Systems Theory A Short Film

A short film looking at some of the key themes within Systems theory such as the debate surrounding reductionism and holism, the Newtonian paradigm and Systems Thinking. Systems thinking is what we call a paradigm, a dictionary definition of a paradigm would read; a world view underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject. Thus we can understand a paradigm to be the foundations that shape our way of seeing the world, it is the assumptions and methods out of which we build our theories. There are two fundamentally different paradigms within science, one is called analysis and the other synthesis. Analysis is the traditional method of reasoning taken within modern science where by we try to gain an understanding of a system by breaking it down into its constituent elements. On the other hand synthesis, which is the foundations to systems thinking, works in the reverse direction trying to gain an understand of an entity through the context of its relations within an whole that it is part of.