THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF SYSTEMS THEORISTS
by Stuart A. Umpleby


[This is the first in a series about international online
organizations. Each time we receive a report, we will print it
so that we can better understand organizations outside of the
ENA that are using computer conferencing. --Stefanie Kott,
editor.]

In recent weeks the Electronic Networking Association has been
discussing the possibility of holding a meeting in Europe in the
fall of 1986 or the spring of 1987. Four locations have come
under discussion: 1) the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA) near Vienna, Austria, 2) Stockholm,
Sweden, where the COM computer conferencing system is being
developed, 3) Greece, where work on computer conferencing has
begun in recent years, and 4) London, where NETREACH is active.

Since most of the scientists from around the world who are
active in the systems and cybernetics community pass through
IIASA from time to time, an explanation of various systems and
cybernetics organizations is given below as background to IIASA
as a possible site for a European meeting of ENA.


AN INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUP OF ACADEMICS
=======================================

There exists an international community of people interested in
general systems theory and cybernetics. Most of these people
are academics, though some are located in corporations,
government agencies, and think tanks. They come from several
disciplines including philosophy, psychology, mathematics,
neurophysiology, management, and electrical engineering.

These people have a wide range of interests from computer
modeling to strategic planning, from cognition to evolution.
They are interested in complexity (biological, social, or
conceptual), how it arises, grows, or is transformed. They
create theories of how an organization, individual, or machine
regulates its environment, becomes aware of itself, and then
alters its perceptions and hence its behavior.

One consequence of this work is a scientifically grounded theory
of ethics. Previously, science and ethics occupied different
parts of philosophy. The connection between science and ethics
illustrates that systems theorists seek to construct
relationships.


U.S. "SYSTEMS" GROUPS: SGSR AND ASC
===================================

Most countries have an academic society for cybernetics and
systems research. The U.S. has two--the Society for General
Systems Research (SGSR) and the American Society for Cybernetics
(ASC). SGSR is older, larger, and better organized. ASC has,
in my opinion, been more theoretically innovative.

The overlap in membership between these two organizations is
very large. There have been efforts in the past to merge SGSR
and ASC. These efforts may one day succeed but are presently
encumbered by an intense philosophical dispute between realists
who use the philosophy of logical positivism (SGSR) and
constructivists who use a more subjectivist epistemology (ASC).


INTERNATIONAL GROUPS: IFSR AND FUSCHL
=====================================

The International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR) is a
fairly new umbrella organization originally organized by SGSR,
the System Group Netherlands, and the Austrian Society for
Cybernetic Studies. Several other national organizations have
now joined. IFSR publishes a newsletter and is intended
primarily to coordinate publications and conferences.

Another action-oriented, less academic group is called the
Fuschl group. The Fuschl group is named after a town in Austria
where the group first met. Most of the members of the Fuschl
group are members of the national organizations that belong to
IFSR. The Fuschl group tries to accomplish very specific
objectives like setting up systems education programs in various
countries.


THE POLITICAL DIMENSION: IIASA
==============================

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
is a different kind of organization. There is no formal
connection between IIASA and the academic groups (SGSR, ASC,
IFSR, etc.). However, due to the overlap in subject matter, the
overlap in people is considerable.

IIASA was thought up in the Johnson administration and set up in
the Nixon administration as an exercise in detente. The members
of IIASA are the academies of science (or similar organizations)
in the U.S., the USSR, Eastern and Western Europe, Japan, and
China. There are two classes of members--those who pay a lot
(the U.S. and the USSR) and those who pay less (all other
countries).

IIASA is the only place in the world where citizens of the U.S.
and the USSR work side by side on common projects for periods of
months and years. Scientists at IIASA do studies of topics such
as acid rain, population trends, energy supplies, and
mathematical methods. In recent months they have broadened
their agenda to include management methods.

IIASA has been politically controversial. The Reagan
administration cut off (but has now restored) federal money to
IIASA; one objection was to Russian access to U.S. data banks
through the organization. But U.S. scientists found private
sources of funding in order to maintain U.S. membership, though
the level of funding was reduced.


COMPUTER CONFERENCING IN THESE GROUPS
=====================================

People in the "systems community" are more aware of computer
conferencing (CC) than are most academics. Quite a few members
of SGSR and ASC have some CC experience. Between 1977 and 1980,
I was the moderator of a computer conference on general systems
theory which was sponsored by the U.S. National Science
Foundation. Over 60 scientists from the U.S., Canada, and
Europe participated (some more than others).

IIASA also has some experience with CC. They have quite a good
in-house word-processing system that runs on a single computer
with remote terminals. Hence E-mail is something IIASA people
are familiar with. They claim to have an in-house CC system but
no one seems to use it much. Electronic links to colleagues in
other countries is not a new idea at IIASA. Several experiments
have been done and quite good reports (particularly on
electronic networks in Eastern Europe) have been written.

A principal impediment to computer networking efforts at IIASA
has been the fear among some people in the U.S. that the Soviets
would use IIASA and electronic networks to gain access to data
banks in the U.S. and Western Europe. However, in the past two
years, increasing thought has been given to the idea that the
information revolution, with its tendency to promote the free
flow of information, might have a liberalizing effect on the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Hence opposition in the U.S.
to computer conferencing experiments at IIASA seems to have
decreased in recent years.

[As you can see from the above, if ENA were to join IIASA in
Europe for a conference, the event might be an extremely
interesting one. Hopefully we will learn more about COM, the
Greek groups, and Netreach, in an effort to find the best site
for a European meeting as well as to unite the various groups in
the European meeting that the ENA plans. --Ed.]

-----

Author's note: Stuart Umpleby teaches cybernetics at George
Washington U. and is active in the Society for General Systems
Research. He has also taught and taken part in courses via
computer conferencing systems and has recently operated a PC-
based CC system.