Systems within systems

« There is no such thing as a baby », wrote Winnicott, reminding us that the actual unit we observe and describe is an individual-environment set-up. We can extend and generalize this idea: in human affairs, everything that matters can be described through the lens of a system-environment set-up. Whenever we define any element as a system, we also determine its environment, and this same of relationship can be found at different levels, so that, if for instance we focus on the mother/infant unit as the system then we may consider the extended family as the environment, etc .

We thus obtain a system-environment set-up:

e(s)              (level 1),
 
 where s is the baby and e is the mother.

The e(s) unit can be contained in a broader environment thus forming another set-up:

E[e(s)]  (level 2)

where the mother-baby unit e(s) is the system and E is the extended family (environment).

Obviously, this can go on almost indefinitely :

E1   (level 3)

Especially so if we consider that two systems of the same level (for instance, level 2) can together for a system surrounded by a common environment E"; yet, within their common environmental frame (E”) they are to each other the most immediate environment:

E” (level 3+)