The Information Age that has dawned upon us requires a new way of thinking about problems. Teleonics, which is a process?based systems approach, can be used for this purpose. The main aspects of teleonics are described, including structure, action, goal?relatedness and ethos, goal and ethos related systems, the web of life, with its spheres and levels, uncertainty and the synergy of complements. In particular, out of the Langkawi International Dialogues, organised in Malaysia in 1995, 1996 and 1997, has emerged the (...) concept of ?Smart Partnership?, a new business philosophy for promoting ethical, win?win business practises at all levels of enterprise. Teleonics is considered to provide an ideal framework for the valuable concepts which emerged from these dialogues. (shrink)

Teleonics is a systemic approach for the study and management of complex living systems, such as human beings, families, communities, business organisations and even countries and international relationships. The approach and its applications have been described in several publications, quoted in the paper. The units of teleonics are teleons, viz, end?related, autonomous process systems. An indication of malfunction in teleons is a high level of telentropy that can be caused by many factors, among which the most common are the lack (...) of well defined goals, inefficient governance, inappropriate interference and undeclared sharing of subsystems between teleons. These factors, as well as other modes of telentropy generation and transfer are described, together with some suggestions about ways to avoid them. (shrink)

It was seventy five years ago that the book, Holism and Evolution by Jan Christiaan Smuts was published. Although the book was very popular at the time, it has not been accepted by either the scientific or the philosophical community. Its complex message was truncated to the truism "the whole is more than the sum of its parts," which became the definition of holism, but ensured its rejection by the skeptic as a too general statement to be of practical value. (...) It is very unlikely that there was a sinister plot to sideline this important work. The simplest explanation is that Smuts' concepts, which suggest many of the later ideas of systems thinkers, were simply too far ahead of their time. Now however, at the dawn of the new millennium, the time is perfect to rediscover Smuts and to apply his ideas with a "holos consciousness" to the many burning issues that humanity faces. In this paper the main principles of Holism are explained. (shrink)