Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 305-326

A Development Plan for the New Millennium
Yi Lin1,2,Tianxiang Yao3,Xiangdong Li4 and Sifeng Liu1

1College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics
and Astronautics,Nanjing, 210016, PR China

2Department of Mathematics, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock,
PA 16057, USA

3College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Information
Science and Technology, 219 Ningliu Road, Nanjing 210044, PR China

4School of Business, Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology, 1801 Zhongwu
Road, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, PR China , 213001

Abstract

This paper points out the importance of systems science as the second dimension
of knowledge and introduces the yoyo model as the intuition and playground com-
monly useful for systems thinking and reasoning. By revealing how traditional
science abstracts numbers and quantities out of objects of rich internal struc-
tures, this work shows the wide range of applicability of systems research in not
only new territories created by the research but also the studies of all the age-old
quests of the mankind. By detailing a careful design, this paper establishes the
idea and purpose of creating educational programs at specifically undergraduate
levels in order to stimulate further development of systems science.
Keywords yoyo model, social organization, systems thinking, curriculum design,
calculus

1 Introduction

The breadth and diversity the vast amount of the literature of systems science
and engineering covers point to a golden opportunity for the next stage develop-
ment of systems movement. By comparing the origin where numbers are from
and the places systems are seen, this paper establishes another reason for the
2-dimensional landscape of knowledge. By pointing to the advantage of the ad-
ditional dimension, it is argued that because of the maturing development of
systems research, some age-old problems that have challenged the mankind for
thousands of years can now be hopefully resolved. After introducing the sys-
temic yoyo model as the common intuition and playground for general systems
thinking and reasoning, this paper looks at how even at the ground root level,
the traditional science has intelligently dealt with mathematical entities without
involving the internal structures of objects it studies and the impacts of the envi-
ronment. That is, to successfully employ numbers and quantities, only thinghood
the traditional science captures. However, the natural world consists mainly of
structures and organizations, that is, systems. Hence, systems researchers should



306 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

start working on improving almost all, if not all, the basic concepts and elemen-
tary procedures of the traditional science so that problems of systemhood, which
are more realistic than those problems addressed by using the traditional science,
can be effectively addressed.

To this end, considering the scope and magnitude modern science covers and
embodies, improving the basic concepts and elementary procedures of such sci-
ence from the angle of systemhood requires a steady supply of a huge amount
of manpower. The number of current scholars who are interested in systems
research is quite limited. It implies a severe shortage of manpower within the
community of systems researchers. To help resolve this problem, this paper lays
out a particular plan to establish educational programs worldwide that parallels
that of mathematics education. By doing so, a steady job market for systems
researchers will appear, while major advances in systems science can be achieved
at the same time.

As what George Klir[1] did, let us look at the currently available knowledge
as 2-dimensional. Along the first dimension, the traditional science dimension,
subjects that are investigated are compartmented based on their thinghood; a-
long the second dimension, the systems science dimension, subjects are classified
according to their systemhood. With this conceptual 2-dimensionality in place,
it is argued in this paper that by taking the responsibility of reshaping the tra-
ditional science, from its very bottom up, as part of the future works of systems
research, one will be able to truly make systems science the second dimension of
knowledge. In terms of the future development of systems research, it is argued
that calculus should be employed as a reference. And it should be emphasized
that when students take courses of systems science, they need be taught, along
all the fundamentals, with procedures that can be loosely followed to produce
some more or less definite outcomes. That is actually why calculus has been used
by generations after generations. In other words, since its inception over three
hundred years ago, that is how calculus has provided livelihood for millions of
people, and at the same time these people had helped to create the prosperity of
calculus.

This paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, we look at the different origins
of numbers and systems, and why additional dimension of knowledge is expected
to bring about breakthroughs. Then the systems yoyo model is introduced for
the purpose of naturally leading the reader to the conclusion of the following
section: The concepts of numbers and systems really complement each other;
together they will make science more useful in addressing practical problems.
In Section 3, we analyse why from the root level up, the traditional science
needs to be revisited from the viewpoint of systems. However, to satisfy such
need of revisiting every corner of the traditional science requires more scientific



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 307

manpower additional to what is currently available in the community of systems
research. To resolve this problem, in Section 4, we lay out a particular idea
for developing educational programs to serve the greater audience of university
students in order to eventually feedback to the systems research with additional
manpower and scientific progress. Section 5 concludes this paper.

2 Some Observations

Since 1924 when von Bertalanffy pointed out that the fundamental character of
living things is its organization, the customary investigation of individual parts
and processes cannot provide a complete explanation of the phenomenon of life,
this holistic view of nature and social events has spread over all corners of science
and technology[2]. Accompanying this realization of the holistic nature, in the
past 80 some years, studies in systems science and systems thinking have brought
forward brand new understandings and discoveries to some of the major unsettled
problems in the conventional science[3-4]. Due to these studies of wholes, parts,
and their relationships, a forest of interdisciplinary explorations has appeared,
revealing the overall development trend in modern science and technology of
synthesizing all areas of knowledge into a few major blocks, and the boundaries
of conventional disciplines have become blurred (“Mathematical Sciences,” 1985).
Underlying this trend, we can see the united effort of studying similar problems in
different scientific fields on the basis of wholeness and parts, and of understanding
the world in which we live by employing the point of view of interconnectedness.
As tested in the past 80 plus years, the concept of systems has been widely
accepted by the entire spectrum of science and technology[1,5].

Similar to how numbers are theoretically abstracted, systems can be seen in
each and every object, event, and process. For instance, behind collections of
objects, say, apples, there is a set of numbers such as 0, 1, 2, 3, ; and with
each organization there is an abstract, yet very realistic, system within which the
relevant whole, component parts, and the related interconnectedness are empha-
sized. In other words, when internal structures are out of the concern, numbers
can be very useful; otherwise the world dominantly consists of systems. Histor-
ically speaking, traditional science has been developed on top of numbers and
quantities; while along with systemhood comes the systems science. That gives
rise of a 2-dimensional spectrum of knowledge, where the classical science, which
is categorized by the thinghood of the objects it studies, constitutes the first
dimension, and the systems science, which investigates structures and organiza-
tion, forms the genuine second dimension[1]. That is, systems thinking focuses
on those properties of systems and associated problems that emanate from the
general notion of structures; the division of the classical science has been done
largely on properties of particular objects. That explains why systems research
naturally transcends all the disciplines of the classical science and becomes a force



308 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

that unites all existing disciplines.
The importance of this supplementary second dimension of knowledge cannot

be in any way over-emphasized. For example, when studying dynamics in an
n-dimensional space, there are difficulties that cannot be resolved within the giv-
en space without getting help from a higher-dimensional space. In particular,
when a one-dimensional flow is stopped by a blockage located over a fixed inter-
val, the movement of the flow has to cease. However, if the flow is located in a
two-dimensional space, instead of being completely stopped, the 1-dimensional
blockage would only create a local (minor) irregularity in the otherwise line move-
ment of the flow (that is how nonlinearity appears[6]). Additionally, if one desires
to peek into the internal structure of the 1-dimensional blockage, he can simply
take advantage of the second dimension by looking into the blockage from either
above or below the blockage. That is, when an extra dimension is available, sci-
ence will gain additional strength in terms of solving more problems that have
been challenging the survival of the mankind.

(a) (b) (c)

Fig.1 The eddy motion model of the general system

Even though systems research holds such a great promise, the systems move-
ment has suffered a great deal in the past 80 some years of development due
to the reason that this new science does not have its own speaking language
and thinking logic. Conclusions of systems research, produced in this period of
time, are drawn either on ordinary language discussions or by utilizing the con-
ventional mathematical methods, making many believe that systems-thinking is
nothing but a clever way of rearranging conventional ideas. In other words, due
to the lack of an adequate tool for reasoning and an appropriate language for
speaking, systems research has been treated with less significance than they were
thought initially since the 1970s when several publications criticized how systems
enthusiasts derived their results without sufficient rigor[7-8], even though most
of the criticized results turned out to be correct if seen through our 20-20 hind-
sight. Considering the importance of the Cartesian coordinate system in modern



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 309

science[9-10] realizes that the concepts of (sizeless and volumeless) points and
numbers are bridged beautifully together within the Cartesian coordinate sys-
tem. That is how this Cartesian coordinate system plays the role of intuition
and playground for modern science to evolve; and within this system, important
concepts and results of modern mathematics and science are established. Recog-
nizing the lack of such an intuition and playground for systems science, on the
basis of the blown-up theory[10], the yoyo model in Fig.1 is formally introduced
by[11] in order to establish the badly needed intuition and playground for systems
science.

In particular, on the basis of the blown-up theory, which shows how the com-
mon form of motion of systems is eddy motion, and the discussion on whether
or not the world can be seen from the viewpoint of systems[12], the concepts of
black holes, big bangs, and converging and diverging eddy motions are coined
together in the model shown in Fig.1. This model was established in[10] for each
object and every system imaginable. In other words, each system or object con-
sidered in a study is a multi-dimensional entity that spins about its either visible
or invisible axis. If we fathom such a spinning entity in our 3-dimensional space,
we will have a structure as shown in Fig.1(a). The side of black hole sucks in
all things, such as materials, information, energy, etc. After funneling through
the short narrow neck, all things are spit out in the form of a big bang. Some of
the materials, spit out from the end of big bang, never return to the other side
while some will (Fig.1(b)). For the sake of convenience of communication, such
a structure, as shown in Fig.1(a), is called a (Chinese) yoyo due to its general
shape. More specifically, what this model says is that each physical entity in the
universe, be it a tangible or intangible object, a living being, an organization,
a culture, a civilization, etc., can all be seen as a kind of realization of a cer-
tain multi-dimensional spinning yoyo with either an invisible or visible spin field
around it. It stays in a constant spinning motion as depicted in Fig.1(a). If it
does stop its spinning, it will no longer exist as an identifiable system. What
Fig.1(c) shows is that due to the interaction between the eddy field, which spins
perpendicularly to the axis of spin, of the model, and the meridian field, which
rotates parallel to axis of spin, all the materials returning to the black-hole side
travel along a spiral trajectory.
Note:This yoyo model for each and every system is theoretically established on
Newtons second law of motion, the concept of blown-ups existing widely in evolu-
tions of systems, mathematical characteristics of nonlinear models, the principles
of mathematical modeling, and the universal existence of eddy motions. Empir-
ically, this model is manifested by Diracs large number hypothesis, the mystery
of solar systems angular momentum, and the measurement analysis of the move-
ment of earths atmosphere. For all the technical details, please consult with[13].



310 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

To show this yoyo model can indeed, as expected, play the role of intuition and
playground for systems research[2,13], have successfully applied it to investigate
Newtonian physics of motion, the concept of energy, economics, finance, histo-
ry, foundations of mathematics, small-probability disastrous weather forecasting,
civilization, business organizations, the mind, among others.

At this junction, let us look at how a workplace can be investigated theoret-
ically as such a spinning structure. In fact, each social entity is an objectively
existing system that is made up of objects, such as people and other physical ele-
ments, and some specific relations between the objects. It is these relations that
make the objects emerge as an organic whole and a social system. For example,
let us look at a university of higher education as a workplace. Without the spe-
cific setup of the organizational whole (relationships), the people, the buildings,
the equipment, etc., will not emerge as a university (system). Now, what the
yoyo model says is that each imaginable system, which is defined as the totality
of some objects and some relationships between the objects[3], possesses the yoyo
structure so that each chosen social system, as a specific system involving people,
has its own specific multi-dimensional yoyo structure with a rotational field.

To this end, there are many different ways for us to see why each social entity
spins about an invisible axis. In particular, let us imagine an organization, say
a business entity. As it is well known in management science, each firm has its
own particular organizational culture. Differences in organizational cultures lead
to varied levels of productivity. Now, the basic components of an organizational
culture change over time. These changes constitute the evolution of the firm
and are caused by inventing and importing ideas from other organizations and
consequently modifying or eliminating some of the existing customs. The concept
of spin beneath the systemic yoyo structure of the firm comes from what ideas to
invent, which external ideas to import, and which existing customs to eliminate. If
idea A will likely make the firm more prosperous with higher level of productivity,
while idea B will likely make the firm stay as it has been, then these ideas will form
a spin in the organizational culture. Specifically, some members of the firm might
like additional productivity so that their personal goals can be materialized in the
process of creating the extra productivity, while some other members might like
to keep things as they have been so that what they have occupied, such as income,
prestige, social status, etc., will not be adversely affected. These two groups will
fight against each other to push for their agendas so that theoretically, ideas A
and B are actually spin around each other. For one moment, A is ahead; for the
next moment B is leading. And at yet another moment no side is ahead when the
power struggle might very well return to the initial state of the organizational
affair. In this particular incidence, the abstract axis of spin is invisible, because
no one is willing to openly admit his underlying purpose for pushing for a specific



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 311

idea (either A or B or other ones).
As for the concept of black hole in a social organization, it can be seen relatively

clearly, because each social organization is an input-output system, no matter
whether the organization is seen materially, holistically, or spiritually. The input
mechanism will be naturally the “black hole”, while outputs of the organization
the “big bang”. Again, when the organization is seen from different angles, the
meanings of “black hole” and “big bang” are different. But, collectively these
different “black hole” and ‘big bang” make the organization alive. Without the
totality of “black hole” and that of “big bangs”, no organization can be physically
standing. Other than intuition, to this end the existing literature on civilizations,
business entities, and individual humans readily does testify the conclusions used
here.

From this example, a careful reader might have sensed the fact that in this
yoyo model, we look at each system, be it a human organization, a physical
entity, or an abstract intellectual being, as a whole that is made up of a physical
body, its internal structure, and its interactions with the environment. This
whole, according to the systemic yoyo model, is a high dimensional spin field.
Considering the fact that the body is the carrier of all other (such as cultural,
philosophical, spiritual, psychological, etc.) aspects of the system, in theory the
body of the system is a pool of fluid realized through the researchers sensing
organs in the three-dimensional space. The word fluid here is an abstract term
totalling the flows of energy, information, materials, etc., circulating within the
inside of, going into, and giving off from the body. And in all published references
that we have searched these flows are studied widely in natural and social sciences
using continuous functions, which in physics and mathematics mean flows of fluids
and are widely known as flow functions. On the other hand, as it has been shown
and concluded in[2,13] that the universe is a huge ocean of eddies, which changes
and evolves constantly. That is, the totality of the physically existing world can
be legitimately studied as fluids.

To make this presentation complete for the reader, let us look briefly at the
justification of this yoyo model of systems. In theory, the justification for such
a model of general systems is the blown-up theory[10]. It can also be seen as a
practical background for the law of conservation of informational infrastructures.
More specifically, the blown-up theory establishes that in the evolution of a sys-
tem, what are commonly observed are transitional changes, known as blown-ups,
so that it supports the input-output structure of the yoyo model. And based on
empirical data, the following law of conservation is proposed[14]: For each given
system, there must be a positive number α such that

AT ×BS × CM ×DE = α (1)

where A, B, C, and D are some constants determined by the structure and at-



312 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

tributes of the system of concern, and T stands for the time as measured within
the system, S the space occupied by the system, M and E the total mass and
energy contained in the system.

Because M (mass) and E (energy) can exchange into each other and the total
of them is conserved, if the system is a closed one, equ. (1) implies that when time
T evolves to a certain (large) value, space S has to be very small. That is, in a lim-
ited space, the density of mass and energy becomes extremely high. So, an explo-
sion (a big bang) is expected. Following the explosion, space S starts to expand,
while time T starts to travel backward or to shrink. This end gives rise of the
well-known model for the universe as derived from Einsteins relativity theory[15-
16]. In terms of systems, what this law of conservation implies is: Each system
goes through such cycles as: . . .→ expanding→shrinking→expanding→shrinking
→. . . Now, the geometry of this model of universe established from Einsteins rel-
ativity theory is given in Fig.1.

Empirically, the multi-dimensional yoyo model in Fig.1 is manifested in d-
ifferent areas of life. For example, each human being, as we now see it, is a
3-dimensional realization of such a spinning yoyo structure of a higher dimen-
sion. To this end, consider two simple and easy-to-repeat experiences. For the
first one, imagine we go to a swim meet. As soon as we enter the pool area, we
immediately fall into a boiling pot of screaming and jumping spectators, cheering
for their favorite swimmers competing in the pool. Now, let us pick a person
standing or walking on the pool deck for whatever reason, either for her beauty
or for his strange look or body posture. Magically enough, in a brief moment, the
person from quite a good distance will feel our stare and she/he will be able to
locate us instantly out of the reasonably sized and boiling audience. The reason
for the existence of such a miracle and silent communication is that each side is
a high dimensional spinning yoyo. Even though we are separated by space and
possibly by informational noise, the stare of one side on the other has directed
that side′s spin field of the yoyo structure into the spin field of the yoyo structure
of the other side. That is the underlying mechanism for the silent communication
to be established.

As the second example, let us look at the situation of human relationship.
Two individuals are said to be in a congruent position when compared to each
other, if none of them is in a more powerfully authoritative height over the other.
For example, in a typical marriage relationship the husband and wide in general
are in a congruent position, where no one has much authoritative control of
the other. However, the relationship between a parent and a child is different,
where the parent to a degree and in certain sense has an overarching control of
the child. For individuals A and B in a congruent position, all clinic trials in
family psychology have shown that when A has a good impression about B[17],



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 313

magically, individual B also has a similar and almost identical impression about
A. When A does not like B and describes B as a dishonest person with various
undesirable traits, it has been clinically proven in family psychology that what
A describes about B is exactly who A is himself. Once again, the underlying
mechanism for such a quiet and unspoken evaluation of each other is that each
human being stands for a spinning yoyo and its rotational field. Our feelings
about other people are formed through the interactions of our invisible yoyo
structures and their spin fields. On the other hand, when individual A possesses
an authoritative control over individual B, it simply means that the yoyo field
of A is more powerful than that of B. In this case, deviations in their mutual
evaluations of each other appear, for more details, see[13].

Historically, although the word system was never emphasized in science, we
can still find many similar concepts. For example, Nicholas of Cusa, that pro-
found thinker of the fifteenth century, linking Medieval mysticism with the first
beginning of modern science, introduced the notion of coincidentia oppositorum,
the opposition or indeed fight among the parts within a whole which nevertheless
forms a unity of higher order. Leibnizs hierarchy of monads looks quite like that
of modern systems; his mathesis universalis presages an expanded mathematics.
That is not limited to either quantitative or numerical expressions and is able
to formulate much conceptual thought. Hegel and Marx emphasized the dialec-
tic structure of thought and of the universe it produces: the deep insight that
no proposition can exhaust reality but only approaches its coincidence of oppo-
sites by the dialectic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Gustav Fechner,
known as the author of the psychophysical law, elaborated, in the way of the
natural philosophers of the nineteenth century, supraindividual organizations of
higher order than the usual objects of observation C for example, communities of
life and the entire earth, thus romantically anticipating the ecosystems of mod-
ern parlance, for a more comprehensive study of history along this line, please
consult with[18]. In other words, various theories of systems had been considered
throughout history. However, for one reason or another, each of these theories
came and gone without leaving much trace and impact.

In this section, after realizing the difficulty of not having its own particular s-
peaking language and thinking logic for systems research, we introduced the badly
needed systemic yoyo model. On the basis of this model, the next section shows
vividly how such fundamental concepts of modern science as numbers are intro-
duced cleverly with internal structures taken out of concern, and how the yoyo
model can help to resolve this problem of the missing internal structures. That
in turn establishes the need to develop systems science, the second dimension
of knowledge, with the added responsibility of reshaping the traditional science
from its bottom up. That is the underlying rationale for why we need to develop



314 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

a comprehensive curriculum of systems science at all levels of formal education.

3 Problems Investigated Using Systems Thinking and Methodology

Because of the availability of the yoyo model, we now have an intuition and
playground that is commonly available for systems theorists and practitioners to
house their abstract reasoning and thinking, just as what people are accustomed
to do with the Cartesian coordinate system when they think about how to resolve
a problem in the classical science. Now, one of the most important problems of
systems research is what kinds of problems systems science could and should
attack and attempt to resolve. Historically speaking, the importance of this
question is that only when systems science can provide new and powerful means
to resolve at least some of the age-old whys which have challenged the mankind
since the dawn of the recorded history, systems science will have a chance to
become firmly recognized as a legitimate branch and the second dimension of
knowledge. The never-fading effort of the man invested in studying these forever
important whys fundamentally signals the relevance of these endeavours to the
very survival of the human race.

Here is a common belief currently existing in the community of systems re-
searchers about what kinds of problems systems science could and should attempt
to address[19]: Systems science resolves problems that are related to systemhood
instead of thinghood. In other words, systems science is good at addressing such
a problem that when one looks at one aspect, he realizes that several other as-
pects of the issue should be addressed first. That is, the issue seems to be messy
with neither any beginning nor an ending and is surely not a linear causality.
Many factors influence the outcome, while the outcome simultaneously affects
the influencing factors.

Here is a common belief currently existing in the community of systems re-
searchers about what kinds of problems systems science could and should attempt
to address: Systems science resolves problems that are related to systemhood in-
stead of thinghood. In other words, systems science is good at addressing such
a problem that when one looks at one aspect, he realizes that several other as-
pects of the issue should be addressed first. That is, the issue seems to be messy
with neither any beginning nor an ending and is surely not a linear causality.
Many factors influence the outcome, while the outcome simultaneously affects
the influencing factors.

Although such a belief is in line with how systems science has been perceived
historically, it has also been quite misleading. In fact, based on this belief, it
should be readily recognized that the limitation of modern science is that it takes
all structure related aspects of issues out of concern. For instance, for the very
basic arithmetic fact that 1 + 1 = 2 to hold true, modern science has purposefully
give away many structural characteristics of the issue of concern. In particular,



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 315

if 1 + 1 = 2 stands for the fact that when one object is placed together with
another object, there will be two objects totally, then the internal structures of
the objects have been ignored. It is because when the internal structures of the
objects are concerned with, the togetherness of the objects can be zero, or one, or
two, or any other possible natural number. To illustrate this fact, let us assume
that 1 + 1 = 2 represent placing two systems together. (That is, the objects
we put together now have their individual internal structures.) Does that mean
consequently we will have two systems totally? The answer is: Not necessarily. In
particular, each system now is a spin field, as what we have seen in the previous
section. When we place two spin fields together, what do we have? Do we really
have two spinning fields?

To answer this question, let us consider all possibilities when two spin fields N
and M are placed alongside of each other, Fig.2. Considering their directions of
spin and their divergence and convergence of the fields N and M, Fig.2 (a) will
produce the outcome of two systems. The spin fields N and M in Fig.2 (b) will
remain separate while creating a joint rotational field. Due to their convergence,
the fields N and M in Fig.2 (c) will merge together to become one bigger field.
If we look back at Fig.2 (b), then they are simply the “big-bang” sides of the
convergent fields in Fig.2 (c). So, if the fields N and M do combine with each
other, then there will be only one rotational field resulted. If these fields do
not combine into a greater field, then while they stay separate from each other,
they also create many smaller fields in the areas between them. Similar to the
situation in Fig.2 (a), the fields N and M in Fig.2 (d) will stay separate without
creating any small field.

Similar analysis indicates that the fields N and M in Fig.2 (e, i) will either
destroy each other so that no more rotational field is resulted, or if they stay
separate, they will create many smaller fields in the zones between N and M. For
the fields N and M in Fig.2 (f, h), they either destroy each other or simply stay
separate. In short, 1 + 1 = 2 is a very special case among all the eight possibilities
as depicted in Fig.2. As a matter of fact, we can conclude the same fact that 1 +
1 = 2 is a very special case as follows: When one positron is placed together with
an electron, the outcome is nothing; that is 1 + 1 = 0. When a woman and man
combine into a family, the outcome can be (in theory) any number of people. In
comparison, of course, the previous spin-fields analysis is more systemically and
scientifically significant than this short version of modelling.

Now, let us look at how modern science resolves problems by analysing the
following basic algebraic scenario: Suppose that John and Ed together can finish
doing a job in 2 hours, John and Paul together can do the same job in 3 hours,
while Ed and Paul together can complete the job in 4 hours. The question that
needs to be resolved is: If John, Ed, and Paul work together, how long do they



316 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

need to finish the job?

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

(h) (i)

Fig.2 The internal structure of a two-body system

The standard method of solving this algebraic problem is first assume that
John can do the job alone in x hours, Ed alone in y hours, and Paul alone in
z hours. Then, the following system is established to describe the relationship
among the quantities x, y, and z.

1
x + 1

y = 1
2

1
x + 1

z = 1
3

1
y + 1

z = 1
4

Next step is to solve this system mathematically, producing the answer that in
24/13 ≈ 1.85 hours John, Ed, and Paul can complete the job.



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 317

To confirm the answer is correct, one is required to go back to the original
problem to check the validity of his answer. Here is one way to do just that:
Because John and Ed can finish the job in 2 hours together, with Paul added,
the additional manpower should make complete the job quicker. So, 24/13 is the
correct answer.

Now, if we look at the resolution of the previous problem from the angle of
systems thinking, we can see at least two problems: One is that the job might
have a structure so that extra hand may not help at all. The other is that if each
of the three workers is seen righteously as a living system, then when they are
put together, they will surely interact with each other so that instead of speeding
up the work progress, the interaction may also very well slow down the progress.
Although a greatly simplified version of the first problem has been addressed in
operations research, the second problem represents an extremely difficult issue for
modern science, known as the three-body problem. For more detailed discussion
about this end, please consult with[13].

What these two examples are intended for is that by simply holding onto the
thinking of systemhood, almost all, if not all, basic concepts and methods of
modern science can be either generalized or improved or both. For example, the
following are some of the success stories among many others of thinking and doing
just along this line:

(1) By applying the yoyo model to the forecasting of near-zero probability dis-
astrous weather conditions, the current prediction accuracy that is commercially
available has been greatly improved[13,20].

(2) By employing the rotation structure of the yoyo model and the observa-
tional facts of the dishpan experiment, we are led to the discovery of the fourth
crisis in the foundations of mathematics[13].

(3) By relying on the yoyo model as a road map, a sufficient and necessary
condition is established for when Beckers rotten kid theorem can hold true, where
the theorem is widely used in the research of economics.

Note:Whats listed above represents some of the most difficult, unsettled prob-
lems in modern science with which recent progress has been made only through
applications of systems thinking. As for other examples of how systems science
can address the important whys that have plagued the mankind for centuries,
let us look at medicine. In particular, Chinese traditional medicine is a well-
developed systems theory about the human body. On the basis of four basic,
not defined concepts C blood, qi, yin, and yang, the entire Chinese tradition-
al medical theory has been developed since nearly 5 thousand years ago along
with a whole set of practical procedures of how various ailments can be treated,
for details see[2] and references listed there. To this end, one specific example
is that if a fetus is not positioned right inside its mother at the time of birth,



318 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

the newborn will most likely suffer from physical disabilities due to birth related
injury. A Chinese medical claim is that by needling a specific acupuncture point
on the mothers feet, the fetus will reposition itself to the desired position. This
ancient mystery (claim) is only reconfirmed recently by researchers from Oxford
University, England, while why the needle works as it does is still not known in
terms of modern medical theory[21].

In short, what the discussion in this section teaches us is that by bringing
organization, structure, and systemhood into modern science as they should be
naturally in the first place, the entire spectrum of science will be enriched and
become more useful in terms of how well it could resolve real-life problems. On
the other hand, by taking the responsibility of reshaping and enriching modern
science with the previously unconcerned structures and systemhoods from its
very bottom up as part of the future works of systems research, we will be able
to truly make systems science the second dimension of knowledge, where the first
dimension, the traditional science, considers less or no internal structures.

To this end, a natural question arises: To accomplish this task of reshaping and
enriching modern science plus those systems researchers are currently working
on, the community of systems scientists does not seem to have the adequate
manpower.

4 Educational Programs in Systems Science

One proven effective way to solve the problem of manpower is to follow the
disciplinary development of mathematics, which, as an educational program, has
been offered to every level of schooling. That of course has provided livelihood
and good living for millions of people from around the world. These millions
of people surely provide an abundant supply of manpower, with which one can
expect to have systems science developed at a rapid speed. For the community of
systems scientists to achieve this goal, it will surely be a long and difficult journey.
And no matter how long and how difficult this journey can be, we have to start
with the first step, the initial planning. Here are some of the details of our idea,
which is empirically developed in reference to how programs of mathematics from
around the world at different educational levels are offered.

We first start at the undergraduate level by
(1) Offering service courses of systems thinking to all majors in a similar

manner as how basic mathematics and science courses are offered currently;
(2) Providing major specific courses to those students who are currently re-

quired to learn such materials;
If these imagined courses can be offered successfully, there will be thousands of
college-teaching positions suddenly become available worldwide. After talking to
many colleagues from around the world, this idea seems to have the potential of
success.



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 319

Practically, to make this idea work, one needs to secure the financial backing
for these positions. Here is one way to get around this problem. If a full time
professor teaching X students can provide enough revenue for the university, then
the initial step to create the very first teaching position for systems science is to
secure at least a steady stream of X students per semester. Then gradually
increase this number to 2X, 3X, ..., by adding additionally required systems
science courses in as many majors as possible. Based on the current landscape
of systems science education, the first service courses could be readily offered to
business majors and engineering majors, creating the initial momentum of our
planned large-scale programs. In most universities, these two areas represent
about 50% or more of the student body. The next in line will be social science
and humanity majors, and then followed by the traditional science majors.

As an example, let us imagine a small university of 8,000 undergraduate stu-
dents, more than 1/8 of which are in the business school with about 300 freshmen
each year. If these students are required to take courses in methods, which are
most likely the case for many universities from around the world, then we can
readily make one of the method courses to contain two parts: the first consists of
an examination of the main concepts of quantitative thinking, and the second an
introduction to systems science and methodology. If each class section contains a
maximum of 30 students, then we are talking about 20 sections for both parts of
the sequel. If the teaching load of each instructor is 3 sections per semester, then
we have an independent systems science program of about 3.5 faculty members.
A similar calculation also indicates an impressive course offering opportunity for
engineering majors. So, counting on either the business school or the engineer-
ing school, the imagined program in systems science can be started without any
trouble. If a systems science major is created accordingly, that of course also
translate into additional faculty positions.

This idea of building up educational programs of systems science by focusing
on providing service courses is more practical than that of using external research
funds. The latter method has been tried during the systems movement in the past
decades. One problem with this approach is that the systems science programs
established in such a way tends to be limited in size; and when external funds
dwindle, the established educational programs also die out consequently, creating
an undesirable aftermath for the next round of rapid development of systems
science. At the same time, the previous idea of offering service courses can of
course be combined with research funding opportunities, because the teaching
faculty can surely engage in joint research on various applied topics. By doing
so, the teaching load can be accordingly lessened, producing additional faculty
positions.

When enough teaching positions at the undergraduate level become available,



320 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

corresponding graduate programs in systems science will consequently flourish,
because graduate assistantships will be more widely attainable and there is a well-
established job market for the graduates of the graduate programs. At the same
time, to make the students majoring in systems science more marketable in the job
place, we can again follow what programs in mathematics do for their students:
Each student has to have a special interest area in traditional disciplines, which
generally help mathematics majors to locate their future jobs.

In terms of the curriculum, there is a strong and desperate need to develop a
whole set of courses of systems science to be taught to systems science major and
non-major students. First of all, these courses collectively need to cover all the
main blocks of the relevant knowledge. Not only so, the curriculum should be
designed in such a way that they form an organic whole and satisfy the following
four criteria of a glorious and long-lasting scientific theory[13] in order to bring
about historical success for systems science:

A. The basic theories must be readable by as many people as possible;
B. The theoretical conclusions must coincide with peoples intuition;
C. Each course of the curriculum must possess a certain kind of beauty, which

can be easily felt;
D. The theories must be capable of producing meaningful results and insights

that excite the population.
The first three criteria guarantee a wide-range acceptance of systems thinking
and methodology by both the scientific and non-scientific population; and the
last criterion provides the livelihood of the discipline of systems science, and the
“milk and bread” for all those scholars who pursue a career in systems science.
This last criterion also means that systems researchers have to, without any
choice, put in their efforts to resolve at least some of the age-old challenges that
have faced science and the mankind.

As a side note, to see why what is stated in the previous paragraph is important,
let us look at the following fact among many other similar ones: Although systems
science and engineering consider various theoretical and practical systems, these
systems do not really have much in common even at the level of abstract thinking.
This end constitutes a real challenge to the community of systems researchers.
Specifically, when a systems project or idea needs public support, such as locating
reputable reviewers for a research grant application, the principal investigator or
the funding agency in general has a hard time to crystalize the base of supporters
other than a few possible personal contacts. Due to this reason, it generally takes
a long time, if it ever happens, for a new rising star in systems research to be
recognized even within areas of systems science and engineering. In particular,
most rising stars, based on my professional contacts, in systems research have
experienced difficulties in getting their research projects funded and in obtaining



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 321

their well-deserved promotions. As a consequence, most of these young scholars
have turned away from systems research in order to acquire a professional safe
harbor. Without a steady supply of new blood, the effort of systems research will
surely stay on the sideline and as secondary to the traditional sciences, as it is
currently the case, instead of being complementary to the traditional sciences.

Comparing this state of systems science to that of, for instance, calculus as
the core of the traditional science, one can see the clear contrast. In particular,
calculus possesses the following characteristics:

(1). It gives one the feeling of a holistic body of thoughts where each concept
is tightly developed on the previous ones in a well-accepted playground, the
Cartesian coordinate system.

(2). It possesses a high level of theoretical beauty.
(3). It contains a large reservoir of procedures scientific practitioners can follow

to obtain their desired consequences. That is, calculus provides solutions to
practical problems of different disciplines.
That is, by either further developing calculus and related theories or using these
theories, thousands of people from around the world in the generations both
before us and after us in the foreseeable future have made and will continue to
make their satisfactory living. That in turn feeds back to the livelihood and
prosperity of calculus.

On the other hand, systems science does not have a tightly developed system
of theory and methods, which new comers can firstly feel excited about and
consequently identify themselves strongly with, and scientific practitioners can
simply follow established procedures to produce their needed results. In other
words,

(1). There is a definite need for the community of systems researchers to develop
a cohesive spectrum of systems theories that underlies all methods of systems
technology;

(2). To accomplish line 1 above, a speaking language and logic of reasoning
particular to systems research have to be established so that currently seemingly
unrelated publications could be unified on the same foundation;

(3). Each and every practically applicable methods of systems science has to be
theoretically established on the cohesive theoretical spectrum so that conclusions
of the methods are scientifically sound and more readily acceptable by the greater
community of science; and

(4). Theoretical beauty and practical applicability of systems research have to
be established in order to produce a steady follow of new blood for the community
of systems scientists.

The most urgent of these tasks of systems research is develop a specific speak-
ing language and logic of reasoning for systems research so that new scientific



322 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

progresses can be authentically and convincingly shown to be fruits of systems
thinking. The current practice of identifying various new theories from vari-
ous traditional disciplines as new progresses in systems research just wont make
systems research a science that truly complements the traditional science as it
promises. This end has been well witnessed by the recent and fast disappearance
of systems programs from around the U.S.A. Considering the historical successes
of calculus for our purpose, the community of systems research should really use
all the activities around the development of calculus as its reference to design
its relevant courses of action. In particular, we need to develop a curriculum of
systems science and methodology to be offered to all levels of formal and infor-
mal education, because as we have shown earlier in this paper, in any corner of
knowledge that involves basic operations of the traditional scientific thinking, the
corresponding systemic reasoning should also be involved.

In the rest of this section, let us discuss more specific course contents to be
used in the imagined curriculum. To this end, due to the fact that the field of
systems science, the topics of systems research, and the interpretations of the
basic terms, such as system, systems methodology, systems thinking, etc., are
both broad and diverse, our discussion here will be naturally in principle only.
All the specific details will be figured out and improved later when particular
course contents are concerned with. What follows next in this section is based
on[22] and is intended to be a starting point for future thinking and efforts. It
does not aim to be definitive or authoritative. It represents only a partial account
of the vast literature existing in systems science.

(1) General systems theory C the foundation: It seeks to establish studies
of systems as a discipline in its own right. It aspires to uncover from different
scientific disciplines concepts, laws, and models that are applicable to systems of
all types. As what is shown in[13], one needs to be reminded that some of the
laws of nature are not expressible in the language of mathematics. Considering
the diverse audience of our imagined educational program, several versions of this
theory should be made available for teaching to different majors of undergraduate
students in order to be more readily accessible by these students. At the same
time, at this foundation level, the basics of systems science and engineering should
be laid out firmly so that on these basics all other courses of the curriculum will
be established.

(2) Organizations as systems: Studies in this direction seek to understand
different levels of human organization through interactions of subsystems and
relationships with the environment. Courses along this line will mainly target
students in management and social sciences.

(3) Hard systems approach: It investigates the general systems thinking by
using the traditional natural scientific methods. All real-world systems of con-



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 323

cern are modelled by using mathematical systems and then these systems are
optimized in order to pursue some predefined goals. Theories and methods es-
tablished here should be well organized into an organic whole so that all students
who pursue careers in science and technology could benefit from this course.

(4) Cybernetic thoughts: It stands for the science of communication and control
among the elements of a system and is about effective organization. Some of the
laws established in this area are considered to be as important to managers as
Einsteins law of relativity is to physicists. Similar to line 1) above, several versions
of the textbook should be prepared for this area in order to be useful to students
with different academic backgrounds.

(5) Systems dynamics: It concerns with continuous processes and the dynamic
behaviours of feedback loops or processes, and covers model formulation, equa-
tion writing, approaches of validation, and policy analysis. Computer simulation
techniques are established. Courses along this line should be designed for students
who are more science and technology inclined.

(6) Soft systems: It seeks to apply systems ideas and laws to situations where
objectives are not well-defined, and the systems of concern are too complex to be
modelled by using mathematics. The complexity arises partially because human
beings and ethical concerns are involved. Courses on soft systems thinking should
be made available to all students because methods and conclusions learned here
can be useful in day-to-day lives.

(7) Emancipatory systems thinking: Studies in this area attempt to provide
help to groups in disadvantageous situations by applying systems approaches. So
one course should be designed for this area along with the teaching of strategies
developed and well tested throughout the history of various conflicts.

(8) Critical systems thinking: As the name suggests, studies in this area at-
tempt to bring unity to the vast number of different systems approaches so that
the issue at hand, which might be characterized with seemingly unmanageable
large scale, unfathomable complexity, uncontrollable uncertainty, impermanence,
and imperfection, can be resolved successfully. This subject matter can be ar-
ranged for graduating seniors to take.

Because calculus is surely one of the few scientific theories that has enjoyed a
long-lasting glory, in order to make systems science as recognized and as widely
accepted as it seems to promise, we should employ calculus as our reference when
we compose the materials of the imagined courses in order to satisfy the four
criteria of a glorious and scientific theory as listed above. Another important
insight we learned from calculus is that when students take courses of systems
science, they need be taught, along all other fundamentals, with procedures that
can be loosely followed to produce some more or less definite outcomes, which
of course depends on which systems area is involved. This end actually explains



324 Yi Lin:A Development Plan for the New Millennium

why calculus has been used by generations after generations. In other words, that
is how calculus has provided livelihood for millions of people since its inception
over three hundred years ago.

To conclude this section, let us look at how specifically one can get started with
our imagined curriculum in systems science by looking at a typical university in
the U.S.A. Assume that a systems scientist teaches in an engineering school.
Other than what he does already in teaching and research, to succeed with his
offering of a new course in systems methodology, he would normally go through
the following steps:

(1). Chooses a book on systems methodology that is available in the market-
place, and that is good enough to be used as a textbook for all engineering majors.
If no such book is available, then he can readily write one to fill the market need.

(2). Fill out some particularly designed forms for creating a new course. Here
what is presented earlier in this paper can be modified for the new course proposal
for explaining why such a new course is needed.

(3). Get approvals of the departmental, college, and university curriculum com-
mittees;

(4). Advertise on campus to attract at least the minimum required number of
students to take the course; and

(5). Actually teach the class.
If the said systems scientist is in the department of philosophy instead of the
engineering school as mentioned above, then he can more readily offer the course
of systems science that is more philosophical in nature as the first class. If the
systems scientist is in the department of mathematics, he can then conveniently
offer a course like systems analysis that is more mathematically oriented.

In short, as we discussed in this paper, systems research had popped up as a
fad once in a while at different times in various languages throughout the history.
However, when compared to the successes of mathematics and natural science,
none of these fads lasted very long. On the contrary, the current wave of systems
research has been quite long lasting, about one hundred years old, wide spread
and accepted throughout the entire spectrum of learning. That is the scientific
history has presented us a golden opportunity to make the past short-lived fads
into a prominent dimension of knowledge. So, let us hold hands together and
make our impacts in the history.

5 Some Final Words

As analyzed in this paper, the golden opportunity, which appears along with the
breadth and diversity the vast amount of the literature of systems science and
engineering represents, for the next stage development of the systems movement
could be more effective if a little purposeful planning is first given. By referenc-
ing back to the development history of calculus, it is expected that as long as a



Advances in Systems Science and Applications (2012) Vol.12 No.4 325

worldwide undergraduate education program in systems science can be initiated,
a 2-dimensional landscape of knowledge will be formally established, where many
of the important whys the mankind has been asking for thousands of years will
be ultimately answered. So, let us join hands to collectively make the world in
which we live a better place for everyone.

Acknowledgements
The first author likes to use this opportunity to thank Professor Markus Schwaninger,
Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, for his sugges-
tion of writing up this article due to its foreseeable impacts on the community
of systems researchers. This work was supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (71171116).

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Corresponding author
Yi Lin can be contacted at: Jeffrey.forrest@sru.edu