Death is equifinal: Eighth annual ludwig von bertalanffy memorial lecture

Abstract

This is the eighth Ludwig von Bertalanffy Memorial Lecture, delivered at the 1981 Annual Meeting of the Society for General Systems Research at Toronto, Canada. This lecture celebrates the work of von Bertalanffy, a founding father of general systems theory, and applies it in conceptual fashion to the problems of our time. Its first main point is that the real world, with all its interactions, generates an enormous complexity which our culture attempts to handle in a reductionist mode. Its methods of organization, its specialisms, and its way of formulating problems all presuppose that we know the nature of our world and of its problems. But if this were remotely true, problems and dangers would sometimes be ameliorated instead of getting steadily worse. It is argued that the systemic approach has an unused capacity to restructure both organizations and problems. The concept of equifinality, investigated by von Bertalanffy himself, and therefore used in illustration, expresses the proven ability of certain open systems to reach the same characteristic result, despite differences in initial conditions, and despite different rules of conduct. This is not a possible state of affairs in a closed system. There is scope in this notion for operational change, which is usually not countenanced in institutional systems—because they are organizationally closed. But equifinality is inevitable in the cases of both personal and planetary death.