When I was a teenager, I searched for some sort of solid philosphical foundation. The religion of my parents’ protestant church struck me as an amalgam of history, legend and morality system. I did not find it suitable for my needs. I looked at political philosophies including Ayn Rand’s objectivism, communism, fascism, democracy, etc. but none of them seems very solid. Then I turned to the sciences. Here, I thought is some solid ground. Then I discovered relativity theory, quantum theory, and Goedel’s Theorem. There went science and mathematics as solid philosophical ground.

     I decided that maybe there would be safety in numbers. If I could find a system that incorporated all the different academic disciplines I would at least have a comprehensive foundation for my personal philosophy. I found General Systems Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Systems_Theory) and decided that it was a good place to start. As the years went by, I collected more and more systems frameworks such as the Holism of Smuts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism), the Holotheme of Jolly (http://www.stuartcdoddinstitute.org/dodd-worldculture.shtml), the Pan-Acts Cosmos of Dodd (http://www.stuartcdoddinstitute.org/dodd-worldculture.shtml), Hierarchy theory of Pattee (http://www.isss.org/hierarchy.htm), General Livings Systems theory of Miller (http://www.newciv.org/ISSS_Primer/asem14ep.html), Heterokinetics of Iberall (http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/ecopsyc/homeokinetics/origins.pdf), and others by Young, Gowan, etc.

     What was really frustating was the fact that, although there were many interdisciplinary frameworks around, there was no place that they were collected and no common language. I once encountered someone with a degree in library science. I asked her if there was any category in Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress for global theories that incorporated the different major academic disciplines. She said that she had not heard of one. I pointed out that there has been work going on in this area for decades and it was odd that no one thought that a classification was needed. She agreed that it was strange.

     Anyway, I have been collecting such systems since I was a kid. One of these days, I intend to go thru the different books I have and see if I can come up with a synthsis that I am satisfied with. If everyone received a global framework of at least the physical and social sciences during their education, it would be a lot easier for people to have educated discussions of major social/political/economic issues. Perhaps our collective decision making would improve.