Question
What connections can be drawn between systems thinking and Eastern thought?
Answer
I wouldn't say the connection is with Eastern thought. The popular idea that Western thought is reductionist while Eastern thought is holistic is a fairly dumb and self-serving one championed by a few Eastern thinkers who want to differentiate Eastern thought in a shallow way, with support from some smart but gullible Westerners like Hofstadter who are so impressed by the exotic feel of things like Zen that they fail to recognize very similar thinking in their own backyard. When I hear that particular line, I conclude that the person actually understands neither thought system, let alone the differences between them.
There IS however a potential connection between systems thinking and a naturally Eastern way of "seeing." And I mean literally "seeing."
This is covered in Nisbett's "The Geography of Thought" which I haven't yet read (but have read summaries of).
http://www.amazon.com/Geography-...
Illustrative result: when shown a picture of a fish tank, Japanese people more naturally recall and are able to describe background elements, fish hiding in the periphery etc. Americans more naturally focus on the foreground, the biggest fish, etc.
The hypothesis is that this is due more to the collectivist social model in the East, rather than differences in thought systems or metaphysics. East Asians (so the hypothesis goes) more naturally think in communal terms, in group-mind ways. So their perceptual systems are better trained for peripheral vision and background vision.
For example, they are more likely to view time as a collective resource rather than an individual resource, and thus do not mind activities like waiting as much as Westerners (which the latter misinterpret as "patience").
But to leap from this to conclusions about differences in abstract thought and systems thinking is unwarranted. I'd want to see more research before I accepted that, and I am very skeptical that the hypothesis would turn out to be true.
There is also the complication that East and West have been contaminating each others thought systems very significantly for at least a few hundred years. For example, the idea of creative destruction is naturally associated with Saivite philosophy. It is supposed to have influenced Schopenauer and via him, Nietzsche and Schumpeter. But it also has its own Western roots in Dionysus. There is a book by Alain Danielou called Shiva and Dionysus that I haven't read...
http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Love-...
So there is no real way to classify the modern idea of creative destruction, which is central to systems thinking, as either Eastern or Western. It is both.
There IS however a potential connection between systems thinking and a naturally Eastern way of "seeing." And I mean literally "seeing."
This is covered in Nisbett's "The Geography of Thought" which I haven't yet read (but have read summaries of).
http://www.amazon.com/Geography-...
Illustrative result: when shown a picture of a fish tank, Japanese people more naturally recall and are able to describe background elements, fish hiding in the periphery etc. Americans more naturally focus on the foreground, the biggest fish, etc.
The hypothesis is that this is due more to the collectivist social model in the East, rather than differences in thought systems or metaphysics. East Asians (so the hypothesis goes) more naturally think in communal terms, in group-mind ways. So their perceptual systems are better trained for peripheral vision and background vision.
For example, they are more likely to view time as a collective resource rather than an individual resource, and thus do not mind activities like waiting as much as Westerners (which the latter misinterpret as "patience").
But to leap from this to conclusions about differences in abstract thought and systems thinking is unwarranted. I'd want to see more research before I accepted that, and I am very skeptical that the hypothesis would turn out to be true.
There is also the complication that East and West have been contaminating each others thought systems very significantly for at least a few hundred years. For example, the idea of creative destruction is naturally associated with Saivite philosophy. It is supposed to have influenced Schopenauer and via him, Nietzsche and Schumpeter. But it also has its own Western roots in Dionysus. There is a book by Alain Danielou called Shiva and Dionysus that I haven't read...
http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Love-...
So there is no real way to classify the modern idea of creative destruction, which is central to systems thinking, as either Eastern or Western. It is both.