Systems Society of India

Welcome to Systems Society of India

We live in a world which is largely man-made, one which has been created in the last 350 years by modern science.  The power of science is the power of its method, which we may summarize in terms of three concepts: reductionism, repeatability and refutation.  The belief that any natural system can be decomposed into a set of material particles, and that the laws governing the motion of these particles can be determined by Newtonian dynamics is the essence of reductionism. We may reduce the variety of the real world in experiments validated by their repeatability; and we may make intellectual progress by the refutation of the hypotheses.

It seems beyond the power of science, however, to cope with the unstructured problems of the real world as opposed to the explicitly defined problems of the laboratory.  In the ‘unrestricted’ sciences progress is slow and methodological problems abound.  Other ways of thinking need to be explored.

One line of advance may be that of  ‘systems thinking’ which accepts that at the level of complexity observed in the real world there would be emergent properties characteristic of the wholes.   The systems approach seeks relations between emergent properties and the wholes which exhibit them. 

In the search for human knowledge, whether in the area of basic sciences or humanistic or social studies or engineering, three distinct phases are discernible.  The first phase of this evolution consisted essentially of a systematic comprehension of the whole area of study.  The second phase found advances being made by analyzing complex wholes into simpler parts.  In the latter phase, parts of the whole were analyzed through a microapproach, synthesis of the whole was neglected.  The third, modern phase evidences a reversion to a micro approach or a ‘systems viewpoint’.  With the advent of powerful computing facilities, it has now become possible to analyze, simulate and design systems more effectively and efficiently.  Further more mini and microcomputers have made real time system applications feasible.  We need both analysis such as science may provide and the integration which systems thinking may provide. The scientific and systematic movements should complement each other.  

The general systems movement in India is almost synonymous with the institutions of the ‘National Systems Conference’ (NSC) in 1973.One of the important objectives of the conference has been to co-ordinate the knowledge of various Systems and to provide systems approach to development of systems, research, large scale projects and education. Initially the conference was held at approximate interval of 11/2 years.

With the growing popularity of NSC, Systems Society of India (SSI) was established in 1981 and subsequently NSC was organized with the aegis of SSI. SSI was initially registered in Delhi. It was re-registered at Thiruvananthapuram in 1997 (Reg No.T-1302/97) under the Societies Act 1860.The society has the membership strength of more than 2000 as on June 2008.

Address of the Society :

Systems Society of India
Office of Dr. B B Das
Dy.Director, (CGSE)
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre
Thiruvananthapuram - 695022