Shift of the scientific worldview in the context of General System Theory

General System Theory has emerged within the very heart of 20th century science, spreading itself spontaneously and slowly on almost all levels and perspectives of human knowledge about the natural and the social world. This paper explores the main notions of General System Theory, describes the conditions and the context of its emergence and introduces its originators. With this in view, the development of science (especially physics and biology) will be outlined, followed by an explanation of how it gradually gave rise to General System Theory on the one hand and to a holistic view of the world and life on the other. The main notions connected to General System Theory are open systems, steady state, and self-organization. In the last part of this paper the above mentioned reflections are placed in the context of ethics in general, and operational ethics in particular (as it is called by one of the theoreticians of GST).