PARADISO-2009 Conference
http://www.paradiso-fp7.eu/conference.php
The VSM as a
foundation for social systems
Leonid Ototsky,
SIM chair of the MIPT - http://sim-mfti.a133.nthosting.ru/content/?fl=393
leonid.ototsky@.gmail.com
, http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it
Keywords: VSM
, CyberSyn, complex systems , social systems, sustainability,
information and
communication systems - ICS)
1. As it was predicted
by Norbert Wiener the
ICT progress will be the core for a “worldwide state
in the next century” (in the Wiener’s terminology) . He has made this
prediction in his book “Cybernetics and Society” in the early 1950s where he
stressed the key role of the Information Technologies for the “
On the one side today’s ICT should permit a
“nervous system“ for a global organization of human
activities. On the other side technical, social, ecological and climate
challenges are becoming sharper and there is a need to revise old fashion
institutions to solve humanity’s deep problems.
2 . Wiener did not provide detailed arguments for his prediction but we see
now a great activity in the ICT to create a “peripheral nervous system” of the “Humankind Super organism” . Also there
must be made a great of work for creating the “central nervous system” of it . The beginning of such work has been made by Stafford Beer in
his Viable Systen Model (VSM - http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/beer_vsm.html ) .
Beer not only developed the VSM theory but realized it in practice in
the CyberSyn project . It is
significant that the Chilean Government gave a grant for the “reconstruction”
of aspects of the CyberSyn project in 2007. This
reconstruction is being exhibited at ZKM in
( http://www.syncho.com/pages/index.php?menu=s&mm=s&tex=s&sm=au ). It is
reveling that at the same time of the Cybersyn
project, independently of the Chilean project, another similar project was
emerging in the
3. Yet in the early 90th
in his “World in Torment” paper Beer wrote with great skepticism about
the organization of modern society. With many arguments he wrote
: “I estimate that more human beings are enduring agony today than ever
before; the number could be greater than the sum of sufferers throughout
history. I speak of starvation and epidemic; war and terrorism; deprivation,
exploitation, and physical torture. I repeat the word agony; I am not talking
about 'hard times' “ . Also he wrote: “Soviet
communism has accepted its own demise; Western capitalism has not accepted it
yet.” From wider point of view old styled institutions such as the UN could be
radically changed according the principles of the VSM. Now we see some global financial
problems as well but Beer described
possible problems more than 35
years ago.
4. Taking into account
the “recursive” structure of the VSM with the same System1-5 hierarchy at all
structural levels there is a great need to use its ideas for lower levels of
“recursion” constituting the “humankind’s global problems” . An implementation
of the VSM at these levels could be a solid foundation for more global tasks.
Such very hot topic to improve current business analytical tools for top
management has close relation with VSM ideas and activities. Despite OLAP’s continued growth at a rate faster than most other
enterprise software, there is no reason to be optimistic about their impact in
improving the viability of enterprises. Still performance management tools are
not using features such as “real-time dashboards”, “alerts” to monitor
“suspicious situations” etc. However these were features of the VSM based CyberSyn project about 35 years ago - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersyn
.
In the late 80´s and early 90´s the operational director of CyberSyn, Raul Espejo ( http://www.cybersyn.cl/ingles/cybersyn/team.html
),
developed the CyberFilter software package with the
still limited PC capabilities of those years ( http://www.syncho.com/pages/pdf/Cyberfilter%20manual.pdf ). Modern ICTs, such
as Internet mobile devices and wire free communication networks are capable of
a much more sophisticated development of the VSM ideas, for example the
development of “virtual” distributed ‘operation rooms’, which were at the
“heart” of the CyberSyn project ( http://www.cybersyn.cl/ingles/cybersyn/opsroom.html ).
5. The VSM can be
useful also for the development of ICTs. The
challenges concern not only the new generations of ERPs
and related tools (e.g. new generations of software for performance management
in “real-time”, integration of MES and ERP etc.) but more significantly the
development of “autonomic” programming systems too ( http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/ebizz/idd-ac.pdf ) . Also there is a great need for new
generations of Autonomic Intellectual Systems (AIS) (new generation of Robots
ahead of all). It is not accidental that students of the the
AIS have visited the Cybersyn “reconstruction”
presentation at the YOU_ser exhibition at Karsruhe in October 2007 - http://picasaweb.google.com/Leonid.Ototsky/CybersynAtTheYOU_ser2007 .
6. The above are only
few examples that illustrate the need to review Stafford Beer’s heritage in the
benefit of humankind’s sustainability and evolution – http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/vsm
.
7. The Challenge today
is to implement, with our current methodological and technological
developments, a “global” project like that that was developed in Chile in 1972-
1973- http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it/lessons.htm