try t o manipulate the symbol (good grades) instead of changing the underlying reality (more learning) which the symbol is supposed t o represent.
The Loss ofPredictability: Finally, the flexibility that enables complex systems t o survive in rapidly changing