Geoforum, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 191~203.1985. 001&7185!85 s3.w + 0.

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Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press Ltd.

Geography and General System Theory,

Philosophical Homologies and Current
Practice

MARTIN J. HAIGH,* Oxford, U.K.

Abstract: General system science, like geography, is an integrative discipline that

spans the divide between the physical and social sciences. Geography, like general
system science, seeks to examine the universe of observation as a functioning whole
and attempts to study together the things other disciplines study separately.
However, within both geography and the system sciences at large, there are many
different philosophies and methodologies. A special attribute of the general system
approach is an explicit adoption of an organismic rather than a mechanistic world
view. This has caused general system practitioners to develop theory in more
bioscienti~c areas of concern such as growth, hierarchical organisation and the
theory of evolution. To date, much of the systems science in geography has
preferredthe static, mechanistic ethos of systems analysis and systems engineering.
However, general system science’s concern with historic processes and the dynamic
self-determined relationships between systems structure, functioning and self-
creation may be more appropriate to geographical research. A search is made for
general system methodologies in current geographical research and for particular
applications of aspects of the new general systems theory of evolution and theory of
systems attractors as defined by Ilya Prigogine and Erich Jantsch to geography.

Today, we seem to be at the tip of an iceberg of scientific change . . Every

discipline is in the midst of a revolution . . . What is exciting about this theoretical
chaos is not that each discipline will emerge with a new paradigm to guide future
investigations but that a new grand paradigm may be forming, one that will
integrate all structure and processes from the farthest reaches of the Universe to
the reasonances of subatomic particles. The Grand Paradigm is somewhere in the
future and we may live to see it THEISEN, (1981, p. 758).

Introduction aware, fragmentation of knowledge limits our

Two centuries ago the whole of science could be
invested in a single individual, a ‘natural philo-
sopher’, who could take a holistic view. The
proliferation of knowledge and the development of
distinct academic disciplines and subdisciplines have
fragmented science into hundreds of tiny indepen-
dent subjects, each working in isolation, Given the
fact that the world’s scientific literature is increasing
at an inexorable 11.13% per year, specialisation has
become inevitable. But as the early philosophers of
geography, such as HUMBOLDT (1845), were well
understanding of the ‘harmonious unity of the
cosmos’. In Russia during the 187Os, Dokuchayev
battled against further fragmentation, arguing that
although the science of the nineteenth century had
achieved success in the study of individual objects
and phenomena, it had, as a result, lost view of the
interrelationships of nature, the study of which was
“the best and highest beauty of natural science”
(ISACHENKO, 1973, p. 25). Dokuchayev’s legacy
includes much of modern Soviet thinking in ecology
and the distinctive Russian School of landscape
science, but his work did little to staunch the
general trend of scientific fragmentation.

*Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford, U.K. To BERTALANFFY (1950, 1969, 1975), founder

191
192
of the general system movement, the history of
twentieth-century science remains a history of
specialisation, the achievements of which reflect a
philosophy of dissection as the route to progress.
Reductionism, the belief that the whole can be
explained through the examination of its compo-
nents, has been the cutting edge of twentieth-
century science. However, BERTALANFFY
(1950) believed it was possible to detect a counter-
current of thought, based on arguments which
suggest that the whole is more than just an
aggregation of parts. Engels gave early expression
to such ideas in his dialectics of nature, where he
calls the whole of nature an: “interconnected
totality including all material from stars to atoms”
(Engels in GVISHIANI, 1984, p. 5). Like Engels,
system scientists believe that the greater wholeness
of the universe is composed of a hierarchically
ranked sequence of lower order wholes (cf.
LASZLO, 1983). KOESTLER (1967) sees the
universe of observation as a ‘holarchy’, incorporat-
ing layers of discrete entities which he names
‘holons’. Each ‘holon’ is a functioning wholeness
that emerges from the structure and interaction of
its constituent parts, which is in turn integrated
within a larger order whole. MILLER (1978) has
illustrated the nature of the ‘holarchy’ within living
systems, while the geographers CHORLEY and
KENNEDY (1971, p. 252) have provided another
example from the drainage system (Figure 1).
Hillslope systems are components of river valleys
which are included within drainage basins which, in
turn, are included in higher order drainage basins.
In the same way that the urban-economic ge-
ography of an area can be examined as a nested
High order
rover basin
system
Riti
( system
Figure 1. Relationship between evolution and hierarch-
ical structures in the drainage basin. All systems be,
behave and so become (from CHORLEY and KEN-
NEDY, 1971).
Geoforu~Volume 16 Number 211985
hierarchy of higher and lower order centres with
their hinterlands, so the fluvial landscape can be
examined as a spatially nested hierarchy of drainage
systems. Throughout each level of each of these
hierarchies the small market centre, the mid-order
drainage basin, exists as a functioning whole with
respect to its parts and as a part within a greater
whole.
Systems and System Science
A system, then, is a wholeness that is created by the
integration of its component parts. It is an entity
containing a structured set of components whose
structural and functional inter-relationships create
an entireness which was not implied by those
components in disaggregation. A system is a
functioning organ within reality, conceived at a
convenient scale and level of organisation. It is also
a very personal construct. Systems have no absolute
existence. They are abstractions from reality con-
ceived by the observer for the purposes of con-
ceptualisation or investigation and at a level of
complexity which permits study as a whole.
System science is the study of complexity and
integration. Its prime focus of attention is not the
object components contained by a system but the
inter-relationships between those components. Its
function is to search for laws which govern those
inter-relationships between components and which
affect the way those components become integrated
and disaggregated as different system holons. In
sum, systems science is about the patterns of
interaction and integration within and between
systems and the ways in which systems evolve and
decay.
General System Laws
BERTALANFFY (1950, pp. 138-139) postulated
that it should be possible to discover laws that
govern particular types of interaction. Such laws,
often already existing in the isolation of the
individual disciplines, would be common to many of
the object topics presently studied separately by
these different sciences. The recognition of such
mathematically equivalent, structurally similar and
functionally identical ‘isomorphic’ laws, he argued,
might prove an efficient route towards the creation
of a new metatheory of science, transcending the
traditional object-oriented sciences and which could
GeoforumiVolume 16 Number 211985
deal with the blindspots of reductionist research.
The newly identified general system laws would be
principles that governed patterns of inter-relation,
integration and organisation. This new basic scien-
tific superstructure would stretch across the current
spectrum of knowledge and its laws would subsume
much that has already been developed in the
myopic, object-specific subdisciplines of modern
science. BERTALANFFY (1950, p. 138) con-
cludes: “There exist therefore General System Laws
which apply to any system of a certain type
irrespective of the particular properties of that
system or the entities involved.” For example, the
logistic law proposed by Verhulst in 1789 to
describe population growth becomes, in physical
chemistry, the equation of autocatalytic reaction,
while in geography the same equation is used to
model the spread of a disease or the diffusion of an
innovation. The law of logistic growth states that
growth which has the capacity to become exponen-
tial is eventually inhibited by some kind of limiting
condition. The result, expressed graphically, is an
‘S-shaped, sigmoid curve.
LASZLO (1983, p. 5) has summarised the main
aims of the general system movement. Its ambition
is to develop unifying laws and principles running
‘vertically’ through the universe of the individual
sciences. These laws and principles would be part of
a unified metatheory (SADOVSKY, 1984, pp.
22-27), which would Iead to a much needed
integration in scientific education and would pro-
vide an important vehicle for the generation of
exact theory in the non-physical fields of science.
This would be accomplished, initially, by the
transference of scientific laws and theoretical struc-
tures from the exact sciences. The ultimate goal
would be the synthesis of a unified science in-
corporating many fields of study presently con-
sidered to be beyond the scope of ‘science’.
Philosophical Convergences between
Geography and General System Theory
Geographers have frequently expressed concern
that a liberal education should not degenerate into
the presentation of disparate sets of information
and have called “for a simpler and more unified
approach to scientific problems” (BODE ef al.,
1949). Further, geography, like general systems
theory, aspires towards the synthesis of diverse
disciplines and claims to be “that part of knowledge
where students of the physical and moral sciences
193
meet” (Thomas Arnold of Rugby, 1842 in FREE-
MAN, 1961, p. 81).
Since geography cuts a section through all of the
systematic sciences, there is an intimate and mutual
relation between it and each of those fields . . [so]
. . . geography must integrate the material that other
sciences study separately
(HARTSHORNE, 1939, p. 460). WOOLDRIDGE
and EAST (1951) carry this argument several steps
further:
The present need for integration in the divergent and
multiplying fields of human knowledge is urgently
acclaimed. Geography offers such an integration over
part of the field and the character of its spirit and
manner must be judged in the light of this fact . _ . The
geographer’s real claim is . . . that he is attempting to
see things together.
ANUCHIN (1977, p. 17) completes the argument:
Geography . . . is an integrated science, a system of
sciences, and the amalgamation of all the geographic
sciences into one common system is substantive and
not nominal in character. It is based on the unity of the
object of study (the earth’s landscape/envelope) and
the definitely common methodoIogy (the geographica
method) . . . thus the geographic environment, in-
cluding not only pure nature, but also man with the
results of his activity, is a complex of elements with
different qualities. It is the interaction of these
elements . . . that cause the formation and further
development of the geographic environment,
Philosophies of Systems Geography
Geography retains the tradition that it is a unified
discipline in spirit, if less often in practice, and this
contrasts sharply with the current condition of
systems science. In truth, there is no such thing as
systems science; instead, there is a whole family of
overlapping system sciences (LILENFIELD, 1978;
CHECKLAND, 1978). These include: general sys-
tem theory, ecological systems theory, systems
engineering, operations research, information sys-
tems science, and many others. Each retains in its
philosophical and methodological traditions, ves-
tiges of its original ambitions and disciplinary
origins: biology, electronics, business and manage-
ment, or whatever. Each borrows freely, if often
erratically from the theory of its neighbours. All
display distressing tendencies to schismogenesis,
and to develop small schools which cling to the
philosophies of a particular charismatic leader
(JACKSON et al., 1982).
194
Geographers have played a very minor role in the
overall development of systems science. Systems
thinking in geography tends to be both derivative
and heterodox but, like much of systems science, it
is a loosely integrated assemblage of ideas borrowed
from some or all of the different systems traditions
and is clumped around the writings of a small
number of philosopher-leaders. Several different
traditions can be detected (cf KRCHO, 1978;
STRAHLER, 1980; COFFEY, 1981; TIVY and
O’HARE, 1981; WILSON, 1981; MAZUR, 1983).
REDDY and UTTARA PRABHU (1983, p. 54)
rightly describe the present situation as ‘confused’.
However, they may be wrong to suggest that most
problems are due to semantics, even though systems
terminology has grown rather battered through use
and abuse in its several disciplinary homes (WIL-
BANKS and SYMANSKI, 1968). In geography, as
elsewhere in the systems movement, the processes
of disciplinary convergence continue, and the frag-
ments may now be approaching a new threshold of
unification. From the many traditions, two distinct
new syntheses are emerging: on the one hand, there
are the systems analysts who adhere to a
mechanistic/contextualist approach; and on the
other, there are those who hold to an organicist
world hypothesis.
The notion of world hypotheses is developed from
Stephen Pepper, who writes
A man desiring to understand the world, looks about
for a clue to its comprehension. He pitches upon some
area of common sense . . . this area becomes, then,
his basic analogy or root metaphor. He describes, as
best he can, the characteristics of this area . A list
of its structural characteristics become his basic con-
cepts of explanation and description” (PEPPER, 1942,
p. 91).
Pepper calls these, essentially metaphysical, view-
points ‘world hypotheses’ (Figure 2). He recognises
six, all of which are drawn from some form of
common sense, or self-evident truth, and all extend
through experience by some form of initially
analogical thinking to provide a method for examin-
ing reality and/or other types of experience. These
hypotheses can be mapped along two conceptual
axes. The first axis concerns the degree to which the
hypothesis is founded in self-evidence rather than
external evidence. The second records the level of
personal control of the world which the hypothesis
permits. Who is in command of the world, the
observer or something higher? Pepper’s six world
hypotheses are mapped on these axes as an evolu-
tionary sequence running from mysticism, through
Geoforum/Volume 16 Number 20985
Increasmgpersonalcontrol over world
I “. Dogmotlsm
Contextua!sm
Figure 2. Pepper’s world hypotheses as an evolutionary
hysteresis.
dogmatism, formism, mechanism and contextualism
to organicism.
Although mysticism, dogmatism and formism have
a role to play in geography and systems science, it is
the last three world hypotheses that are really
important.
The world hypothesis of the mechanist has its roots
in the conceptual framework of Newton, Victorian
Science and Stalinist Marxism. The world is
regarded as a machine whose operations can be
precisely determined by physical and mathematical
laws. Such a view still underpins much modern
technology and it leads to the notion that human
beings can, by gaining a thorough understanding of
the physical laws, take over the control mechanisms
and impose a new order on the world machine.
However, by the mid-twentieth century strict
mechanistic explanations were giving way to contex-
tualism. Scientists came to view the world as a
complex of change and stability, order and disorder;
too grand for its operations to be predicted and
controlled precisely. Nevertheless, within this
complexity they found discernible structures, con-
textual organising principles, which could be used to
guide human attempts to manage the world system.
Organicism, which BECK (1952) calls the oldest
alternative to mechanism, draws a clear distinction
between organisms and machines. The essence of
this distinction lies in ALEXANDER’s (1939)
concept of emergent quality, defined as a quality
GeoforumiVolume 16 Number 211985 195

belonging to the whole which could not have been preface the course by a gloss on ‘the world’s natural
predicted from its separate parts. Thus the organis- systems’. So
tic world hypothesis contains the expectation that
the complexity of reality can contain components, the natural environment can be divided into five easily
which have the capacity to become organized into recognisable subsystems . . and organised accord-
ingly. The first three subsystems, weather-climate,
entities with new properties. Alone among the water and landforms comprise the abiotic physical
systems sciences, general system theory is explicitly environment. They provide the setting, the physical
organicist. To understand the theory and its support, and sustenance for the two remaining subsys-
method, one must accept a universe based on an tems: soils and biota (RUSSWURM, 1974, p. 2).
hypothesis which is inherently more mystical and
inherently less certain about the ‘controlling of Once these points are established, the author can
nature’ than either systems science at large or the retreat into the examination of topics from the
Victorian sciences which preceded it. separate physical disciplines in their traditional
isolation (HIDORE, 1974; STRAHLER, 1980;
Although systems thinking in geography does dis- DURY, 1981; NEWSON and HANWELL, 1982).
play signs of the same division between the The status quo in research and practice is
mechanist/contextualist and organicist world views, unaffected.
the former has dominated the subject. Five differ-
ent traditions of systems thinking can be identified The second school of systems thinking in geography
within geography (Figure 3). is far more important. This is a major influence both
in physical and in human geography. For a time
The first (and most primitive) is explicitly reduc- during the 1970s it looked as if it might become the
tionist. The root problem of physical geography is dominant geographical paradigm. The fact that it
that it has long since divided into its component has not (yet) succeeded is due to its attachment to
specialisms: geomorphology, climatology, bioge- the sterile mechanist/contextualist root metaphor
ography and so on. However, most academic units and to a technical sophistication which remains far
still recognise and teach physical geography as an beyond the grasp of most geographers. It is the
integrated study, at least at an introductory level. geographical answer to systems engineering and
Teaching physical geography as it really is, a cybernetics. It includes the methodology known as
collection of discrete, subdisciplinary packages, is spatial analysis, which is essentially concerned with
not a comfortable experience, since those packages computer simulation and the mechanistic modelling
are very obviously related. One solution is to of contextual structures. The systems theoretic
aspects of the kind of study have evolved from
origins in physical geography (CHORLEY, 1962;
Mechanism w ~Cantextualism I Organlcism CHORLEY and KENNEDY, 1971) to broader
$1 ‘I
Tradlttanal Tradltlanal aspects of geography (HUGGETT, 1980; WILSON
geography regianai 1981). However, the movement has its detractors
physlcal- human geography who protest that, in their search for abstract
II mathematical purity, these systems writers have lost
Physlcai
touch with reality and/or humanity (LA PATRA,
geagraphlc
systems II 1973; LANGTON, 1980).
II
Spatial
( reglanal I
Ecalaglcal
madelllng II
II
Ecological systems thinking is a third distinct theme
analysis in geography. Biogeography, one of the smaller
II schisms of physical geography, is very heavily
and Landscape
suence dominated by the philosophies and methods of its
Geagraphlc II larger neighbour: ecology. Here there exists a
systems II
11
curious contextualist approach to the study of
analysts
II organic systems which is based on energy account-
II
ing. This means the charting of the movement of
‘I
11 General systems energy through a system often using the techniques
11approach
of systems engineering (SCHUGART and
Figure 3. Conceptual map of systems thinking in O’NEILL, 1979). Once again, the essence of
geography. systems ecology may be gleaned from its definition
196
of the term system. WATTS (1966, p. 2) writes: “a
system is an interlocking complex of processes
characterised by many reciprocal cause effect path-
ways” which should be examined by computer
simulation and model building (JEFFERS, 1978;
TIVY and O’HARE, 1981).
Fourthly, we may identify landscape science as a
systematic theme. ISACHENKO (1973, p. 28)
writes “To a Dokuchayevian geographer it neces-
arily became obvious that the surface of the earth
consists of objectively existing territorial units, each
of which constitutes a regular and specific combi-
nation of the objects and phenomena of nature”.
Similar ideas were expressed by HERBERTSON
(1905) and more recently in the writings of Western
terrain analysts (CHRISTIAN, 1958; BECKET and
WEBSTER, 1965; MITCHELL, 1973). However,
the main development of landscape science has
followed the work of BERG (1913) on geographical
zones, and is presently invested in the larger scale
notion of the region-sized geocomplex, and geosys-
tern. General system theory became a potent force
in the U.S.S.R. in the 1970s (GVISHIANI, 1984)
and by the mid 1970s was strongly influencing the
writings of Soviet landscape scientists (GERASI-
MOV et al., 1978). Most recently the discipline has
reappeared in the international arena through the
activities of the International Geographical Union’s
Working Group on Landscape Synthesis (MAZUR,
1983). These writings make it clear that the thinking
of landscape scientists straddles the divide between
the contextualist stance of Western ecology and a
truly organicist general system world view (cf.
ZONNEVELD, 1983; PREOBRAZHENSKIY,
1983). Preobrazhenskiy describes the geosystem as
hierarchically structured, as possessing the emer-
gent property of environmental quality, but remains
enigmatically ambiguous on the topic of the ‘co-
creation’ of man and nature.
Finally, we note the general system tradition,
although it must be admitted that explicit state-
ments of organicism are rare even in the writings of
geography’s mainstream general system theorists.
At present the major diagnostic characteristics of
these writers is their explicit adoption of a Bertan-
lanffian strategy for the promotion of scientific
unification. Their work seeks out logical homolo-
gies between geographic system processes and
members of the corpus of established general
system laws (NORDBECK, 1965). Frequently,
these laws are explicitly organicist in conception,
and often they are applied to explicitly inorganic
GeoforumNolume 16 Number 2/1985
phenomena. Two widely discussed exampes include
applications of the biological law of proportional
growth (allometry) to discussions of landscape
evolution (BULL, 1975; TOKUNAGA, 1978;
OLYPHANT, 1981) as well as to aspects of urban
regional science (COFFEY, 1979) and applications
of queue theory in geomorphology (THORNES,
1971; DAUKSA and KORTARBA, 1973). In sum,
the general system theorist geographer seeks to
treat all systems as if they were organisms while
mechanist/contextualist geographers follow ZIPF
(1949) in seeking to examine organic systems
(including human behaviour) as if they were phys-
ical phenomena.
Organisational Invariances of Systems
The philosopher LASZLO (1972) has attempted to
define the general system concept of a system and to
elaborate the implications of the organicist concep-
tion. He expresses his ideas as a series of four
‘organisational invariances’, each specifying key
characteristics of natural systems. As with all
systems properties, these ‘invariances’ are inter-
related.
(1) Structured wholeness. First, systems are wholes;
functioning entities rather like organisms, with
properties that are irreducible by dissection. These
irreducible properties are those which result from,
or emerge through, the integration of system
components. All systems, by definition, are formal
structures, not random agglomerations of elements.
It is this structure which is most easily lost in
dissection and which has led some to assert incor-
rectly that the concepts of ‘the whole’ and the
concept of ‘the system’ are identical. BLAUBERG
(1984, p. 53) describes the relationship as a ‘pro-
found kinship’. However, systems study, unlike a
conventional (reductionist) analysis, implies motion
not from the parts to the whole, but from the whole
to the parts (Figure 4). In the systems approach, the
‘whole object’ is the ultimate unit of interpretation,
and it is a functioning entity with emergent pro-
perties. These emergent properties must themselves
be resultant parts of a wholeness which lies beyond
present knowledge, but the system exists only to
represent present, perceived knowledge as an integ-
ral whole object. GVISHIANI (1984, p. 12) empha-
sises that the recognition of the organic unity
between the formalised and non-formalised - the
known and yet-to-be-known - is a major principle
of system conceptualisation.
Geofomm/Volume 16 Number 2/1985
(2) ~~e~~~~. Second, systems have an identity which
they will tend to maintain in a changing environ-
ment. This identity is contained by the equilibrium
state: past, present, future and final, to which the
system adheres. In simple systems and some com-
plex systems, this state may represent the condition
which offers least resistance to the throughput of
energy. In more complex systems this equilibrium
identity may be preserved by internal system
structures (homeostatic regulators, negative feed-
back loops and energy stores). In some complex
systems the machinery of self-regulation may
become so sophisticated that the system becomes
able to separate its identity from the environment.
As such, it develops self-referential qualities which
are independent of the original energetic state. This
condition is a feature of many organisms, more
social systems and all ecosystems, but it is limited to
systems existing in an environent which can supply
them with more energy than their present functions
and structures require.
(3) Self-creation. LASZLO (3972, p. 46) stresses
seif-creativity as the third of his list of fundamental
system characteristics. IIis third ‘invariance’ is that
natural systems create themselves in response to the
Fundamentai energy
condensations Lquorksl
Figure 4. Hierarchical universe (LASZLO, 1983).
197
challenge of the environment; they have the capac-
ity to evolve new structures and new functions. In
open systems which exchange mass-energy with
their environment, the self-creation process can be
profoundly affected by the operations of other
systems in the system environment, and by chance,
accidents of innovation and mutation, or indeed by
anything which can disturb the energy stream and
force the system to adapt.
(4) Hierarchical structure. Systems can be identified
at all scales of magnitude such that each system
contains subsystems components which may be
examined as systems in their own right. Similarly
each natural system is itself the component of a
larger scale system in which it plays the role of
subsystem. LASZLO f1972, p. 67) notes that the
organisation of the natural world resembles a
complex multi-level pyramid with many relatively
simple systems at the bottom and ‘ultimately one’
compiex system at the top (Figure 4). Indeed,
PATTEE (1973, p. 73) writes “hierarchical organis-
ation is so universal that we usually pass it off as the
natural way . . .” The reason it is natural is easily
conceived. Consider what woufd be the result of a
reduction of energy and an increase in disorganis-
H Mocroh!erarchy
h’ Microhrerarchy Iterrestnal i
h” Muohierarchles (the UDPW
leveis ore,of course, purely
hypothetml i
198
ation (entropy) upon two complex systems, one
hierarchically structured, the other not. Increased
disorganisation could only have one impact on the
non-hierarchical system; it would completely disin-
tegrate. The hierarchical system, however, would
include subsystems and components. An increase in
disorganisation might disrupt the system as a whole,
but it might not result in complete disaggregation.
Instead, there would be a tendency for the system to
be reduced to a collection of subsystem compo-
nents. Some of these subsystem components might
have the capacity to continue to function as systems
in their own right. If subsequently, energy and
organisation (negentropy) were reinvested in the
system, the subsystem building blocks of a more
organised {lower entropy) structure would already
exist. Re-organisation could proceed more rapidly.
Hierarchical organisation, then,‘ is the natural way
to achieve efficiency and stability in a large collec-
tion of interacting elements.
Energy and Systems Behaviour
The essential control over the behaviour of a system
is the energy budget. A system can exist in one of
three instantaneous states with regard to its
throughput of energy: it loses energy, gains energy
or precisely balances the input and output of
energy.
A closed system is one whose boundaries are closed
to the import of mass and energy (BERTA-
LANFFY, 1969). A closed system, by definition,
has a fixed supply of energy which diminishes as it is
consumed by systems operation. As a closed system
operates, internal energy differences, the forces
which power the system, decline. The system’s
operation slows down and parts of the system break
down or cease to function. In many cases the
pattern of energy consumption in such a system can
be approximated as a negative exponential func-
tion. The process conforms to the expectations of
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and may be
modelled as thermodynamic decay. For most of this
century, the most characteristic theory of physical
geography, has been the geographical cycle of W.
M. Davis. This is a model of the evolution of a
river-controlled landscape as a closed system
(DAVIS, 1885). The ideal cycle (cf. SCHUMM,
1979) is about the consumption of a single unit of
energy supplied as the uplift of a land mass above
sea level. The cycle uses an organismic analogy: it
charts the evolution of the landscape from youth to
Geoforu~Volume 16 Number 211985
senility, as the energy of uplift is consumed
(WIDACKI 1979). The long profile of the ideal
‘graded stream’ can be modelled as a negative
exponential curve and as a physical manifestation of
thermodynamic decay (LEOPOLD and LANG-
BEIN, 1962). In his presidential address to the
Society for General Systems Research, MILSUM
(1967) comments that ‘this washing away of the land
into the oceans is, of course, in accord with the
second law of thermodynamics, namely that closed
systems tend towards a state of uniformly low
order.”
Open systems are those which import as well as
export energy and mass. Open systems exhibit one
of two different relationships to the stream of mass
and energy in which they exist. Either they achieve
an equilibrium state by balancing inputs and outputs
passively, or they store some of the energy received,
in which case they may evolve. Simple open
systems, like the river channel cross-section system
beloved of geomorphologists (LEOPOLD and
MADDOCK, 1953; SCHUMM, 1977), do not have
any capacity for the storage of energy or for the
regulation of energy inputs by feedback mechan-
isms. Their response to being buffeted by the
through~ow of energy is simply to develop a
configuration which offers least resistance to the
energy stream, and which allows the most efficient
throughput of energy. In a steady energy stream this
form will be a kind of steady-state equilibrium
condition. In a fluctuating energy stream it may be a
statistical steady state. In a pulsating energy stream
it may be a stable oscillation like the seasonal and
diurnal patterns of earth surface temperature.
Organic systems are part of the larger closed system
of the Earth and Sun. For them there is no obvious
limit to the progression of organisation. Organismic
systems evolve by the storage of energy as
increasingly complex structures and organisations
(JANTSCH, 1980). So three impacts of energy on
systems may be defined: (1) if a system can
assimilate energy, then it may evolve, becoming
more organised and complex, until it reaches a
minimum entropic level which represents the max-
imum energy differentiation achievable by the
strategy of energy incorporation; (2) if a system
loses energy then it devolves, becoming less organ-
ised and complex, until it reaches the maximum
entropic level which represents the minimum
energy differentiation achievable by the energy
output; and (3) if a system exists in balance with its
energy flow, then it preserves a level of organisation
GeoforumiVolume 16 Number 20985
at, or between, the maximum and minimum entro-
pic levels which are appropriate for its current
energy supply. If the system has moved to its
current energy level from a lower energy level, then
this state must be maximally entropic for the
system’s current energy level. If, however, the
current energy level has been exceeded in the past,
the system may contain structures which were
produced by those higher energy levels but which
still serve to promote the efficient operation of the
system. In this case the system is at its minimum
entropic state for the current energy level.
All this really says is that evolving systems move
towards minimum entropy but exist at their max-
imum entropic state for the current energy level.
Devolving systems move towards maximum entropy
but tend to exist at a minimum entropic state for the
current energy levels. This, of course, assumes that
it requires more energy to create a structure than it
requires to maintain it. The threshold of manifest-
ation of a phenomenon is often well separated from
the threshold of extinction for the same phe-
nomenon. The tendency to resist a change of system
state is called systems inertia.
Inertial forces are one reason why the concept of
system equilibrium must be so carefully qualified.
Complex systems may contain many components
whose current operations and current energy
balance are the result of past history. The same
component subsystems at the same energy level
could exist in a completely different equilibrium
state and include completely different patterns of
organisation if those systems have had a different
history.
Karl Marx reminds us that general system theory is
not solely in the province of the physical scientist.
Marx writes of society:
This organic system as an aggregate whole has
underlying origins of its own and its evolution towards
wholeness consists precisely in subordinating to itself
all elements of society or creating therefrom the
elements that it still lacks. Thus in the course of
historical evolution, the system becomes a whole
entity. The development of the system into such an
entity constitutes a moment of the systems process and
evolution (Karl Marx in GVISWIANI 1984, p. 7).
Theory of Dissipative Structures
Today the leading edge of the theory of systems
199
evolution is contained in the writings of Nobel Prize
winner Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels School, plus
that of JANTSCH (1980) (NICOLIS and PRIGO-
GINE 1971, 1977) have contributed the theory of
dissipative structures, and JANTSCH (1980) has
built from this a new theory of evolution. However,
as Marx anticipated, the key to this new theory is in
fact a revolution: the abrupt emergence of a new
‘dissipative structure’.
The essence of Prigogine’s thinking is that the key
to evolution is energy fluctuation in systems already
close to their own margins of stability. Systems, it
should be recalled, have an identity, an equilibrium
state, and they contain regulatory mechanisms
(feedbacks), which help them preserve that state. If
these are very effective, a system becomes ‘over-
stable’ and cannot evolve because the system
corrects for all fluctuations in the environment.
Systems evolution, therefore, only becomes poss-
ible for systems operating at levels near the limits of
the control of their homeostatic regulators. Near
these threshold bounds (of metastability) there is a
potential for fluctuations to trigger (positive feed-
back) reactions and changes which do not subside
but carry the system to a new macroscopic state.
Prigogine has termed such change ‘order through
fluctuation’ and given the name ‘dissipative struc-
tures’ to systems which dissipate energy and so
evolve in this way.
Prigogine also stresses that two types of change are
found in nature: reversible or dynamic changes and
irreversible or thermodynamic changes. He argues
with Max Planck that certain states, like maximum
entropy, tend to ‘attract’ systems and that a system
will not move to a condition which is less ‘attractive’
than the initial. From such a viewpoint, reversible
processes are seen as limiting cases where the
system has an equal propensity for a number of
states (cf. catastrophe theory and PRIGOGINE
and STENGERS 1984, p. 121). Irreversibility,
however, is merely recognition of the fact that open
systems are influenced by their history. In stable
systems irreversibility tends to mean entropy
increase. Fluctuating, unstable systems, however,
may sporadically develop the capacity to move
through the entropy barrier towards a new ‘attrac-
tor’, an identity associated with a lower entropy
state. The concept of the attractor is important. The
emergence of a new system structure or equilibrium
identity should not be regarded as a mystical event.
Certain foci within the range of possible system
states are inherently more stable than others.
200
Climatologists, for example, might suggest that
there are several stable states for the Earth’s
climatic systems: such as the ‘frozen globe’, the ‘ice
age earth’ and the present climate (LORENZ,
1976; LAMB, 1979). One system, then, may have
several stable conditions, several entropic states,
that it can switch between. In some cases such
attractors can be predicted from the patterns of
system dynamics (eg: the ‘Brusselator’: PRIGO-
GINE and STENGERS, 1984, pp. 146-153).
Prigogine, then, argues for a new emphasis in
systems evaluation. This extends beyond an
appreciation of irreversible processes towards a
concern for the property of ‘intrinsic randomness’.
Prigogine’s primary interest is in power surge
fluctuations which carry systems beyond their upper
bounds of metastability and creates more organised
structures (lower entropic levels). This kind of
interaction is only possible in a system which
receives inputs from its environment and where
fluctuations in inputs lead to instability which can
create a more ordered structure. The creation of a
gully system on a hillside, the evolution of a
convectional storm or tornado and the emergence
of an ecological niche in a geocomplex are all
examples of the emergence dissipative structures of
low entropy.
It has already been suggested that closed systems
undergo entropy maximisation along the curve of
thermodynamic decay. This charts a negative
exponential curve. In the fluvial system it receives a
physical manifestation as the long profile of the
(graded) river channel, but the same curve has been
used to chart the decay of radium and the obsolesc-
ence of information. The curve expresses a general
conception of the probability of decomposition of a
system containing a large number of elements with a
fixed probability of failure (YABLONSKY, 1984).
However, this probability of decomposition or
dissipation is the same for all systems, open or
closed. It follows, therefore, that in open systems
component failure must be compensated by compo-
nent evolution or development. Systems which
cannot replace components or compensate for their
loss by the development of new components must,
over an appropriate time-scale, degrade and dis-
organise.
Prigogine believes that no system is structurally
stable. The evolution of a dissipative structure is a
self-determined sequence of the form.
Geoforum/Volume 16 Number 2/1985
Function Structure
\ /
Fluctuation
NICOLIS and PRIGOGINE (1977, pp. 429-474)
explore at length the concept that order is achieved
through fluctuation, especially the introduction of
mutations or innovations. The formation and
maintenance of self-organising systems is seen as
the result of fluctuation, non-linear couplings within
the system and competition between the entities
within the system.
The development of any complex system, then,
involves two contrapoised processes: the preserv-
ation of identity and temporary differential disturb-
ance. In a system the concept of systems equilib-
rium is designed to indicate a capacity to resist
disturbance by compensating, homeostatic adjust-
ment, but this can inhibit its development. Instabil-
ity, emerging in the course of systems operation,
allows a system to change to a new state. Fre-
quently, this change is not a gradual evolution but a
radical restructuring, the coalescence of a new
structure, perhaps at a new hierarchical level.
Frequently also, it is not the result of internal
processes, though such changes can be triggered by
gradual accumulations within a system, they can
also be the result of an external trigger, a mutation
or power surge which can lead either to system
decomposition or system restructuring in a more
organised form.
YABLONSKY (1984, pp. 225-226) has attempted
to model the evolution of science in terms of the
steady-state dynamic equilibrium of ‘normal sci-
ence’ and the sudden instabilities of ‘scientific
revolutions’ due to a power surge of unusual
scientific creativity operating in a scientific environ-
ment near the upper limit of its present equilibrium
metastability (cf. KUHN, 1962). There remains
room to wonder if this particular scientific revolu-
tion will break through into geography. Geog-
raphers experiment with the theory of thresholds
(SCHUMM, 1977; COATES and VITEK, 1980,
esp. pp. 209-226) and with catastrophe theory
(WAGSTAFF, 1978; GRAF, 1979). There is a little
interest in hierarchy theory (WOLDENBERG,
1979) but the topic of hierarchical restructuring is
neglected. Again, the problems of systems evolu-
tion, self-organisation and the emergence of new
dissipative structures are receiving attention. The
spatial analysts have attempted to carry Prigogine’s
ideas into the analysis of migration patterns, innov-
GeoforumNolume 16 Number 20985 201

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