Recurring Structures

If the previous Aha! moment wasn’t enough "Uncommon Sense" also presented Bertalanffy’s thoughts on recurring structures. He proposed, in the 1930’s no less, that there were fundamental underlying structures which operated across all branches of science. And, if one learned about these structures, one could transfer much of their learning from one discipline to another by simply understanding what structures were operating and the labels on the relationships in that discipline. On an initial reading this was a bit much to accept. Yet after a while there was a realization that if there is just one universe why shouldn’t there be a single set of operating structures since the various disciplines of science are a fabrication of man, not the Universe.

Based on this, what Bertalanffy envisioned was a concept of general systems teaching. As it turned out the work was done in German and a translation error produced General Systems Theory, a label which stuck and produced an idea that was never actually intended. The recurring structures actually turned out to be what Peter Senge labeled as Systems Archetypes in The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. As it turns out the archetypes are marvelous for providing a rapid understanding of situations and how to deal with them. The known archetypes and their utility will be presented in the Archetypes segment.