Complex systems. conceptualization and description

The following article has as a general purpose the conceptualization and description of the term complex system, where they are present, the impact they have; For this reason, it is convenient to have a clear idea of everything it implies, including definitions, complex systems theory, fractals, organization and its relationship with complex systems.

Keywords

System, Complex, Systems theory, Complex system, Fractal

Introduction

At present we are immersed and involved in a diversity of systems, and if we are even more reflective, in our own body different types of systems coexist, which is why the importance of a system, and that will be addressed in a generalized and specific way in the next few pages, with a special emphasis on what complex systems are.

Background

For many years, the word system has been involved in the life of the human being, although in its beginnings it was not conceptualized in that way, but little by little the penetration has been greater, as well as the use of it to reference various concepts related, to name a few examples:

Solar system Circulatory system Respiratory system Operating system Irrigation system

Among others, this concept is undoubtedly widely used in various fields and contexts. Therefore, it is important and fundamental to understand this topic and several related concepts, which will allow an adequate understanding and to be able to measure its importance and significance in its real dimension.

Concepts

The following compendium of concepts is of great interest, to identify if there are variants and similarities, to try to establish a definition in a personal capacity, for that reason almost repetitive definitions can be seen, but they are necessary to have a broader vision of the subject.

A system (from the Latin systēma, and this from the Greek σύστημα sýstēma 'meeting, set, aggregate') is a complex object whose components are related to at least one other component; it can be material or conceptual. (Bunge, 1999)

According to (Organization, 2012-2015) it establishes that the term system refers to a set of elements that are related to each other to achieve a certain objective.

For (Definicion, 2008-2015) it considers that it comes from the Latin systema, a system is an ordered module of elements that are interrelated and interact with each other. The concept is used both to define a set of concepts and real objects endowed with organization.

(Colmenares, 2010) It establishes that a system is a set of organized and related parts or elements that interact with each other to achieve a goal. Systems receive (input) data, energy or matter from the environment and provide (output) information, energy or matter.

Finally for (Bravo Monroy, 2008) a system is: «A set of material, immaterial and information elements, closely related to each other and that act together and in an orderly fashion, to achieve previously defined ends or objectives”.

Complex.- from the Latin complexus, it allows to refer to that which is made up of various elements. Complex is called the union of two or more things, the set of factories that are located close to each other and that are under the same technical and financial management and the set of facilities or buildings that are grouped to develop a common activity. (Definition, 2008-2015)

Development

Having studied several terms referring to the concept of system, it can be concluded that: A system is the union of various elements, which has different particular objectives, but which in synergy work to meet general objectives, these systems can be tangible and intangible depending on the context. They work through information or stimuli received, which is processed in a particular way and together, to give a general result.

A system can be physical or concrete (a computer, a television, a human) or it can be abstract or conceptual (a software). Each system exists within a larger one, therefore a system can be made up of subsystems and parts, and at the same time it can be part of a super-system. Systems have limits or boundaries, which differentiate them from the environment. That limit can be physical (a computer cabinet) or conceptual. If there is any exchange between the system and the environment across that boundary, the system is open, otherwise the system is closed. (Colmenares, 2010)

Type and classification of systems

Systems can be classified taking into consideration various criteria, (Colmenares, 2010) (Organization, 2012-2015) some of them are the following:

Physical or concrete systems: made up of real equipment, machinery, objects and things. The hardware. Abstract systems: made up of concepts, plans, hypotheses and ideas. Many times they only exist in people's thoughts. It's the software.

According to the relationship they establish with the environment:

Closed systems: they are characterized by their hermeticism, which means that they do not cause any exchange with the environment that is around them, so they are not affected by it. This means that the systems do not exert any influence on the environment that surrounds them. Closed systems, then, are characterized by having a totally programmed and determined behavior and the matter and energy that they exchange with the environment that surrounds them is minimal.

Open systems: these do establish exchanges with the environment that surrounds them. To achieve this, they use exits and entrances through which they constantly exchange energy and matter with the environment. This link that is established means that open systems must be highly adaptive to the qualities of the environment on which they depend, if not, they do not achieve survival. This dependence on others means that they cannot exist in isolation and that they must adapt through organization and learning to external changes.

Isolated systems: are those systems in which there is no exchange of matter or energy.

According to its constitution:

Conceptual systems: they are made up of concepts that are alien to reality and that are merely abstract.

Physical systems: the elements that compose them, on the other hand, are concrete and palpable, that is, they can be grasped by touch.

According to its origin:

Artificial systems: they are characterized by being the product of human creation, so they depend on the presence of others to exist.

Natural systems: these on the other hand, do not depend on human labor to originate.

According to its movement:

Dynamic systems: these systems are characterized by presenting movement.

Static systems: as the name suggests, they lack any movement.

According to the complexity of the elements that make them up:

Complex systems: they are characterized by being composed of a series of subsystems, which makes the task of identifying the different elements that compose them difficult.

Simple systems: unlike the previous ones, these do not have subsystems, which allows easy identification of their constituent elements.

According to its nature:

Inert systems: lacks any life.

Living systems: these, on the other hand, do have life.

Systems Features

(Colmenares, 2010)

System is an organized and complex whole; it is a set of objects united by some form of interaction or interdependence. The limits or boundaries between the system and its environment

Purpose or object: Every system has one or some purposes. Elements (or objects), as well as relationships, define a distribution that always tries to achieve a goal.

Globalism or totality: A change in one of the units of the system, with probability will produce changes in the others. The total effect is presented as an adjustment to the entire system. There is a cause / effect relationship.

Entropy: It is the tendency of systems to wear out, to disintegrate, for the relaxation of standards and an increase in randomness. The entropy increases with the passage of time. If information increases, entropy decreases, since information is the basis of configuration and order. This is where negentropy is born, that is, information as a means or instrument for organizing the system.

Homeostasis: It is the dynamic balance between the parts of the system. Systems have a tendency to adapt in order to achieve internal balance in the face of external changes in the environment. An organization can be understood as a system or subsystem or a supersystem, depending on the approach.

General systems theory

General Systems Theory views any phenomenon as part of a system and, potentially at least, it can also be itself. Thus, for example, an individual may be considering an element of a larger system, such as a group of people, and in turn, a system made up of a set of, for example, cells. (Navarro Cid, 2001)

It is the interdisciplinary study that looks for the properties common to these entities. Its development began in the middle of the 20th century, with the studies of the Austrian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy. It is considered as a meta-theory (theory of theories) that starts from the abstract concept of a system to find rules of general value. (Definition, 2008-2015)

The study of systems has been developed with the purpose of taking into account all the interactions between the elements that compose it and whose behavior it is intended to predict. Thus, an important current in the general theory of systems deals with developing methods that allow us to build conceptual systems in which the interactions between the different elements that compose it are collected as completely as possible. (Bravo Monroy, 2008)

Specific methodologies for the study of systems

(Bravo Monroy, 2008)

The selection of the necessary and sufficient elements for the system to meet the required objectives; the analysis methodologies that will be more efficient will be those in which the behavior of the system is studied when it is subjected to certain forms of operation. In other words, what responses does it offer (outputs) from certain stimuli (inputs), and whether these responses are adequate for the purposes pursued. From this point of view, the most commonly used methods are:

A. Transfer function or "black box" method: This method consists in considering the system as something unknown whose operation is not necessary to consider to analyze the results or responses it produces. This being the case, it only matters that as a consequence of an input signal or «input» an output response or «output» is obtained, which are generally considered scalars. Very schematically this method is represented in the following figure:

Black box method. (Bravo Monroy, 2008, p. 31)

Since this analysis method completely dispenses with the component elements of the system and the functions it performs internally, in some cases its response can be improved (made more real to the environment in which the system is immersed), adding certain disturbances or controls In the event that they occur, they modify the behavior of the system, producing, where appropriate, in response, different outputs from those it would give in the absence of such disturbances.

B. State variables method: This method, on the contrary, focuses its attention both on the variables that constitute the inputs to the system and those contained within it through the different states that it can reach. In this case, the outputs are considered as observable variables that depend on a combination of the input variables with the internal state variables to the system.

State variables method. (Bravo Monroy, 2008, p. 32)

C. Modular method or by functions: This method consists of analyzing the system from within, in such a way that the functions assigned to it are represented by modules, each of which is based on data or input variables and through From the processes that are assigned to it, it obtains a set of output variables that will be used by other modules internal to the system, or as its response to the input inputs. Graphically this analysis method could be represented as follows:

Modular method. (Bravo Monroy, 2008, p. 32)

Each of the modules represented in the previous figure can contain one or more of the functions assigned to be performed by the system and handles not only the input information to it (I ₁ (t), I ₂ (t),….., I _m (t)) but also the information (variables and data) produced by other modules internal to the system (see communication arrows between modules), producing as output the response variables of the system (O ₁ (t), O ₂ (t),….., O _p (t)).

D. Method of hierarchical systems: The social progress experienced in recent times in all areas of human knowledge has given rise to the application of complex organizations from which new problems have arisen, whose resolution in some cases has been resorted to to the systems theory.

Complex systems

By having a better understanding of the previous topics, it is feasible to delve into the central theme of this article, what are complex systems, starting with definitions by various authors, with the intention of being able to group an integral concept, know its characteristics, fields of action and finally a focus on the area of organizations

Mention (ComplexUD, 2006) Complex systems are systems that are not precisely designed to a well-known specification but instead involve various autonomous components that can be considered fully functional systems for other purposes and that are put together in the context of a single complex system because as individual agents they see cooperation in that set as beneficial for them.

On the other hand (Moriello, 2003) Complex systems are fundamentally characterized because their behavior is unpredictable. However, complexity is not synonymous with complication: this word refers to something tangled, tangled, difficult to understand. In reality, and at the moment, there is no precise and absolutely accepted definition of what a complex system is, but there may be some common peculiarities.

First of all, it is made up of a large number of relatively identical elements. For example, the number of cells in an organism, or the number of people in a society. Second, the interaction between its elements is local and originates an emergent behavior that cannot be explained from these elements taken in isolation. A desert can contain billions of grains of sand, but their interactions are excessively simple compared to those that occur in the bees of a swarm. Finally, it is very difficult to predict their future dynamic evolution; In other words, it is practically impossible to predict what will happen beyond a certain time horizon.

It expresses (Naranjo Leclercq, 2007) that it is a system composed of many elements, which interact with each other. The more elements and / or more interactions between them there are, the more complex it is.

According to (Romay, 2014) Complex systems are made up of elements that interact seeking to achieve a common goal or purpose, and where these relationships (or interactions) are not linear (understanding linear as cause-effect), that is, each interaction generates changes on stage impossible to predict.

Finally (Tarride, 1995) Normally, complex systems are those that have many components and in turn many relationships.

After these contributions, a conceptualization of the term complex systems will be made, which is expressed below.

Complex systems: It is the set of elements, which can be subsystems, more elementary parts, which have certain functions, which would be incomprehensible the general function of the system, based on its particular study; working according to a specific objective or objectives, where various relationships between the elements can be analyzed.

In his contribution (ComplexUD, 2006) he describes the characteristics that make it possible to distinguish whether a system is indeed complex.

As with all systems, those that are considered complex are also a set of elements or parts that interact with a purpose. However, the components of a complex system have a particular property: they are autonomous and heterogeneous components, which allow the system to have greater versatility in terms of organization and / or functional arrangement of its components.

These autonomous components, in turn, promote the emergence of an additional property for complex systems: Components can take information from the entire system and change their behavior to make functional decisions and changes that give the system an advantage. This means that complex systems are adaptable, that they respond to both environmental and internal pressures (between their own components), and as part of this continuous adaptation process, they evolve. In particular, as complex systems evolve they continually increase in complexity.

Complex systems are irreducible: The complex is a united whole, and cannot be studied by dividing it into its constituent parts, because the isolated parts do not retain the properties of the whole considered complex (Similarity with the definition of System).

As part of the interaction of the autonomous components, the close relationship of the whole with the parts and the specialization of the components, unexpected behaviors often arise that generate new characteristics in the system, this phenomenon is called Emergency.

A very frequent example of emergence in complex systems is the formation of patterns: What happens at this point is surprising, in a highly changing environment and with an apparently random and unstable behavior certain patterns can emerge, which although they are not regular / linear, they are capable of being mathematically modeled to coin them as a characteristic of the system.

The way in which a complex system constantly evolves and changes between contrasting states (between order and disorder, simplicity and complexity, randomness and predictability), corresponds to the control or regulation of the system itself by reducing its own entropy by constantly exchanging energy with its environment.. This form of continuous stabilization allows us to include self-organization as a characteristic of complex systems.

The behavior of complex systems does not follow a defined or linear pattern that makes it possible to accurately determine their behavior or future state from the characteristics or previous behaviors of the same. This property allows them to be defined as non-deterministic systems and therefore not predictable (Under certain conditions they can even be chaotic).

The time periods, which complex systems are in equilibrium, are actually very short. The general behavior of this type of system involves, very often non-linear dynamics and sometimes chaos. This complex behavior is generally highly influenced by the system environment which also becomes more complex over time.

Taking into account all the aforementioned characteristics, it is quite clear that the study of complex systems cannot be reduced to the study of their constituent parts, nor can it be assumed that they are predictable. Moreover, talking about how complex they are is a difficult question and it is necessary to address a multi-scale approach (studying them both on a small and large scale because the characteristics of the smaller scales affect the behavior of the larger scales). to understand their behaviors and be able to work with them.

Fractals and nature

(Moriello, 2003)

Chaos theory studies the dynamic evolution of certain quantities. By geometrically representing the set of their solutions, models or patterns appear that characterize them. There is a chaotic behavior when said models - over long periods of time - oscillate in an irregular, aperiodic way; they seem to rotate asymptotically in the vicinity of certain values, as if describing orbits around them. These values are known as "chaotic attractors", "strange attractors" or simply "attractors" (because they seem to attract solutions to them) and their peculiarity is that they have fractal properties.

A "fractal" is a geometric structure that has two main characteristics: "self-similarity" and "fractional dimension."

Self-similarity means that it has the same structure whatever the scale in which it is observed; that is, through successive amplifications (different scale changes) its fundamental shape is repeated (it retains the same aspect). The fractional dimension measures the degree of irregularity or fragmentation of an object: a dimension between 1 and 2 means that it is they share the properties of a line and a plane. However, the fractal does not have the same meaning as the dimensions of the traditional Euclidean space: fractals with integer dimensions (1 and 2) do not look at all like a line or a plane, respectively.

In general, the shapes found in nature are examples of fractals: blood vessels and their capillaries, trees, plants, clouds, mountains, tectonic crevices, coastal strips, riverbeds, water turbulence, snowflakes, and a large lots of other objects difficult to describe by conventional geometry.

A fractal structure is one that is generated by the tireless repetition of a well-specified process (that is, it is governed by deterministic rules).

Typical example of a complex system

Human communication (for example, in social networks), because the fact that the sender sends a message does not imply that we know the reaction in time and form of the receiver. And that interaction, in addition, can have an effect on other elements of the system that were not initially affected by the message.

Two people speaking have two interactions: one as a sender and one as a receiver. Three people talking have seven interactions: A with B, B with C, C with A and the symmetrical ones, in addition to a triple relationship.

If we transfer this to the hundreds of contacts on our favorite social network, imagine the volume of interactions. Even with a small number of connections (for example, a dating relationship), the nature of a single interaction can make the system very complex.

The concept of Organization.

(Navarro Cid, 2001)

It has been said of organizations that it is easier to give examples than to define the term precisely (March and Simon, 1977). Even so, there are many authors who have proposed their own definition of what an organization is for them. Rather than collect some of these definitions that may be representative, we are interested in conceptualizing the organizational phenomenon in its basic characteristics.

They conclude with a total of five defining characteristics, as a whole, of the organization phenomenon as opposed to what other institutions and social formations may be. These characteristics are as follows:

Composition of the organization based on individuals and / or interrelated groups.

Orientation towards some objectives or ends that guide the activities and organizational processes, and that are pursued by the organization in order for its own subsistence.

Differentiation of functions between the component members of the organization. The differentiation of functions is a consequence of the pursuit of organizational interests for the achievement of which requires a division of tasks and functions. In turn, the differentiation of functions requires a…

Intentional rational coordination necessary for its integration in order to achieve organizational goals. Differentiation and the corresponding coordination entail a series of symbolic implications (Quijano, 1993) such as the training and socialization of the members of the organization in a series of norms and values, which leads to the understanding of the organization as a socially constructed entity. (Weick, 1969, 1979); and

Continuity over time while maintaining interaction patterns as a role system, which makes the organization maintain a certain identity as such.

Complex systems and organizations

He mentions (Ponce Muñoz, 2009) that organizations have traditionally been defined as groups of people who come together to achieve objectives of greater importance than those that each of these members can achieve individually, these objectives are related to obtaining profits and survive in time.

Expresa (Bohorquez Arevalo, 2013) Business organizations are complex systems, since their behavior is explained more in terms of interactions than agents' actions. Interactions facilitate the emergence of new conditions that are absorbed by the system promoting its evolution; In other words, the system not only accommodates itself to changing conditions, but it also transforms and modifies the environment. Given the above, in the context of administration the use of the term complex system rather than complex adaptive system is suggested.

Complex systems theory seeks to understand the relationship between chaos and order and, in the particular case of this study, its application to organizational systems. A system can go from order to chaos, starting with a period of uniform behavior through cycles of oscillation, turbulence and chaos until it is self-organizing. (Ponce Muñoz, 2009)

Conclusions

The importance of the term system and everything related to it is evident, in addition to the fact that the concept of complex system is just as important, since it is found in things that we saw at some point in our student days, in real situations of our existence and it will be a fact that will be present in the future.

Despite what a complex system can contextualize, its study and understanding is feasible, it only requires dedication and commitment, like many other issues; the benefits provided will be possible to catalog and in some cases quantifiable.

Thesis topic: Implementation and importance of the study for the identification of complex systems in organizations, particular case study: Fricongelados

Objective: To have the necessary bases and knowledge for the identification and analysis of complex systems, allowing to know the relationships, processes, objectives and additional characteristics, allowing a comprehensive understanding. For the particular case of Fricongelados, know and establish measures that allow a better integration and participation within its universe.

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