Systems Research and the Quest for Scientific Systems Principles

Systems Research formally originated in the 1950s, but a scientific understanding of systemness is still nascent. This shortcoming produces significant risks for complex systems engineering and practice. Current “systems principles” are qualitative heuristics, and systems science is scientific more in attitude than because of any grounding in systems principles employing clear and quantifiable concepts. In this paper, I propose that a model of how principles and laws are understood across the specialized sciences can, when applied to systems science, open up new ways to discover systems principles. This approach has led to the identification of six new avenues for discovering systems principles. In this paper I explain one of these research avenues (which leverages the maturation profile of the specialized sciences) in detail, and reference active projects to pursue others. The research approach advocated in this paper has the potential to lead to a new perspective on the nature of and relationship between systems science and systems engineering.