Equifinality:
The first is the principle of equifinality.
In any closed system, the final state is unequivocally determined by the initial conditions:
e.g. the motion in a planetary system where the positions of the planets at a time t are unequivocally determined by their positions at a time t°.
This is not so in open systems. Here, the same final state may be reached from different initial conditions and in different ways. This is what is called equifinality.
Ludwig Von Bertalanffy
http://www.panarchy.org/vonbertalanffy/systems.1968.html
General System Theory
photocredit: qmss.jp
Ludwig Von Bertalanffy was a Hungarian biologist educated in Vienna, a member of the famed "Vienna School." He fathered an organismic approach to biology as a reaction to the vitalism-reductionism arguments that were rampant in his day.
More important for the purpose of this thesis, he founded the science of "General System Theory". The idea of the whole as more than the sum of its parts is as old as Aristotle, but that there are characteristics of systems that are homologous to all systems simply because they are systems can be traced directly to Von Bertalanffy.
Von Bertalanffy explained that he thought of the idea of General System Theory back in 1936 but hesitated until 1948 when the intellectual climate was more receptive.
http://www.n4bz.org/gst/gst1.htm
http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/ViewProject.do?projectID=515
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