An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Silver Anniversary Edition)

Weinberg distills the essence from von Bertalanffy's classic and manages to present it in a very accessible fashion. The book has been out of print for quite a while so it is great to see a new edition. The message and information contained in here, although originally published in 1975, is now more relevant than ever.Weinberg covers many aspects of systems theory beginning with the main stumbling block with the present scientific paradigm: the idea that the universe is mechanistic. His treatment is much more general than Robert Rosen's in "Life Itself" but still conveys why the mechanistic notion is flawed.He then outlines the general systems theory approach before leading into the idea that a system is simply a way of looking at the world. He then outlines the principle of indifference. This leads straight into two sections outlining various aspects of making observations. Finally he discusses behaviour and then some general systems questions.Throughout the book he uses many examples from disparate fields in conjunction with questions for further research. It is great to see someone who doesn't preach systems but actually uses the ideas.Definitely a must-read as we decided how to solve the myriad of issues before us.

I've spent most of my life wondering why I am drawn to chemists, computer scientists and the law. Although Weinberg doesn't necessarily explain the first part of my quandary, he does give significant insight into what the three listed items have in common. The answer is that they all relate to systems. I believe that most people are exposed to systems thinking intermediate and advanced math classes in high-school and college, but I don't believe that we ever that we are ever taught how to use those models and apply them in a practical way to real-world problems. Weinberg presents a mode of thinking to do just this: see the world, even our day-to-day, in a way that lends itself to rational, systematic analysis and decision-making. In order to do this he has to find a way to merge the creative and logical thought processes. I think he pulls it off extremely well in this book.

"Systems thinking" is a straight forward concept that concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the elements that compose the entirety of the system. The reader looking to this book for an exposition of this concept and perhaps examples of its application will be very disappointed.The operative word in the title of this book is "Introduction." What Weinberg provides is not a discussion of systems thinking as such, but an elegant and well thought out set of proofs that demonstrate why systems thinking actually works and provide the foundation of an underlying theory of systems thinking. This is quite different from most of the literature on systems analysis and systems research, but this book provides a foundation for both of these disciplines. As such it has a unique place in the literature of this subject.

it's really a study of how we think about things, and how we classify and transform our assumptions, difficult, worthwhile.

This book I bought more than 5 years ago after I recognized that systems approach was needed for memory dump analysis. However, I read it only recently while preparing to talk on systemic software diagnostics. While reading I realized that I already applied some systems theory ideas, for example, about isomorphism of disciplines as systems (which I named as metaphorical bijection): from literary narratology to software narratology and from that to network trace analysis. So if you are interested in systems either computer software ones or human organizational then I would greatly recommend this book as an introduction. The recommended literature in exercises is also useful.

Gerald Weinberg book "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" is one of the best books I ever read. When I started to think about system theory in the early 70s when my English was too weak to read English books I had only access to several translated books including of course authors like John von Neumann and Ross Ashby and alike. Now I'm doing research on service systems and discovered Weinberg's wonderful book. It's not only a book for experts in the field it is also a book for people who are interested in thinking. It offers a lot of great insights which are easy to understand but also challenge classical ontological thinking. For example it makes clear that a system is a set of entities which "we sat down". It's not pregiven. It is the way off looking at the world. It also makes clear that if science reduces the observable reality there always is another perspective to reduce it which is condensed in the generalized law of complimentary. The content of the book is too rich to be summarized in this short review each chapter is a gold mine but you have to dig.In addition the book is not only something to read but it is something to work with. After each chapter it contains wonderful exercises and challenging questions. Everybody can train his thinking abilities which I think is very important for learning society. I definitely recommend this book to everybody who wants to improve her or his thinking. Who ever goes to university should, from my perspective, read this book. This book is also an entertaining one as it offers nice surprises in the way we usually think. I am very thankful to Gerald Weinberg that I had the opportunity to read his wonderful book.

Read and read again. Foundational to every 'smart guy' are these concepts. This will teach you how to be more analytical, and will demonstrate the ways in which you already are.

It's a book -- Condition & Delivery as promised

I have read the kindle version and then ordered this paper version. It is dense. I need to read and re-read its parts and chapters because every time I get deeper understanding. The important thing is, this book and its examples and notions will be part of your mindset. It improves your mental models, the models that you think through them. I haven't read such a well written book on fundamentals of system thinking. A must read for anyone who is interested in thinking and ,indeed, better thinking

The writing style in this book is relaxed and, at times, funny. This massively helps with the absorption of a reasonably taxing subject. You'll learn a lot from this book if you haven't yet read about Systems Thinking.

Genuine systems thinking is rare these days. This one is a classic, timeless, and still relevant.

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