Also, a good comprehensive site is the Principia Cybernetica Web: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html

This is a nice intro too (The Macroscope):

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/macroscope/default.html

On the topic of synthesis, there’s another book on systems thinking appropriately called Systems Thinking that seems to develop/expand/better explain Ackoff’s ideas. I got from it the idea that synthesis isn’t just about the bigger picture (I mean, that’s one way to put it), but it’s about looking specifically at the role of the object in the context of the greater system. And that role usually has to do with how it interacts with the other elements in the system.

I really like your console wars explanation. Sony definitely took the machine thinking approach. Nintendo has been known to be a holistic thinker (like Apple, they also appreciate user experience more than most), and Microsoft I think can’t help but look at their console at a high-level because their plan from the start was to be that “set-top box” they were talking about years before they made the Xbox (they really want to be in your living room).

As a side-note, despite Sony’s lack of greater perspective, I think the console market is pretty harmonious. The major players all have their niche. Xbox is the hardcore gamer’s console. Wii is the casual/family console. Playstation gets the middle, which may or may not actually exist. That definitely doesn’t help Sony because to me, Nintendo and Microsoft know their respective markets very well. Sony acts almost as if those niches don’t exist.

Anyway, getting back to systems theory, I know what you mean when you say “objects” but really, even if seems like a single thing, it’s still a system (which is one of the great things about systems theory: everything is a system). Even most of the things (at least in the physical world) that came from the reductionist way of thinking (atoms, cells, chemical elements) are still systems, both in the fact that they are made up of many interacting parts, and that they exist within a greater system.

You have a really good definition of a system, but the last part you mention should stress the fact that if you take a system apart (for example, by disconnecting the parts), the system no longer exists. You lose the essential properties of that system. The essential property of a car is that it takes you from place to place, but after taking the car apart, no single part of it can take you from place to place. This is why analysis fails to work in some cases because if you take something apart to study it, you’ve likely eliminated the essential property of the thing you’re studying!

There’s a parallel in the whole knowledge, understanding, wisdom paradigm that I saw somebody point out once. So, knowledge is generally regarded as “what/how” information. Understanding is regarded as knowing “why” information. Wisdom is then systems thinking. Because analysis gets you “what/how” information (how does it work?), and synthesis gets you “why” information (why does it work?). Wisdom is using both, hence it is systems thinking!