Dear teachers, parents and students:
The Cicadas chirp, and the gardenias blossom this summer, and it is another year of graduation season; the campus is filled with satisfaction and joy of the harvest but also with a strong sadness of parting and the spirit of ambition, the readiness for the future. This year, we put the graduation ceremony of undergraduates and graduate students on the solemn Square of Chairman Mao Statue and the beautiful Zhanen Avenue.The students present are the graduate students of 2023 and those of previous years who could not attend the graduation ceremony. On this memorable day, On behalf of USST, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to all the doctoral and master students who have completed their studies! And also pay my highest respect to all the teachers and parents who have worked hard for your growth and success!
Today's commencement is an important ceremony of your life, and I prefer to define my graduation speech as "The Last Lesson." Today we are facing the strategic task of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation; we recall the past, think about today, and look into the future; this is the length of history you will go from school to society; this is the span of life, whether it is the length or span reflects the systematic thought, we should think about life, the future and the journey with the systems thinking. In today's lesson, I will share how to use the principles and thinking of systems science and system philosophy to understand and transform the world and life from three aspects. I hope that many years later when you recall this "chatter" before your departure, you will still be able to think and have some insights.
Grasp the key of wisdom - a "system" in a world full of "reductions."
When your computer cannot start and run, do you disassemble the motherboard, CPU, hard drive, power supply, optical drive, graphics card, sound card, network card, and other components to test them separately to find out which component the problem is? The method of continuously dividing complex objects into simple objects and continuously dividing the whole into parts is called "reduction". In the past 20th century, based on the idea of "reductionism", human beings reduced matter to the point where it can no longer be divided; physics research reached the quark level, and biology research reached the gene level, but they encountered such an embarrassment: We can observe the details of each part with cryo-electron microscopy, but we can't peer into the whole picture of the universe. We have completed the sequencing of human genes, but we can't solve the problem of birth, ageing, disease and death. The dilemma of scientific and technological innovation shows that human "reductionism" has reached the extreme, and when facing the world's complexity, it seems powerless and helpless. Human beings urgently need to move from divisions to wholeness, and the systems theory, which goes beyond reductionism and combines reductionism and holism, comes into being, becoming a new awakening of human civilisation.
Reductionism is indeed a common and important method to analyse and solve problems. For example, research or management work often designs tasks around the overall goal and then breaks down each task into departments and individuals. But in the end, you may find that mechanically adding up the results of each part cannot achieve the overall goal. There will likely be a conflict of overall and partial interests, the situation in which the task needs to be claimed and implemented, and there may also be sudden situations without emergency response, resulting in a complete loss. Therefore, students should be good at unifying reductionism and holism, not only taking care of their own business but also jumping out of yourselves based on the overall situation, taking the long view, taking care of the system and the system, each element within the system and the relationship between them, avoiding the dilemma of "can't see the forest for the trees" and "everybody's business is nobody's business". Promote the overall effect of "1+1 > 2". Therefore, "system" is a key to wisdom in a world full of "reductions".
Focus on the "emergence" phenomenon of complex systems.
"Emergence" is the most striking phenomenon in complex systems. The so-called emergence is that when the partial number and interactions reach a certain value, some new attributes or laws will suddenly be generated at the system level, making the system show attributes, characteristics, behaviours, and functions that are not shown by the parts or subsystems, such as the role of a bee swarm cannot be played by a single bee, and a single wild goose cannot realise the function of a wild geese array. Emergence does not exist in each part, so the whole has irreducible characteristics, which is also why reductionism encounters a bottleneck and simplicity cannot fully explain complexity.
I take the current buzzword ChatGPT as an example: in the past, artificial intelligence was taught what skills humans wanted the machines to learn, so many people believe that "only machines that have been taught may have skills, and those who have not been taught will not." This is a reductive idea, which involves dividing numerous knowledge and skills and then adding them together to form machine intelligence. However, ChatGPT subverted this cognition; it is based on massive data, supported by large models, contributed to the phenomenon of "emergence", realised the possibility that "skills that have not been taught before can be mastered by machines. Machines possess "intelligence" that allows them to think like humans. Although people currently do not know what kind of "emergence" occurred at what critical point, it can be certain that emergence triggered things from quantitative to qualitative change, enabling ChatGPT to usher in a new era of universal artificial intelligence. From the perspective of systems science, the emergence of ChatGPT is innovation. So you should pay great attention to and study the "emergence" of complex systems, carefully analyse the emergence of various new things, new phenomena, and new mechanisms, or take the initiative to promote the emergence; such a habit may enable you to constantly burst out new ideas, new creations, and become innovative and distinguished pioneers.
But emergence is only sometimes positive. In the worldwide changes of a scale unseen in a century, instability and uncertainty have increased significantly, and emergence may also become a stumbling block or obstacle to development. For example, in China's journey to fully build a modern socialist country, we have encountered negative emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, technological blockade, decoupling and chain breaking. We must stand at the height of the trend of the world, era coordinates, and the destiny of our country, calmly deal with accidental negative emergence, firmly believe that the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is an irreversible necessity, stay firm, turn dangers into opportunities, seek progress in the face of risks, and blaze a path to a winning future.
Understand and handle the relationship between the parts and the whole.
The relationship between the parts and the whole is one of the basic issues concerned by systems science and system philosophy. The whole-part relation based on the systemic view gives us two enlightenment:
Firstly, the parts are integral parts of the whole, and as a part of the whole, everyone should establish a sense of integration into the whole.The 20th CPC National Congress pointed out that China has entered a new era and journey of fully building a great modern socialist country, realising the second centenary goal, and comprehensively advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese-style modernisation. Each of us must integrate our future and destiny into the overall strategic layout of the country. "Deepening supply-side structural reform", "building a new pattern of development", "promoting high-quality development", "innovation, coordination, green, open and sharing", "sci-tech self-reliance and self-strengthening at higher levels", and so on are new concepts, new requirements and new tasks that are closely related to everyone. Today, you are stepping out of the campus; you are the pillars of the great responsibility of the country; also, with a strong sense of responsibility and mission, you should integrate personal career development and value realisation into the construction of a strong country and national rejuvenation. Taking the action of integration, dedication, leadership, and innovation forms a community of "shares a common fate" with a magnificent national grand strategy and great development.
Secondly, individuals should exert their great initiative to promote the optimisation of the whole. Perhaps you will feel the individual is just a drop in the ocean. In the system, "I'm not that important", as a part of the whole, often holds the idea of "always relying on others" and treats work and life negatively. I majored in math and want to break this misconception with a mathematical theory. Let me ask you a question: which do you think is larger, the number of integers or even numbers? Many students think that the number of integers is large because integers and even numbers are whole and parts relations; integers not only contain even numbers but also add all odd numbers, right? But I want to tell you, following the rules for comparing infinite numbers, pairing integers with even numbers, that is, pairing 1 of an integer with 2 of an even number, pairing 2 of an integer with 4 of an even number, pairing 3 of an integer with 6 of an even number, and so on, you will find that they can always correspond one by one exactly. Therefore, we must admit that the number of even numbers is as large as the number of integers, and thus we can conclude that in an infinite world, parts may equal the whole! In this perspective, although each of you is only a small part of the whole, you can see yourself as the whole, freely explore within the framework of the whole, innovate boldly, and cultivate the energy of the whole. I hope you hold this connected, developing, and dialectical "whole-part view" to strive, perhaps you are the key factor determining the whole success or failure, and the entire system cannot be achieved without you.
Mr Qian Xuesen is the founder of the Systems Science of Chinese School, and USST is the forerunner of the discipline and speciality construction of Systems Science and Systems Engineering. Since 1978, the system disciplines of our university have been strongly supported and guided by Mr Qian, who also attended the founding conference of the Institute of Systems Engineering of our University in 1979. So far, the thought of system science has been constantly renewed and shining in theory and practice, and General Secretary Xi has mentioned "system" and "systems thinking" many times when talking about working methods and ideological methods and "apply systems thinking" has been written into the report of the 20th CPC National Congress and China's "14th Five-Year Plan", rising to a new height of governance.
Dear students, in the future, no matter where you are or what you do, I hope that you will inherit the academic and ideological genes of USST, live up to the expectations of USST, society, and the country, and use your theoretical researches, social practice and life experiences to realise the profound wisdom and practical power contained in the systems thinking, continue to enrich and develop the systems thinking, and clear the fog of thinking with the "systems thinking". Unlock the future journey with the "System" key!
"The north horses love the north wind; the south birds build nests on branches facing south". USST is your eternal "birthmark", and your glory is the glory of USST; welcome to come back often!
So much for today; I wish all of you glorious success in the future! Thank you!
Translated by: Bai Yuting
Reviewed by: Wang Yaopeng
