Some ideas stirred up by the concept Enigmanity, by James A MacRae.
"Enigmanity's principal goal is based upon the hope that a logical scripture can be devised by humanity to translate well known common scientific fundamentals into a scripture analogous to the Abrahamic holy books but without the massive reliance upon the "faith" mythology of Creation. These holy books are human memes developed over the eons by humans."
This is my own general goal - to "translate well known common scientific fundamentals into" a body of knowledge that can guide humanity in ALL aspects of its relations with reality. System science is instrumental in this endeavour.
Re: the article
Physics of Society:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1133229,00.html
The idea of a "physics of society" is leading in the direction of what many people call "system science" or 'cybernetics'.
Any systematic scientific domain studies the systems that fall within its scope but they do not explicitly conceptualise them as 'systems' but rather as particular systems such as 'particles' or 'organisms' or 'voters' and so on.
But due to the generality of the concept of 'systems' one system can be used as an analogy for other systems, e.g. particles representing "people in society" or "cars in traffic" or "nations at war" and so on.
One can either implicitly use the analogies or one can explicitly use system science. One can either study "people in society" as if they were particles, but this can potentially introduce aspects that apply only to particles and not to people. Or one can explicitly abstract the scenario into 'systems' and then study the general relations between them rather than using analogous systems.
The idea of a "physics of society" is a huge step toward "system science" but ultimately I think we should let go of the analogies and start using system science directly. This is seen to be happening in the articles on System Science at EOLSS, which is a major development of UNESCO.
Because of the generality of the concept 'system', once we have a well developed system science this can be applied to any domain, whether particles, people, traffic, nations or whatever - they are all systems! Part of my work is the laying down of fundamental mathematical principles of general systems and system modelling methods that provide a coherent mathematical foundation for system science.
One important application of system science is that all the various scientific domains that study particular systems can be abstracted and redefined in terms of general system concepts thus unifying all the fractured scientific domains. In this way system science can function as an underlying universal scientific conceptual language that can help translate concepts from one domain to another.
What are Cybernetics and Systems Science?
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSWHAT.html
International Society for the Systems Sciences
http://www.isss.org/
Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)
(based upon system science and extending into all aspects of relevance to life
on earth)
http://www.eolss.net/
In particular see this collection of interesting articles on
System Science at EOLSS that hint at
the utility of system science.
International Institute for Systemic
Inquiry and Integration
http://www.fixall.org/iisii/
The General System
http://www.newciv.org/ISSS_Primer/asem10tm.html
Systems theory - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
Understanding General Systems Theory
http://www.bsn-gn.eku.edu/BEGLEY/GSThand1.htm
A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF GENERAL SYSTEM THEORY
http://www.geocities.com/~n4bz/gst/gst1.htm
What is Systems Theory?
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SYSTHEOR.html
Portland State University - Department of Systems Science
http://www.sysc.pdx.edu/
Journal of System Science and System Engineering
http://www.rccm.tsinghua.edu.cn/JSSSE/
http://www.rccm.tsinghua.edu.cn/JSSSE/ICSSSE03.php
Centre for Systems Science
http://css.sfu.ca/
School of Systems Science
http://syssci.atu.edu/
encyclopedia of complexity and system science
http://refworks.springer.com/complexity/
http://refworks.springer-sbm.com/complexity/
AMSS English Version
http://info.amss.ac.cn/amsssite/amss-e/amss-e.html
http://www.amss.ac.cn/amss-e/amssen.html
Systems Science, Masters, FGPS
http://www.grad.uottawa.ca/programs/masters/systems_science/index.html
General SMN Related Documents
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/General%20Discussions.html#smn
Modelling Systems (SMN Intro)
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/ConceptualBridge.html#_Toc148700625
Letter of Introduction to Scientists
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/Email%20to%20Scientists.html
Letter of Introduction to Software Developers
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/Email%20to%20Software%20Developers.html
Finite Discrete Information Systems
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/Finite%20Discrete%20Information%20Systems.html
Overview of my Work
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/General%20Discussions.html#overview
The Scientific Basis of my Work
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/ScientificBasis.html
General Introduction (To the overall ideas on my website)
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/GeneralIntro.html
A Clarification on the Fusion of Occident and Orient
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/Occident%20and%20Orient.html
Process Oriented System Modeling or Process Systemics
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/Process%20Systemics.html
Information Systems Analysis of Mind, Knowledge, 'the World' and Holistic
Science
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/InformationSystemAnalysis.html
Some links on system theory from the above essay:
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/InformationSystemAnalysis.html#sysTheory
Some links on general system theory from the above essay:
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/InformationSystemAnalysis.html#GST
A Conceptual Bridge from Science to Spirituality
http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/ConceptualBridge.html