System Architecture and Complexity

Introduction to Part 1

In this first part, we will focus on the most fundamental notions of systemic analysis. They are threefold, summarized in a compendium in the conclusion to this book. These three principles need to be considered as indissociable and distinct, but I repeat, indissociable. Over and above the usual definitions that have been they are encountered here and elsewhere, ever since systems became a talking point, definitions are not strictly such because they no longer are purely descriptive. Because of this, we are going to focus on a closely examine of what it means when we say that a set of interacting entities can be described as a “system” – in other words, how a system is constructed from its primitive elements and what differentiates it from a simple group with no clearly defined objective.

This differentiation is the result of an operation, or an operator, in the mathematical sense of the term, which today appears to be central to this problem: having an integration operator means that a “sum” of disparate elements will appear once the operation has been carried out as a unique entity, a unit, that only reveals its newly created functional capacities via its external interfaces. To interact with it, there is no need to know how it is made, but it is necessary to know what it is used for and what its service contract is.

An entity that is an “integrated” system therefore has two aspects: (1) a functional aspect, in a way logical and atemporal – “timeless” ...