Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science

Is data‐driven analysis sufficient for understanding the COVID‐19 pandemic and for justifying public health regulations? In this paper, we argue that such analysis is insufficient. Rather what is needed is the identification and implementation of over‐arching hypothesis‐related and/or theory‐based rationales to conduct effective SARS‐CoV2/COVID‐19 (Corona) research. To that end, we analyse and compare several published recommendations for conceptual and methodological frameworks in medical research (e.g., public health, preventive medicine and health promotion) to current research approaches in medical Corona research. Although there were several efforts published in the literature to develop integrative conceptual frameworks before the COVID‐19 pandemic, such as social ecology for public health issues and systems thinking in health care, only a few attempts to utilize these concepts can be found in medical Corona research. For this reason, we propose nested and integrative systemic modelling approaches to understand Corona pandemic and Corona pathology. We conclude that institutional efforts for knowledge integration and systemic thinking, but also for integrated science, are urgently needed to avoid or mitigate future pandemics and to resolve infection pathology.

To describe the meaning of functionality in a universe before life evolved, existing etiological and systemic accounts of function are evaluated. Since the theory of function is only applicable in context with living beings and artifacts used by living beings and therefore cannot predict how a prebiotic form of functionality could evolve, a maintenance account for functionality is proposed. This account ascribes functionality to a structurally disposed property that increases the probability of maintenance or recurrence of the property in the surrounding selective environment. With the help of the maintenance account and a concept of physical information comprising kinetic and structural types of information, possible evolutionary processes preceding the evolution of life are explored. As important mechanisms in abiotic and prebiotic evolution, linear and non-linear mixing processes, as well as dynamics of solitary waves, are identified. Before the question of the meaning of life in prebiotic environments is renewed and an educated guess based on the elaborated arguments is made on the progress of evolution under the influencing impression of the living state, the evolution of functionality in different selective contexts is analyzed.

ABSTRACT There is a difference between neuroscience and psychoanalysis in terms of their primary correlate for subjectivity. Neuroscience defines its discourse in relationship to the materiality of the brain – something that is present – whereas one of the defining features of psychoanalysis is its relationship to problematic forms of absence, namely, unconscious mental processes. One central concern in this regard is the proposition of unconscious mental processes as a wish-fulfillment. In this paper, the logic of the unconscious as a wish-fulfillment is mobilized as a type of knowledge having significant value for understanding neuroscience as a social and historical community. From this perspective, one of the central problems of neuroscience, the “hard problem of consciousness,” is framed not as a problem of neurological correlation but of problematic experience itself. This reframing of the hard problem of consciousness suggests that in order to bring neuroscience and psychoanalysis together, theorists need to think principles of absence. This can be explored with the metaphysics of absence, where indeterminacy and incompleteness become central, and also in the psychoanalytic formulation of the death drive, where we reach the limit of conscious mastery and control. From this foundation, neuroscience and psychoanalysis may find productive dialogue in constructing an “absential science” which would allow a space for new theory of the human relationship to sex (libido) and death (mortality). This paper argues that such new theory is necessary because the future development of neuroscientific technologies could transform fundamental experiences of absence which structure subjective discourse.

As Wiener asserted, information is information, not matter, not energy. Physical aspects of information are deeply grounded in energy transformation processes. Adopting an evolutionary perspective, it is demonstrated that there are two complementary informative influences on energy transformation. To do this, we use a simple model of an idealized monochord instrument. This allows modeling information contained in the kinetics of the oscillating string as both (a) generated by the structure of the instrument, and (b) generating non-arbitrary motion structures in sensible receiving configurations that are similar in scale, geometry, and material properties.

Abstract Currently, medicine is transforming towards molecular systems medicine (MSM), based on molecular systems biology (MSB). These approaches should be related to Ludwig von Bertalanffy's vision of “organismic” systems biology/medicine (OSB/OSM) and of general system theory (GST), which he created already in the 1930s. In this paper, on the basis of current diversity of knowledge in medicine, major differences between MSB/MSM and OSB/OSM are highlighted: MSB is based on biochemical high‐throughput technologies, sophisticated mathematical data analytical tools, and supercomputers for computation, whereas OSB is based on developmental biology and is concept and theory oriented. Metatheoretical considerations show that holistic but still reductive MSM cannot bridge the categorical molecule–cell difference, the mind–body difference, and the environment–organism gap by a consistent molecular and mechanistic theory of the organism. In contrast, the options of theoretical interlevel modelling with the help of simply structured but complexly functioning organ models are discussed here. As example, the neurochemical mobile of the brain is discussed. Consequently, a reconsideration of GST in medicine, targeting OSM, seems to be fruitful by linking MSM with a core concept of a systems pathology and with psychosocial and clinical medicine.

ABSTRACT Innovation comprises an area of human activity that bridges disciplinary boundaries in epistemological domains as well as action frameworks in ontological domains. It involves a complex system composed of people, organizations, role structures, skills, and knowledge bases, in addition to the hardware produced in workshops and factories. This paper argues that Systemic Innovation, as an emerging field of praxis in its own right, provides an integral and actionable framework for the curation of human initiatives that span human, technological, environmental, and generational concerns with lifelong learning and creative design initiatives. To do this, the field draws on socio-technical systems theory (STS), the study of living systems and ecological system dynamics (including such areas of embodied action as permaculture), and evolutionary systems design (itself comprised of general evolution theory (GST), social systems design methodology (SSM), and lifelong and transformative learning praxes). How these frameworks are used to guide systemic innovation in service of life, increasingly robust and supportive living environments, and future-creating scenarios of systemic viability and thrivability is at the heart of the field of Systemic Innovation.

The talk will focus on the potential of social media to support commoning relations and the actuality of devastating impacts through post-truth, fake-news populism.

Social, political and economic features of Austria as well as Sweden and the United Kingdom show similarities such that they can be examined in parallel and compared. Cultural differences in these countries are transmitted in a variety of situation, but they do not necessarily refer to the same social distinctions. Moreover, our observation of common features among these three countries will target the rise of right-wing political parties, invoked by the “crises” from Middle East. Furthermore this study aims to observe the reaction of the citizens of these three countries respectively, the sympathizers as well as those who disagree with such populistic proclamations. Such social and cultural issues arise attention and, at the same time call upon the empirical focus in anthropological studies. We are suggesting this parallel examination with regard to the anthropological science and its methods that will help to carry out our research. This research will contribute results with a critical discourse analysis in combination with empirical research methods and analysis.