Metaphysics has usually been an abstruse concern with fundamental questions about the ultimate nature of reality and of abstractions like truth and of the ontological basis of knowledge itself. Of course, the kinds of questions and answers that I give to these basic issues relating to our worldview and its epistemological foundations is probably different from the point of view of any other philosopher or person on earth. I have chosen in this chapter to briefly deal with metaphysical concerns as these might relate to deeper issues about metasystems and natural systems theory especially. I adopt a point of view that has been critically structured by an intellectual commitment to a natural systems theoretic perspective, and it is done with the intention of ferreting out the possible metaphysical implications of such a perspective, which appear to be many, deep and complex. It would appear for instance, that all notions of causality in the physical universe, even in one that is mechanistically defined, are relative to the conceptual framework of the observer, and I would add, to the level of emergent properties associated with a particular system. In other words, what might be causal explanation on one level, would most assuredly be what can be called "complementary" explanation on some other level. We then broach a hen or egg dilemma, and it is only by stepping outside of the conundrum of the question of which came first can we see that both are complementary states to one another: the chicken lays the egg; the egg hatches the chicken.
If we see a system, we see a set of interacting parts that each plays a role in a larger framework. From the standpoint of the framework as a whole, the inter-functioning of the parts cannot be said to be causally determinative, but complementary to one another. We cannot describe any system in a reductionistic manner without invoking the state-properties and pathways that characterize and constitute that system, and these are derived non-reductionistically and holistically. If we seek in our explanation to reduce a system to a sum of the functioning of its parts, we then reach to another level of integration of reality at which level the system as a whole is no longer readily apparent in terms of its definable properties and processes.
These are, in fact, technically speaking, philosophical kinds of questions that nevertheless have some real bearing to our modes of scientific thinking. Metaphysical systems can be said therefore to be centrally concerned with the philosophy of science. But even more than just one more philosophy of science, I believe metaphysical systems is also about the science of philosophy. Philosophy was really the Greek grandparent of the modern sciences--its placement in the humanities along side of history and literature and a concern for language is perhaps an unfortunate reflection of its archaic and generalistic nature. Modern philosophers have nevertheless made important contributions to scientific thought, particularly in the areas of logic and mathematics. To claim a scientific philosophy is to assert a kind of empirical orientation and ontological status for philosophical inquiry that goes a few steps beyond its traditional armchair approach to adopt research methodologies and heuristic problem-solving strategies that renders its conclusions relatively non-arbitrary and even, should I say it, falsifiable.
Even though this digression upon metaphysical systems reflects a preoccupation with scientific knowledge and method, it should be understood that such metaphysical systems construe a scientific approach as being but only one of several different kinds of alternative approaches to reality that each has its own distinct method of inquiry. These other approaches, through art, religion or philosophy itself, are no less valuable or important from a metaphysical standpoint that are such scientific methods. Furthermore, I believe that the social sciences can be categorized separately from the physical sciences in this regard, as their metaphysical implications are also somewhat divergent from those of the harder sciences. Each has its own merits that warrant special consideration in terms of their metaphysical implications.
Metaphysical systems, as it is dealt with within the context of natural systems theory, comprises that special class of knowledge systems that deal primarily with aspects of reality, and of our knowledge and relation to reality, that can be said to transcend any active physical presence or manifestation, and yet that, simultaneously, can be said to be somehow real or "true" in at least a knowledge sense. Metaphysical systems therefore have invariably a reflexive reference to knowledge about natural systems, and all natural systems theory, as theory, can be said to be fundamentally metaphysical in orientation and structure. We can therefore describe as metaphysical any knowledge system which makes general statements about reality, including the reality of that knowledge system itself.
Metaphysics has concerned primarily various philosophers, and frequently deals with a class of questions that may be beyond the purview of science to test or evaluate at all. The question of what is "truth" seems, from a western philosophical perspective, to be as equally important a question as that of "what is reality" in some ultimate or fundamental sense. It follows that the kinds of answers philosophers derive from these kinds of questions are different in character than the kinds of answers that scientists derive in more limited frameworks for similar kinds of questions. Scientists might be concerned for instance with the reality of a certain kind of fundamental structure, and they may seek the relative truth value of a certain kind of statement about some observable phenomenon in reality, but I do not know if they are so concerned with general statements about the nature of truth or of reality in the same way that philosopher's have been known to approach these problems. Philosophy has been grouped with the culture of the humanities instead of the sciences, though philosophers, beginning with the Greeks, and continuing up until the 20th Century, have made basic and important contributions to the sciences, in mathematics, theory, and logic especially.
Part of what I have sought in natural systems theory has been a reunification of scientific and philosophical approaches on a level that transcends and comprehends narrowly defined interests in science, and yet which nevertheless ties broad and general philosophical concerns back down to an empirical foundation in scientific reality. To a great extent I believe this has been accomplished, though not completely. Science can ask questions on a more general level about the nature of reality and the reality of nature than it normally does otherwise, if it has the conceptual and operational machinery to do so and to derive inferences from the models that are forthcoming from such investigation. At the same time, it seems to me that philosophy needs science even more in the modern age than the other way around. The relevance of philosophy to the modern world and to the understanding of reality will be only as sufficient and significant as it is able to interpret scientific knowledge and understanding to fit and fill out a larger and more general symbolic organization of reality. Philosophy must offer a coherent and consistent worldview and an apposite set of attitudes about reality, truth, humanity, ethics and meaning that reflects the world as this has been scientifically understood.
There is no less room or legitimacy for philosophical inquiry in the modern world than there seemed to be in the classical age of the Greeks. If science has failed at all in the modern world, it has been the failure for scientists to function effectively as philosophers in their education, training and practice as researchers. It is not necessary that they do so in their fields of interest, but it is important that they do so if they are to relate these narrowly defined specializations to a broader world and broader set of problems in the world than what is comprehended only by their expertise.
Philosophical problems primarily concern problems of knowledge, and what I would call the problem of the symbolic integration of knowledge, or of the experience that is represented by knowledge. The aim of such symbolic integration is the development of a comprehensive perspective upon the nature of reality that serves to resolve all sense of contradiction and ambiguity. Symbols have this capacity, at least in a limited and relativistic sense, and when we use such words as "Truth" or "Beauty" in some ideal upper case manner, we are implying a monothetic and absolute version of reality that can be at best only a symbolic construct. In this manner, "Truth" becomes a catchall symbol that stands for everything we might regard, or want to regard, as being true. The search for one, single, essential system of truth, even as a single statement, becomes a quest for the holy grail of western philosophy.
Scientists in general do not share this general problem or concern, for if they are interested in truth, it is always in a lower case and limited sense defined by their methods and data. It can be said therefore that metaphysical systems are primarily concerned with what can be called the symbolic truth-value or the ontological and epistemological status of knowledge systems in general.
The quest in Metaphysical systems as this relates to natural systems theory then is manifold:
1. Can there be said to be basic categories of knowledge that reflect natural and basic divisions or sets or states of things in reality.
a. What is the epistemological structure and function of knowledge.
b. What is the social distribution of knowledge and how does this knowledge become used for the construction of complex social realities.
2. Is it possible to define a metaphysical system that can be said to be "natural" in a manner thought of as at least relatively "non-arbitrary."
3. If such a system can be defined, then what would be the logical implications and consequences of applying this system to a larger framework of reality.
We may ask the following kinds of questions of metaphysical knowledge systems:
What is the nature of reality in an ultimate sense?
How do we know reality?
What is knowledge and what are its limits?
We might also ask in a related issue what kinds of approaches or alternative methods of inquiry exist that we might take to answering these fundamental questions about reality. Are these different methods of metaphysical inquiry mutually exclusive or are they any more or less valid or desirable than the others? We may see in these kinds of questions that art provides us a way of both seeing and thinking about reality in a basic and concrete sense, in a manner often very different from how we normally construe reality. It is a way of experiencing reality aesthetically that does not seek necessarily to explain or analyze the experience, rather primarily to phenomenologically present the experience upon a level that allows a direct perception based interpretation and reaction to it. The aesthetic response, especially that provoked by fine or exquisite art, is profoundly moving and enlightening at the same time. It can place a person to an exalted state of awareness and apprehension of reality that goes beyond words in its translation. This response too is typically non-didactic, necessarily so, and therefore as a communication device has no other function than its own communication. I would say we respond aesthetically to fine art in much the same manner that we respond to the beauty of nature, and these kinds of experiences have a common source in our deep connection to the natural world.
I do not necessarily offer any final answers or judgements to these basic metaphysical problems. I only seek to proffer alternative perspectives especially as these might relate to a justification and greater understanding of metasystems science and natural systems theory in particular. In this regard we can say that if philosophy must be relevant to the real world of today, to have any greater significance beyond the academic armchair, then it might best be so done in the manner of natural systems theory within a larger framework that does not divorce the deeper questions of the larger meanings about life from the everyday concerns of living and being in reality. There must be a means available, not esoteric, that allows us to tie these two sets of questions together in a manner that makes sense on both levels.
There are five basic sets of questions that mostly deeply concern meta-systems, each of these questions informing and guiding research at different levels of meta-systems stratification:
1. What is physical reality? Or What is real?
2. What is life?
3. What is intelligence?
4. What is possible?
5. What is true?
The answer to these kinds of questions is never straight-forward, and attempting to answer them results in a life-time of research and query. Some might claim that these kinds of questions are unanswerable, though I do not think so, at least from a relative point of view. Unanswerable kinds of questions are those that science should not appropriate ask, and, when we boil it down, there may be only one such unanswerable question:
How and why did it all begin in the very first instance?
A logical extension of this is to ask the opposite but complementary question:
How and why will it call end in the very last instance?
The question that I believe to be ultimately unanswerable is the question of ultimate origins of our reality. This is a question that cannot be answered even if we adopt a purely mechanistic and material point of view. It is therefore a problem not for science but for religion and symbolic ideology to deal with. There are also non-absolute or relative questions that I believe it to be ultimately beyond the purview of science to resolve. These are normative or human evaluative questions like:
What is good?
And what is beautiful?
There are no absolute or absolutely certain answers to this kinds of questions that science can grab hold of in a fully objective manner. That does not mean that explication and especially elucidation of these kinds of questions should not be attempted in the name and spirit of science, to yield what greater objectivity we might from them. Religion and symbolic ideology can also answer these kinds of questions as well in some ultimate sense.
Otherwise, I see the range and possibility for scientific query to be fairly unrestrained and wide open. Science can and ultimately will, if provided enough time, solve all problems relating to the questions of reality and truth listed above, at least in a way that is mostly satisfactory if only approximate. If we consider the fullest logical and natural implications and consequences of these kinds of questions, we realize that they extend beyond the boundaries of the current state of knowledge in critical ways. They open us up to asking questions we might not otherwise think to ask, and to seek answers to problems we previously did not even imagine existed. And this augmentation of reality has been a normal and common function of our sciences.
The point of departure of meta-systems science and natural systems theory is the recognition that in nature, in the real world, there is nothing that is not somehow interconnected, however remotely or indirectly, with everything else. One consequence of this that is not so obvious is the observation that no event or entity in reality is wholly or independently "determined" in and of itself. No thing or happening is without at least some residual indeterminancy of its nature or behavior that is the product ultimately of its connection to the larger "universe" of reality. Just how determined or undetermined is the total universe of our experience (and hence knowledge), or our total reality, is a subject of debate and speculation by scientists and philosophers alike. Whether or not we can describe the "total reality" as an integrated system remains a question we are not likely to know the answer for anytime soon.
Science at least proceeds on the illusion that reality is well ordered and perhaps even totally "determined" as a system. It was after all Einstein himself who refused to accept the idea that "God played dice with the universe." In a sense, science has no choice but to carry forward on this presupposition of the total unity of reality and its underlying sense of deterministic causality. According to this general ontological perspective, everything has a "reason" and there is a cause for every thing, and a good scientific theory will "explain" both how and why things happen one way and not in any other way. This has informed a conventional, (compulsive) Newtonian scientific view of the world up until the Twentieth Century when new insights, knowledge and theory, of relativity of both the very large and the very small, of complementarity, of chaos and complexity, has risen to challenge the collective mind of science. And yet even the major architects of Twentieth Century science found it difficult to reconcile and deal with the contradictions of order and disorder, entropy and design, in a single sense of reality.
Science has come of age in a systems framework, and this framework is really the only appropriate one for construing the diverse range of knowledge and activity that is continues in various disparate scientific disciplines. In short, all science is necessarily systems science, both theoretically and methodologically, or else it is nothing. Systems approaches are designed heuristically to handle the complexity of large and chaotic sets. By itself, without theoretical insight that is both mechanistic and relationally integrative when applied to particular natural phenomena, or more importantly, kinds of phenomena, systems approaches do not transcend the programmatic and dogmatic ideology of being a methodology without a reason or a sense of rhyme. The theory that is expected and pertinent to different levels of stratification of natural phenomena in reality is distinct and non-reducible to a common set of constituent elements within another level of stratified patterning nor within the entire framework of systems science itself. Systems science, properly applied, does provide insight and the vision to see beyond ideological and paradigmatic obstacles in our knowledge, and it serves to provide a sense of unity and relationship between different domains and areas of scientific thought and activity. But it does not, in itself, provide the theoretical models that are inherent to natural systems and that can be used to understand and predict their patterning.
It is clear that we can reduce the structures analytically of the human mind to that of the organic human brain composed of complex cellular networks, and we can reduce these structures in turn to large protein molecules and other forms of organic molecule, and these in turn can be reduced to organized sets of atoms and the inter-relationships of subatomic particles. It is possible that we could carry this sense of analytical explanation to even more fundamental levels of quarks, strings, or other quantum "things." But it is equally clear that the description of the human brain and its functioning as mind in terms of cells, molecules, atoms and elementary particles is equally insufficient to a valid or objective understanding of how the mind functions in a manner as to produce symbolic, or representational, intelligence.
It may be said in a systems framework that all natural phenomena, or rather all things and events of things that are real in some objective sense, observe and obey the following set of basic properties:
1. All things are related to one another, however indirectly or remotely.
a. All things are naturally bound to a field of relationships and are constrained and limited in critical ways by this field.
2. All things real are subject to change, and the understanding of change is one of the main goals of scientific understanding and endeavor.
a. The principle source of change in things are in the relational field pattern to which things are naturally bound, in which interaction between elements occurs upon different levels.
We may say furthermore and therefore that all things real cohere within a larger framework of relationships, and this framework constitutes a system of sorts. Such a system unfolds in complex, chaotic ways.
We may further qualify our statement by the following observational conclusion:
3. All things real that are known are composite structures that are constituted by component elements.
4. Composite structures cohere upon multiple levels of stratification, and encompass componential subsystems.
Science has yet to discover for itself the fundamental atom or element that is irreducible and that composes all other matter. Evidence suggests that even if there is a fundamental level of constituent structure in the fabric of reality, even this level may prove to be heterogeneously constituted by even more fundamental "things" we have yet to observe or account for.
5. It follows therefore that if all things real are composite structures, then the systemic fields of relation in which they are embedded, are also composite in structure.
a. Systemic fields of relations are stratified in an analytic/synthetic sense, upon multiple levels of structural composition.
Finally, I make a profound conclusion that I take to be the theoretical and philosophical foundation for all systems sciences, and that is the central hypothesis of universal physical relativity of all knowledge:
6. If everything is composite and hence reducible, and if the fields of relations are therefore stratified, then it follows that there is no upper or lower limit to the structural stratification of reality, and hence physical reality may be said to be infinitely complex and complexly infinite.
a. Hence, our knowledge of physical reality is inherently limited to the levels of stratification/articulation of event structures that we can either directly observe or indirectly infer from implication of mathematical and mechanistic logic.
In other words, we cannot directly know the total reality in a complete or exhaustive manner or in either an extensive or intensive manner. We can only understand parts of reality in a partial and approximate sense. Reality therefore is the forest in which we are forever entrapped and lost. It is a forest so vast and so intricate in detail, that we cannot hope to escape it or move beyond its entanglements.
There are implications of this set of principles for physical systems theory in particular. If total reality is complexly infinite and infinitely complex, then we may say by logical extension that the total physical universe is also by homology complexly infinite and infinitely complex. If this statement is true, then a great deal follows in terms of the understanding the cosmological structure of the universe and the elementary structure of physical reality. We may never be able to prove this assertion in any scientifically or empirically sufficient manner, if the forest of our reality is always surrounding us and bounding our knowledge.
There is one class or form of knowledge that can be said not to be universally relativistic in this sense. I call this knowledge abstract idealism or representationalism, and essentially it is the knowledge that is comprised by pure mathematical theory. It can be argued as well by philosophers that certain other kinds of knowledge, like the knowledge comprised by pure goodness or beauty, might fit a similar non-relativistic status, except that these are ultimately normative forms of knowledge. Only mathematical reason appears to me to truly transcend relativistic constraints and limitations. I do not offer an explanation of why this may be so at this stage, but only draw attention to this curious paradox. It perhaps comes as no surprise then that mathematics has become the language of the sciences par excellence, even if in heterogeneous systems this language breaks down in its descriptive realism and explanatory detail..
I would claim at this time the following general insights into systems theory:
1. Not all description of natural processes and patterns are characterizable in a meaningful manner by mathematical terms and relations. There is a sense of a finite limitation inherent to mathematical models that prevents us from applying such models in a more open and general manner to diverse kinds of data-sets. We may put this another way and state that though all physical event structures are mathematically describable and logically derivable, at least in theory, not all natural event structures are analytically reducible to purely or only physical systems, without the loss of emergent properties and synergistic pattern that is attributable to especially higher order systems.
2. Even for basic physical phenomena, natural event structures tend to be so complex that they quickly outstrip the capacity of mathematical language to parsimoniously describe.
3. Mathematical language, theory and formula are conceptually and symbolically derivative from an empirical substrate of meaning.
4. Conceptually formulated theories that are concise in their definition and reference may provide the most flexible and coherent language for many areas of science and natural systems thinking, as long as the conclusions are empirically or experimentally based through inductive observation and result in testable conclusions by a hypothetico-deductive methodology.
5. We face a central paradox of attempting to describe general systems that are considered basic and objective in terms that are ultimately rooted themselves in advanced symbolic and conceptual systems that are themselves derivable from the teleological development of natural systems. In short, we are bound within the very systems we are seeking to describe, and we are ourselves, including our conceptual systems, a by-product and a part of these systems.
What is sought in grand theoretical terms of general systems science is a deep form of linguistic parsimony and precision of terms and definitive relations that has predictive and explanatory power across a wide range of variable phenomena.
I would say that implicitly at least, there has always been ample room in the sciences, at least in scientific knowledge itself, if not in the scientific community or in terms of its social articulation and application, for a comprehensive and comprehensible general systems perspective, just as there has always been room for synthetists and synthesizing activity to attempt to understand natural patterning of phenomena from a holistic and emergent-property standpoint. The proclivity to promote a certain analytical-cognitive style and approach to knowledge, pretty much across the sciences, may have been an unfortunate by-product of an entrenched and tradition-bound academic structure that has defined itself in terms of disciplinary and sub-disciplinary boundaries, as well as a certain premium placed upon the experimental, observational discovery of new, fact based knowledge, sometimes at any and all costs.
Lack of clear interdisciplinary communication, and I would claim, integration, has in the history of the development of general systems theory tended to hinder its progress and coming together as a unified field of inquiry. In the 1960's journals and societies developed from different directions with the aim of providing the context for such interdisciplinary communication and integration, and to some extent these efforts were partially successful in the forging of a coherent knowledge structure for general systems theory. I would claim though that disciplinary compartmentalization and especially academic-based hyper-specialization of knowledge expertise continues to undermine and interfere with the further development of a general systems framework.
The problem of interdisciplinary integration must be seen as reaching beyond the context of cross-disciplinary communication that implies a cooperative sharing of ideas, knowledge and skills between different kinds of experts from different backgrounds, especially when united by common problems or objectives. It implies a fusion of knowledge across multiple boundaries in a manner that should result not so much in "cross-fertilization" of new ideas, but in the development of a totally new comprehensive perspective that is inherently multi-disciplinary in orientation.
Meta-systems is a concept not only of a system of systems, or of an attempt to deal with complex, heterogeneous systems that are composed of a hierarchy of subsystems, but also it implies, perhaps more importantly, an interdisciplinary framework for the reorganization and reconceptualization of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, in a manner promoting interdisciplinary integration and the dissolution of knowledge boundaries that tend to interfere with such integration. What a meta-systems framework provides therefore is a new comprehensive paradigm for the unification of scientific knowledge across all disciplinary fields and sub-fields, in a manner that retains the integrity of each disciplinary sub-field, and yet provides a context for its integration with other sub-fields and disciplines.
A beginning to this integration is recognition of the innate and natural boundaries separating fundamentally different domains of knowledge. There is no sense in mixing apples and oranges in our formulations. The basis of this is the recognition of the natural hierarchy of meta-systems, and the nonequivalence of theoretical explanation or even of descriptive terminology from one level to another within this hierarchy of systems. We may adopt a physics of human symbolic behavior, but this is unlikely to yield productive results compared to the conventional physics of subatomic particles and fields. The problem of the hierarchical stratification of natural systems leads to the relative appropriateness of theoretical terms, definitions, and relationships we draw in relation to different domains of scientific knowledge. It becomes merely inappropriate, and probably irrelevant as well, to mix our scientific metaphors, so to speak, and to refer what is essentially anthropological or even biological phenomena to a physical level of analysis and explanation. Of course, hybrid, hyphenated (and I should say frequently "hyphenated") approaches at least attempt this all the time, but rarely to such approaches yield any great or significant insight into the fundamental problems of reality. Another way of putting this problem is to suggest that we are unlikely to find the answers we really want if we seek a primary explanation to the cause of the Great Depression in terms of a cycle of Sun Spots, El Nino events, or the variations of the Earth's magnetic poles. If a huge meteorite took out New York City and most of the East Coast, we would probably have slightly more to worry about in our history books than another Great Depression.
It may seem paradoxical to claim that the basis of integration is stratification and differentiation of sub-disciplines along natural boundaries, but we must realize that it is in the organization and interaction of these sub-disciplinary fields that we are to find the true integration proceeding, and not in terms of their isolation and further compartmentalization. It makes no sense either to put the physics department in the same wing and floor as the anthropology department, and expect that everyone in the building will become happy bedfellows. The interaction between anthropologist and physicist must therefore proceed at other levels, and in other ways, than merely in their behavioral articulation in department settings. It must proceed in a sharing of ideas and thoughts over a cup of coffee at a lounge table, unharried by administrative demands, within a systems framework that somehow transcends the disciplinary differences that exist between them. What of relevance might an anthropologist be capable of saying to a physicist, and vice versa, that would lend theoretical and methodological insight into their respective knowledge domains and associated problem sets?
At the root of this problem and dilemma confronting interdisciplinary integration is I believe, the natural organization of real problem sets and the non-reification of ideational or conceptual systems in relation to these problem sets. It should by now go without saying, as a somewhat trite Kuhnian type of cliche, that our problem sets and how they are defined theoretically and approached methodologically, both define and are defined by the dogmas and boundaries of our expert sub-fields. One of the key identifying features of any scientific sub-discipline is what can be considered a unique set of methods that are built and established around a unique set of problems in reality. The problem is not here, so much as it is in tackling a class of problem sets, what can be called meta-systemic problem sets, that by their complex nature transcend those boundaries established around traditional sub-disciplines. It is even a paradoxical issue to try to define what these problem sets are. The obvious example is the problem set centered around concerns for global ecology and global conservation, especially in relation to the further technological development of human civilization. No one sub-discipline can claim an exclusive handle or monopoly of methodology and theoretical insight into such a grand scale problem.
The problem is real enough, and undeniable in its major outlines. But it is largely a problem that everyone is inheriting, but nobody seems to want to claim even partial ownership for. Therefore it becomes a problem that grows in proportion without antidote, prescription or solution being taken. But this problem is part of a deeper and more basic problem set that concerns human adaptation, social organization, evolution, and ecology, and that also concerns the role of geo-physical structures and processes in shaping and constraining the patterns that life takes upon the earth. This deeper level of the problem is not as taboo, and perhaps more available to sub-disciplinary definition and resolution, albeit in a limited and partial manner.
The advent of the computing age and the information revolution has made possible new patterns and capacities meta-systems integration in ways we can scarcely yet imagine. It is possible that we do not need to worry about building supercomputers powerful enough to solve essentially unsolvable differential equations, or extended mathematical problems of astronomic proportions, so much as we can learn eventually how to program and construct our computers in new languages that permit them to facilely express general insight into pattern or logically deduce new conclusions that is possible in nature and to model this patterning in ways that can be considered realistic and representatively reliable. I believe the computing power or capacity for this kind of meta-systems integration may be with us already, if only we knew how to bring it to effective realization in the construction and articulation of our working systems.
Beyond this issue of theoretical relevance and appropriateness, I would also make a claim for a general perspective of meta-systems science as an extension of a general systems theoretic framework, especially when natural systems involve inherent complexity arising not only from large numbers or large sets, but also especially from intrinsic heterogeneity of sets and components as well. Meta-systems I believe provides us with a framework for conceptualizing certain kinds of mixed problem sets, as systems collide and entangle with other systems in the real world, to determine what are ultimately underdetermined outcomes for a system. Meta-systems, to define simply, is not only a system of systems, but also a problem of how heterogeneous systems interact and interrelate.
It is reasonable to claim that all things in nature cohere into their own systems, ones that we call for the most part self-organizing, and these systems are all part of larger systems, and composed in turn of many smaller subsystems. We recognize no intrinsic upper or lower limits to this process of embedding and contextualization, or subordination and super-ordination of natural systems, though we do deal with extrinsic observational limits to our capacity to perceive and therefore to know with any sense of first-hand certainty at levels and scales far removed from our own human-sized proportions. We identify super-ordinate patterns in terms of emergent properties that we can associate with hierarchical integration of function and holistic or organismic synergy, or rather the functioning of the entire system as a unique entity, which implies in itself systematic subordination as well. From these we adduce that all systems undergo developmental life or state-path trajectories and maintain a complex process of dynamic equilibrium of relationship and feedback with its environment. I make an assertion that human cultural systems are a natural outgrowth of more basic biological systems that have lead to the product of large brains, creative hands, and symbolic consciousness unique to humankind. I make further more the more revolutionary assertion that these systems, a natural product of integrative patterns and forces in nature, might eventually result in the formation of even higher order systems in which our own anthropological status and identity becomes subordinate to the machinations and patterning of a larger sense of integrative order.
Meta-systems as I have developed this idea applies at multiple levels of natural systems integration, but there is from a developmental standpoint a sense of a grand meta-system that may be the logical, if not quite natural outcome, of further human acculturative development, that is if we do not destroy ourselves in the process. The development of such a grand meta-system will be contingent upon several sets of factors, not the least of which is the improvement of fundamental communications systems and knowledge and information processing systems, as well as the rise of truly automated and integrated artificial systems that can be called in some sense "intelligent" in their behavior. I would now consider such developments not only as inevitable, but as intrinsically benign and therefore entirely desirable and even necessary outcomes if we are to secure a more stable and peaceful world for our human posterity as well as for all other life on earth.
Beyond the rhetoric and hype, and the unfulfilled promises of general systems theory, a systems framework remains critical to the achievement of a truly comprehensive worldview and scientific attitude toward our shared reality, as disillusioned and ideologically non-delusional as we can possibly make this. The potential of general and applied systems theory has largely been unrealized for a variety of reasons, not the least has been the uncoordinated balkanization of the territory of knowledge that comes one way or another under the rubric of systems theory and science. Also, systems thinking and general models have encountered resistance, not so much from specialists hyper-compartmentalized into increasingly focused and narrow problem sets in their respective fields, but because the development of a truly comprehensive systems framework is probably a threat to the status quo of leaders in the world who want to be able to manipulate and to some extent limit the mind-sets and worldviews of the people they have under their power of control. But even more, the failure of systems thinking, to the extent that it has failed to progress as much as it has promised, stems from those who have or would embrace the meta-paradigm it offers, albeit in a too-general, imprecise, and ultimately irrelevant way. It is simply not sufficient to say that everything coheres into some kind of system at one level or another. It becomes vital to the development of such a perspective to explain in detail not only how that thing coheres to form a part of a system interconnected to other systems, but to study and derive from its behavior predictive generalizations that can be applied, homologically and not just analogically, to other kinds and forms of systems at other levels of the natural integration of reality.
It is the general patterning that we observe in nature that we identify as being indicative somehow of a natural system. All phenomena, even much that is apparently chaotic, is patterned in meaningful and orderly ways when they are understood in a scientific and systematic manner for what they really are. I would call all of science but aspects of general systems theory and methodology, and there is no scientific problem or question that is not fundamentally a problem or question about systems.
Natural systems theory deals with the scientific conceptioning of how natural systems work. We find nature to be stratified on the basis of size and composite complexity, and within this stratification occur discrete levels of organization that are at least partially determinable by rules that can be stated in the form of a proposition or equation. The natural stratification of reality provides us with a ready system for classification and organization of knowledge in order to understand, in a relative way, how things function in specific terms at specific levels.
Meta-systems science deals with the challenge of the complex integration of reality, and the rise of heterogeneous patterning of super-systems as the result of the interaction of multiple systems at multiple levels. Meta-systems science seeks to employ operational procedures to the description and explanation of this super-complex patterning, as well as to the applied heuristics of this understanding to the creation of alternative systems and the augmentation of reality thereby. Meta-systems science is concerned with both the analysis of data and the synthesis of models relating to naturally occurring problems.
The nature of generalization therefore is different between natural systems theory and meta-systems science. Meta-systems science tends to generalize across to systems models while natural systems theory tends to generalize towards the patterning of natural stratification found in reality. Meta-systems science tends to treat specific problems within a same or similar kind of operational framework, but as unique problems. Natural systems theory is concerned primarily with general problems, or problems of knowledge and understanding of naturally occurring systems that occur at a general level. Specific examples are then said to be experimental tests or demonstrations of the general theory that is in question.
While natural systems theory is more representative of knowledge that is conventionally construed in terms of the traditional scientific disciplines and their emergent sub-disciplines, meta-systems science is a new informational-based science that deals with cross-disciplinary interests and problems arising as the result of the dealing with complexity in systems that stems from several sources and therefore crosses multiple knowledge boundaries.
Both natural systems theory and meta-systems science are primarily concerned with working systems in the natural world, as well as with those working systems that are the product of human imagination and invention. A working system can be defined as any kind of patterned process that maintains regular order over time in a predictable manner. The concept of order is necessary and vital to all of sciences. The universe and physical reality is ordered in certain ways, and appears disordered in other ways. If the universe where totally disordered, then there would be no possibility for science.
As such, natural systems theory and meta-systems science are primarily concerned with the principles of order and disorder that affect different kinds of working systems at different levels of articulation and integration. All working systems are by definition entropy based and inefficient systems as all such systems involve energy exchange that is always less than perfect.
Knowledge is a system, and knowledge was we know it is invariably human knowledge. As such, our knowledge systems are at some point a part of the larger systemic universe, a part of the natural systems that occur in physical reality, and therefore they are not just about such systems. We cannot therefore claim that knowledge systems, if they are to be accurately representative of natural systems, are completely arbitrary or independent or even a priori to the occurrence of any real system, as they are an extension and a part of whatever real system that we seek to understand and learn about. This relationship between knowledge and the world that is known is an important consideration for natural systems theory and meta-systems science, and this consideration extends beyond the problem of anthropological relativity of all human knowledge. In a sense, scientific knowledge represents the manifestation or the expression of the natural order of determinations that govern the behavior of natural systems at all levels and in all ways. It has not been difficult at all to confuse human knowledge, or humanly contrived knowledge, with the factual or natural order of the world. The shape of our worldview is influenced not only by the intrinsic shape of the world but also by the shape of the knowledge that we bring to the construction of that worldview. Natural systems theory and meta-systems science therefore is a part of that knowledge construction, and hence is never a perfect or even sufficient fit with the natural ordering of the world. There is in other words a more general form of relativity of knowledge, of an inherent uncertainty of knowledge, which is basic to and underlies even anthropological relativity or the various forms of physical relativity as these are known or thought to occur. It concerns a fundamental incapacity to know something about the world in any precise or empirically accurate manner with a sense of unquestionably absolute or categorical certainty. The only categorical knowledge forms we know are found in various forms of idealism and in pure mathematics--and these forms are impossible to realize in the world in any absolute or pure manner. We may approximate such forms to the nth degree, but our approximations, if they are to have any real value at all in the world, will always remain essentially just that. What this entails is that science will have no final bottom-line or knowable limit to the advancement of its knowledge, which may at some point no longer proceed by leaps and bounds but by the tiniest fractions of measurement we are capable of achieving.
Knowledge therefore reflects in an intrinsic manner the natural order of things, if we understand how our knowledge systems work. There is nothing magical or mysterious about this isomorphism, as knowledge systems are bound in the same general framework as is any other natural systems. What this tells us is that the advancement of scientific knowledge will proceed in a non-arbitrary and inevitable direction--certain things of a certain kind must be learned or made known through reason, observation and experimentation, before other things can be discovered. It was not unlikely that we should have discovered the processes of nuclear fission and fusion before we discovered the fact that all material on earth is composed of tiny atoms and that every atom has a definite nuclear structure. It was impossible that it could have been the other way around. The progress of scientific knowledge, including its teleological extension to alternative systems development, is inevitable as long as science is practiced in an authentic matter.
Progress in our knowledge, as Kuhn defined it, is not just inevitable, but it is a natural consequence and outcome of the pursuit of such knowledge in the first place, especially by the systematic application of what has commonly come to be called "scientific method." New insight and knowledge is not invented in the imagination, so much as it is discovered through the calculus of reason applied systematically and consistency to the empirical observation of nature. In science, we cannot have multiple alternative theories that explain the function of some natural pattern and all be equal with the same sense of validity. Only one correct theory governs our understanding of the workings of a system or a kind of system upon a certain discrete level--though this knowledge itself might be theoretically embedded in a network of related or interconnected ideas.
Understanding these various aspects of our knowledge, we can predict that certain things will become true in the long run. Scientific knowledge will achieve a natural theoretical integration and unification that will reflect the natural integration of physical reality. As scientific knowledge advances, certain forms of understanding about reality will emerge that are independent of our ability to know or to arbitrarily shape our own knowledge. The discovery of new knowledge through the application of scientific method and praxis will lead also to the further augmentation of reality, or the creation of new real alternative systems, through the scientific based knowledge. This process shall proceed indefinitely into the future, until and unless human beings, through their own actions, or as an unintended consequence of their own actions, destroy themselves and/or the natural world system upon which they depend.
Meta-systems science and natural systems theory therefore comprises what I consider the basis for the theoretical integration and unification of all fields of science and human knowledge in a systematic and coordinate manner. I do not claim that these fields of understanding replace or are substitutes for different disciplines or fields of knowledge. It's main purpose has been to comprehensively complement such knowledge systems, particularly with the notion that development of such systems has led increasingly to hyper-specialization and the consequent hyper-compartmentalization of areas of thought and knowledge into separate areas of activity and interest. At the same time, it is clearly the case that natural systems theory and meta-systems science can bring to bear upon many different fields of study alternative frames of reference and understanding that can provide tremendous heuristic advantages in the acquisition of new knowledge and understanding about reality. Thus they provide there own tools and objectives for the conduct of new research and the application of this research in many areas of study, regardless and alongside of the procedures and research designs that already exist within these areas and that may yet be developed. Thus meta-systems science and natural systems theory are inherently cross-disciplinary and, I would claim, trans-disciplinary knowledge systems that are also complementary to one another. Natural systems science deals with different levels of natural integration of systems in theoretically comprehensive but appropriate terms. Meta-systems science deals primarily with the inter-functioning of systems at multiple levels or between levels that leads to the characterization of real and complex systems that can be said to be heterogeneous in nature.
The development of an advanced systems science that is rooted in natural systems theory and meta-systems science is not about the direct or even metaphorical application of systems theory, especially as this is conventionally construed, to the description of naturally occurring patterns and phenomena. The sense of systems science is rather indirect in the development of alternative theories governing natural systems, and relies upon the use of dynamic and non-linear programming and control structures to model natural systems effectively. The kind of theory this leads to is in a sense a classical form of scientific theory in terms of a set of paradigmatic postulates that can be stated as theorems governing various forms of behavior in natural systems.
Natural systems are exceedingly complex. I believe that in the consideration of metasystems as these are found upon whatever level--say the interaction of the earth's weather patterns with other variables of biological ecology and the changing geophysical distribution of elements on earth. We are thus dealing with a kind of super-complexity that is impossible to resolve or simply in any direct and representative manner.
Super-systems constitute extremely large sets of data with many interacting parts that constitute interdependent variables. It becomes impossible to accurately describe or predict the behavior of all the interacting variables of such systems simultaneously, or even to realistically or accurately portray the behavior of its significant subsystems or components of subsystems.
It is the purpose of natural systems theory and meta-systems science to heuristically model these subsystems and to set empirical criteria of optimum performance standards for the operation of these models. This forms the basis for scientific theory in natural systems science, in which the demonstration of operational models forms the basis for the experimental validation of the theoretical understanding regarding the natural patterning in question. Typically, operational models to test for the optimum performance of theoretical systems are mathematically described and these mathematical models are applied systems. No systems are abstractly perfect except for ideal mathematically systems--all models are approximations of the complexity of reality based upon some criteria of fitness of the model.
In a sense, scientific theory, if correct, sidesteps the issue of actually modeling such systems and replaces this instead with the possibility of conceptually and mathematically defining the fundamental rules of order that govern the normal structural operation of such system. We do not take a frontal approach in systems science to the depiction of systems as systems, as eidetic structures. Rather, we seek through the application of systematic principles to arrive at these general rules of order, either or both conceptually and abstractly in terms of mathematical equations, that serve to predictively summarize the possible eigenvalues or eigenstates that such systems would achieve.
Natural systems are inherently complex and are stratified upon multiple levels of integration. There is a general sense of theoretical relativity regarding such systems such that theory relevant to one level is insufficient to the explanation of any other level of comprehension. We cannot obtain a complete understanding of biological systems only by an exclusive study of physics. At the same time, it is evident that natural systems cohere and are integrated simultaneously upon multiple levels, such that each system is composed of subsystems and in turn becomes part of larger systems. To attempt to describe a higher order system exclusively in terms of lower order functions, while possible, as for instance a complete description of human organic functioning in terms of the biochemical reactions that make up this functioning, without reference to larger organic structures or functions, or without reference to the human organism as a completely integrated system with its own life-trajectory, is to be overly reductionistic.
The kind of theoretical generalizations and theoretical system that are developed in reference to one level of natural systems integration, say upon a subatomic level, has nothing directly to do with theoretical explanation on a completely different level, say the community structure of biological populations, or the functioning of the human brain. Theories therefore function largely independently of one another upon their own theoretical levels of articulation. These levels of general articulation of theoretical systems correspond directly to the levels of integration of natural systems.
Furthermore, I have come to the conclusion that with the complexity of natural systems there can be no single comprehensive descriptive theory that serves to account for all variables that affect or influence such a system simultaneously. A field of study like ecology can be said to be meta-scientific in that it attempts to understand the inter-functioning of many complex systems within a larger meta-systemic framework. In other words, such meta-systems, because of their complexity, become meta-logical and meta-theoretic in the sense that they are both empirically and theoretically complex and relative at the same time. Ecology is a clear example of such a cosmographic science that resists theoretical simplification or unification upon a basic or general level. Because the science of ecology is rooted to the study of complex super-systems of nature, its study can be said to be theoretically pluralistic and heterogeneous in structure and character. Geology and Astronomy are other examples of such meta-scientific systems. I do not believe that we can impose upon the study of a field like ecology a single unified theoretical framework that provides a kind of "periodic table" of eco-trophic niches, etc., in other words that provides a systematic accounting of all predictable functioning of ecological systems so described within a single conceptual framework.
We can have unified theories of systems as systems, usually in terms of the components of such systems and their interaction, but we cannot have unified theories of systems of systems, or what can be called super-systems, that embrace different subsystems of different levels of integration and functional organization.
The basis for all relativity of knowledge lies in the uncertainty values that are intrinsic or that can be assigned to such knowledge. It arises from the frame dependency of knowledge, or the dependence of the value attached to knowledge of the frameworks within which such knowledge is perceived, interpreted and used. Alternative frameworks lead to alternative forms of knowledge, as is well known both anthropologically and physically. Within complex systems, there exists no single standard frame of reference to which all cases may equally apply. At this stage, we refer to the complementarity of alternative knowledge frameworks as the basis for the relative uncertainty of our knowledge. We cannot in such contexts assign a specific set of determinations to all known cases. Another way of saying this is that the same event or thing will be observed or known differently, depending upon the framework in which it was observed or made known.
The condition of relativity is intrinsic to all human knowledge. To some extent this is a residual by-product of the fact that all knowledge is essentially human knowledge. There is no knowledge known now that is not constructed by human intelligence for processing by human intelligence. Only with the future discovery of alien intelligence that is differently structured or patterned than our own, will our presupposition of anthropological relativity of human knowledge systems be put to the test. It is likely that any such contact and communication will result in both a major break-down and reorganization of the symbolic organization of human knowledge, as well as in the rapid expansion and extension of this knowledge in completely new ways of integration.
To some extent, science succeeds both by an explicit, objective recognition of this basic sense of anthropological relativity of knowledge, and by the effort to insert some form of objective control over such relativity such that the effects of anthropological relativity upon our knowledge systems are at least minimized if not completely eliminated. We refer to this measure of control objectivity of scientific knowledge, which objectivity is arrived at through inter-subjective criteria of evidentiary witnessing and standardized forms of measurement. Scientific theory achieves success by its predictive and descriptive accuracy, in the long run, and in the larger frame of reference, in a manner that is relatively independent of the human knower that embodies the knowledge. It is likely therefore that scientific knowledge and understanding will provide the common frame of reference for theoretical and meta-scientific understanding that transcends anthropological boundaries and embraces alternative forms of intelligence. A scientifically more advanced civilization than our own will demonstrate greater technological and theoretical sophistication than we possess, and in terms of basic cognitive differentiation theory, will exist in realities that are more differentiated than our own.
The relativity of biological systems is not so apparent to us as is the relativity of physical systems, upon a more basic level, or the relativity of anthropological systems at a higher level of integration. This is possibly because all biological systems exist within a single unified framework and have had a single unitary origin, therefore there is a sense of a central theoretical dogma governing all known biological systems. We do in fact find examples of biological relativity at the level of the species and of the ecosystem and epoch of evolutionary development. Species are unique in time and place and are relative to particular phases of eco-systemic and evolutionary development. This biological relativity results in some degree of headache and equivocation when it comes to the development of exact systems of classification and typology of such systems.
There is only one area of knowledge that can be said to be absolute or non-relativistic, and this is the field of pure theoretical mathematics. Mathematical theory refers to no external reference frames outside of its own theoretical framework. In a sense, it is completely and exclusively abstract. Different forms of ideological or symbolic thought that are closed and internally coherent can also be said to share a measure of this abstract non-relativity. The trouble with these systems are that they are rarely "correct" or true in any larger frame of reference, where as the correct mathematical system can be said to be correct and true in any and every frame of reference.
We apply mathematical theory to our scientific procedures of systematic explanation and description with the hope that such abstract systematization will lend a measure of certainty and stability to natural systems that is otherwise lacking. But the application of mathematics to natural systems entails the attempt to systematically manage and deal with uncertainty in different ways. These procedures tend to be some form of adaptive, linear or dynamic or stochastic control theory. In a sense, our scientific theories of natural systems become essentially the application of specific control theories, and control theory, largely specified in terms of a rule-based system specifying conditional operations and results, constitutes the basis of scientific theory in natural systems science. Control theory in experimental application for optimization really becomes then a form of programming theory that tests alternative criteria systematically for best-fit or closest approximation of results. I believe a field like hard artificial intelligence and cognitive science demonstrates precisely how mathematical models are used for the development of programming control structures for the operational simulation of natural forms of intelligent functioning. When our theories governing the principles underlying certain systems becomes correct, then it is possible to apply these principles systematically, as for instance, in the development of a engine or in the design of an airplane that can accomplish powered flight. Computing at this stage becomes critical to the advanced theoretical and experimental modeling of all complex natural systems.
One caveat must be kept in mind, and that all such programming control structures that predict the theoretical or hypothetical behavior of systems are no better than the conceptual foundations upon which their knowledge is based and integrated. These conceptual foundations are relative to the knowledge framework within which their understanding is defined and constructed. It means that they are relative and are susceptible to the constraints of relative uncertainty that characterizes all human knowledge systems, more or less.
I see meta-systems science and natural systems theory as both the logically and naturally necessary and sufficient conceptual framework for the definition and articulation of the natural and applied sciences and for their theoretical and experimental extension in a coordinate and comprehensive manner to a broad range of related problem areas. I do not see this approach to science as a substitute to the developments of any particular field of science, rather only as complementary to any and every such area. I see the elaboration of these approaches as the basis for the theoretical integration of scientific knowledge, and for all knowledge systems, and therefore as comprising a kind of philosophy of knowledge and science the explication of which becomes also pertinent to its development.
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Science has come of age in a systems framework, and this framework is really the only appropriate one for construing the diverse range of knowledge and activity that is continues in various disparate scientific disciplines. In short, all science is necessarily systems science, both theoretically and methodologically, or else it is nothing. Systems approaches are designed heuristically to handle the complexity of large and chaotic sets. By itself, without theoretical insight that is both mechanistic and relationally integrative when applied to particular natural phenomena, or more importantly, kinds of phenomena, systems approaches do not transcend the programmatic and dogmatic ideology of being a methodology without a reason or a sense of rhyme. The theory that is expected and pertinent to different levels of stratification of natural phenomena in reality is distinct and non-reducible to a common set of constituent elements within another level of stratified patterning nor within the entire framework of systems science itself. Systems science, properly applied, does provide insight and the vision to see beyond ideological and paradigmatic obstacles in our knowledge, and it serves to provide a sense of unity and relationship between different domains and areas of scientific thought and activity. But it does not, in itself, provide the theoretical models that are inherent to natural systems and that can be used to understand and predict their patterning.
It is clear that we can reduce the structures analytically of the human mind to that of the organic human brain composed of complex cellular networks, and we can reduce these structures in turn to large protein molecules and other forms of organic molecule, and these in turn can be reduced to organized sets of atoms and the inter-relationships of subatomic particles. It is possible that we could carry this sense of analytical explanation to even more fundamental levels of quarks, strings, or other quantum "things." But it is equally clear that the description of the human brain and its functioning as mind in terms of cells, molecules, atoms and elementary particles is equally insufficient to a valid or objective understanding of how the mind functions in a manner as to produce symbolic, or representational, intelligence.
It may be said in a systems framework that all natural phenomena, or rather all things and events of things that are real in some objective sense, observe and obey the following set of basic properties:
1. All things are related to one another, however indirectly or remotely.
a. All things are naturally bound to a field of relationships and are constrained and limited in critical ways by this field.
2. All things real are subject to change, and the understanding of change is one of the main goals of scientific understanding and endeavor.
a. The principle source of change in things are in the relational field pattern to which things are naturally bound, in which interaction between elements occurs upon different levels.
We may say furthermore and therefore that all things real cohere within a larger framework of relationships, and this framework constitutes a system of sorts. Such a system unfolds in complex, chaotic ways.
We may further qualify our statement by the following observational conclusion:
3. All things real that are known are composite structures that are constituted by component elements.
4. Composite structures cohere upon multiple levels of stratification, and encompass component sub-systems.
Science has yet to discover for itself the fundamental atom or element that is irreducible and that composes all other matter. Evidence suggests that even if there is a fundamental level of constituent structure in the fabric of reality, even this level may prove to be heterogeneously constituted by even more fundamental "things" we have yet to observe or account for.
5. It follows therefore that if all things real are composite structures, then the systemic fields of relation in which they are embedded, are also composite in structure.
a. Systemic fields of relations are stratified in an analytic/synthetic sense, upon multiple levels of structural composition.
Finally, I make a profound conclusion that I take to be the theoretical and philosophical foundation for all systems sciences, and that is the central hypothesis of universal physical relativity of all knowledge:
6. If everything is composite and hence reducible, and if the fields of relations are therefore stratified, then it follows that there is no upper or lower limit to the structural stratification of reality, and hence physical reality may be said to be infinitely complex and complexly infinite.
a. Hence, our knowledge of physical reality is inherently limited to the levels of stratification/articulation of event structures that we can either directly observe or indirectly infer from implication of mathematical and mechanistic logic.
In other words, we cannot directly know the total reality in a complete or exhaustive manner or in either an extensive or intensive manner. We can only understand parts of reality in a partial and approximate sense. Reality therefore is the forest in which we are forever entrapped and lost. It is a forest so vast and so intricate in detail, that we cannot hope to escape it or move beyond its entanglements.
There are implications of this set of principles for physical systems theory in particular. If total reality is complexly infinite and infinitely complex, then we may say by logical extension that the total physical universe is also by homology complexly infinite and infinitely complex. If this statement is true, then a great deal follows in terms of the understanding the cosmological structure of the universe and the elementary structure of physical reality. We may never be able to prove this assertion in any scientifically or empirically sufficient manner, if the forest of our reality is always surrounding us and bounding our knowledge.
There is one class or form of knowledge that can be said not to be universally relativistic in this sense. I call this knowledge abstract idealism or representationalism, and essentially it is the knowledge that is comprised by pure mathematical theory. It can be argued as well by philosophers that certain other kinds of knowledge, like the knowledge comprised by pure goodness or beauty, might fit a similar non-relativistic status, except that these are ultimately normative forms of knowledge. Only mathematical reason appears to me to truly transcend relativistic constraints and limitations. I do not offer an explanation of why this may be so at this stage, but only draw attention to this curious paradox. It perhaps comes as no surprise then that mathematics has become the language of the sciences par excellence, even if in heterogeneous systems this language breaks down in its descriptive realism and explanatory detail.
There is a boundary in the quest for scientific knowledge. I believe scientists cannot ask questions of ultimate predetermination, especially if we hypothesize the structure of physical reality to be infinite. This is a question to be answered by theologians, and not by scientists. Of course, it can be argued that if God really did create the universe, then God must be a real entity and if God is real then its proof is amenable to scientific investigation. I suspect that a scientist only needs to reply with yet another question: Who, or what, created God?
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Intelligence has many sophisticated definitions and implications in our modern Information age. A natural definition of intelligence is concomitant and inherent to an understanding of what constitutes an information system. In other words, an intelligent system is so because it conveys significant information in its patterning, and an informational system is intelligent if its information is ordered in a meaningful manner but not predictable. Important to the definition of an intelligent information system is that such a system is somehow self-sustaining as a coherent system, and that it is self-adaptive to changing circumstances.
But the definition of intelligence in our reality has a fundamental and inextricable human dimension to its expression and patterning. No informational patterning is significant or intelligent if it is ameaningful to us, who are that's systems, or any systems, ultimate reference points. In other words, intelligence is a direct function of our own human brains and abilities to make sense of the patterning and ordering of natural phenomena. Such natural systems become intelligent because they are perceived by us as being so. We make sense of them, and they become relevant thereby to our own anthropological sense of intelligence.
This caveat of human intelligence imposes a fundamental anthropological relativity to our understanding of informational systems. It makes all our knowledge, indeed, all our reality, ultimately anthropocentric in orientation. The only way out of this conundrum is by assuming hypothetical realities that are independent of our own experience. This, fortunately, is not difficult for us to do, and constitutes a fundamental leap of faith that makes possible both science and religion.
But meta-systems in an objective sense are presumed to exist both before and beyond our own human abilities to intelligently make sense and define the underlying principles of these systems. Indeed, our own intellectual abilities were derived from more basic physical systems and processes that exist before and independent of our ability to conceive of them. They exist as patterns, and the logos that defines their order exists implicit to these patterns. Science needs to make this presupposition if it is to rest theoretically on any universal framework at all. Such is the relativity of our knowledge and existence in reality that unless we do make such a presupposition, we could not even assume the existence of an objective physical reality that extends one inch beyond the circumferences of our own skulls. But because we can and need to make such a presupposition, a whole train of other truths then follows deductively and inferentially as real or hypothetical possibilities.
The anthropocentrism of our own intelligence, and hence of our understanding of metasystems, brings us to the horns of Goedel's dilemma. We cannot objectify that which is a part of ourselves and that we therefore cannot get outside of or beyond. We confront this basic dilemma in any version or vision of science we wish to entertain, and it sets certain fundamental constraints on our ability both to observe and to understand what we are observing. To make a claim like "This statement is false" entails an inherent self-contradiction about what is true and false, and hence violates the principle of the excluded middle upon which a coherent system of truth must be based. Goedel's answer for his own dilemma of course was to propound the existence of a meta-system that allows a resolution of the contradiction by means of external reference to a larger framework. This is indeed how we understand our sciences to work, as they always refer our otherwise tautological truth systems to some larger experiential basis in reality. Hidden in this presumption of a metasystem is the notion that such a system exists before and independently from our own anthropologically relative knowledge of or within such a system.
The challenge of this anthropological relativism of our definitions of intelligence and of information in reality will be met fully upon our encounter with an alien intelligence that has perhaps attained a greater level of civilized development than even ourselves. When we consider the challenges of adequately comprehending cetacean intelligence or the intelligence of Primates, rats, octopuses, dogs or other animals, we face immediately problems of communication and of the hypothetical "black box" of getting inside of other creatures heads, and of even our own black boxes. This kind of challenge will only be magnified if and when we encountered an alien intelligence that possibly evolved along lines completely different than how we now comprehend earthbound biological evolution. But if evidence of alien intelligence that is non-anthropocentric should present itself to us in our explorations and observations of the universe, then we would for the first time be presented with the possibility of stepping entirely beyond the boundaries imposed by own anthropological relativity.
Defining for ourselves metasystems as a form of intelligence that is potentially beyond our own human boundaries creates for us other kinds of challenges as well. It is apparent that we must come forth with a kind of meta-logos that transcends and encapsulates our own logic and knowledge, as knowledge of knowledge, and information about information. A greater part of the opacity and abstruseness of Bateson's essays were in part that he was himself perhaps not entirely clear, and also that he was attempting to approach the problem holistically from the standpoint of maintaining metalogue about reality. This has both intellectual and aesthetic appeal, as it implicitly accentuates the anthropological boundedness and construction of our knowledge.
Furthermore, the challenge of defining metasystems seems to rest upon the problem of reconciling science as a brave new world kind of knowledge system, with the more traditional and ancient philosophy, that appears, in the face of the advance of science, somewhat outdated and useless. Bridging philosophy and science points up both the scientific nature of much philosophical inquiry and the complementary philosophical nature of scientific inquiry. Science and philosophy need one another, perhaps even more than did Einstein believe that Science and Religion needed one another in a way that is entirely parallel and homologous to the way that mathematics and science intersect. Thus we are interested in the marriage of the purely physical, as that range of possibility beyond the boundaries of our own consciousness, and the metaphysical, which, like Kant, we can say defines fully the boundaries of our consciousness, or "Cogito, ergo sum."
We can demonstrate for instance that doing metaphysics is not strictly speaking a-scientific or without scientific method, and that even doing science requires that we conduct some kind of metaphysics at the same time. It is clear for instance, that a great deal of metaphysics went into the formulation of the theory of evolution, as hypothetical constructs without firm empirical foundations, long before the actual empirical or experimental validation of this theory was in hand.
This of course is all an intrinsic part of the nature of the human mind that is both rooted in the same natural systems that it seeks to comprehend. It simultaneously has the power both to comprehend these systems, itself potentially within it, and even new and previously unrealized systems as well. We can only guess at the power of the mind of Heraclitus, who preferred the wealth of wisdom over the promised riches of a King.
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In attempting to understand the metaphysical and ontological foundations of metasystems theory, it is important to recognize that metasystems as scientific constructs are concerned with reality first and foremost. Therefore such systems posit an a priori precedence to physical systems. To say that all systems, even noetic systems of the human mind, are reducible to physical factors and processes may sound a bit reductionistic. But we realize that by definitions metasystems comprehend and transcend the analytical description of the physical processes and encompass a holistic description of the state-behavior and systemic patterning involved. This patterning is held to be inherently synergistic at all levels, such that the results are always something greater than the mere enumeration or summation of the parts involved. If synergistic patterning did not arise from complex systems, that permitted new orders of informational patterning in nature, then we would be left with nothing but the physical description of the constituent elements.
The basis for understanding natural information systems and natural forms of intelligence is to realize the synergism of "metaphysical systems" that arise from the complex interactions and state behavior of bounded and contextualized metasystems. A metasystem is therefore something inherently more than the mere sum of its parts. It is rooted in regular and ordered relationships that define in an implicit sense determinist rules.
We understand the relationship of information theory to metasystems theory when we understand the nature of patterning of any informational system. An informational system can neither be wholly random, or wholly determined. Such a system cannot permit a continually meaningless repetition of states, nor can it permit a totally unpredictable repetition of states. We find throughout the natural world, at all levels of analysis, whether it is in terms of human imagination and creativity, or in terms of subatomic dynamics, a surprising sense of sublime order and regularity of principle. We can say therefore that an informational system is one that is implicitly ordered in its relations between its parts, and this ordering is definable within a set of rules that may be inductively inferred from observation of the system and deductive derivable by an understanding of the patterned relationships. This is, needless to say, the basis for all science.
Any system, as a metasystem that is informationally organized, can be said to be bounded or constrained in some manner such that it exhibits a limited number of degrees of freedom along one or more dimensions. Usually, we expect physical systems to be finite in number and size, but if we seek the larger universe as a system, we open up the possibility of infinite systems. Physical systems as we understand these appear to be constrained at least in terms of the four physical dimensions known in an Einsteinian universe. There are also non-physical dimensions of constraint that may operate upon systems, as well as dimensionless constraints or relationships. Systems can be characterized therefore by the kinds of constraints that serve to define the system, and these constitute a paradigm of relational rules are implicit to the patterning of the system.
Language is a perfect model for an information system. Any human language must be made up of a core set of sounds, words and grammatical rules that define the relationship between words, and between words and the meanings they indicate in the real world. Within the constraints of any language, we can find infinite possible permutations of patterning that permit that language to effectively encode and represent reality at multiple levels. Without language, there would be no human symbolic intelligence as we know it, and hence, in a sense, language is the core part of anthropological intelligence as an informational system.
Genetics is another informational system that defines the patterning and evolution of all life-forms on earth--genetic information is constrained within the parameters of DNA chains, which are remarkably uniform and limited in number. Nevertheless, from simple cellular constructs an amazing variety of substances and forms and functions of life have evolved.
Chemistry has the periodic table of the elements, and physics is gaining a surprising well ordered model of the subatomic realm. This model has not yet been completely described and, like genetics in terms of evolutionary theory, we still await a grand synthesis that ties the microscopic with the macroscopic.
We can seek metasystems as well on another level of human behavioral patterning, and in terms of the technological civilization that has created new artificial systems. These are in a sense natural informational systems, as the functional extension of human intelligence, though they are not stochastically self-organizing in the way that we understand naturally occurring systems. They have arisen artificially as the consequence of human intelligence and problem solving, either as serendipitous or intentional systems. But there is also a sense that if human intelligence is a stochastically occurring natural process, the eventual and perhaps inevitable result of biological evolution that leads to intelligent life-forms as adaptational systems, then the artificial products and systems forthcoming from this intelligence are also indirectly stochastic and self-organizing. If this is the case, then we can hypothesize that there is indeed a logical and perhaps inevitable development of these systems as metasystems in some direction. In other words, their continuing development will eventually lead us to solutions that are implicit and possible in the true informational ordering of the universe. Of course, we do not immediately comprehend and cannot foresee what these developments will be.
This leads us to a definition of intelligence as a naturally derivative system. Intelligence is in a sense immanent in natural information systems as stochastic process and possibility of development. It is emergent as a complex metaphysical process that is capable of defining solutions to problems that confront the continuing order, sustenance and growth of systems. We can say that with the emergence of animal life forms, limited forms of intelligence took hold and began evolving into more and more sophisticated systems. We would like to say that such stochastic development has reached its pinnacle in the evolution of humankind that, with its language, its symbolic intelligence, cultural creativity and its hands, has lead to the articulation of entirely new levels of informational patterning. But in the larger scheme of things we must understand this to be a relative assessment, and to define the basis of what can be called anthropological relativity of our understanding of such systems. We exhibit in our selves and in our world just one possible variety of intelligence, as a system that is complex and involves many components. Neither is this intelligence unlimited or so highly evolved that is precludes people behaving typically like other kinds of animals on a regular, indeed normal, basis.
I would confer upon the question of intelligence, as a special case and set of informational systems, as those systems that are capable of self-deterministic change and interaction with its environment in adaptive ways. We can say that evolution itself, as the form of terrestrial biology occurring on earth, forms a system of intelligence that is fundamentally blind and unreflexive. It achieves problem solving and adaptation largely through trial and error in a system that permits remarkable adaptive trait-plasticity in almost every characteristic governed by the system. We can say that the physical structure of reality as this occurs in the known universe at least, is basically non-intelligent. It does not adapt as systems in any sense. Systems occur in physical reality as ordered relationships, but these systems are not intrinsically self-maintaining, adaptive or evolving in the sense that we understand living systems. Stable systems do arise that attain complex and dynamic equilibrium states in physical reality, but these systems are purely a matter of chance process. Cosmogenic evolution is therefore a purely stochastic process that is defined completely within the parameters of its basic constraints. If these systems change, then it is in terms of dimensions or constraints the basis of which are either completely deterministic or completely random, unless this change is ordered upon some lower level of constituent complexity.
The challenge of understanding intelligence in informational patterning in a naturalistic way must necessarily bring us to the question of hypothetical alternative intelligence--or non-human forms of intelligence, and of course to the issue of alien intelligence. It is more than likely that in the universe there are numerous biological systems that have evolved sophisticated forms of intelligent life. It is probable that somewhere in the universe there are creatures that can be considered, from the criteria of metaphysical problem solving, even more intelligent than our selves. These creatures would have probably attained a state of technological development far beyond our own level.
It is likely, perhaps necessary, that these creatures would have a language, and some kinds of hands to do work, and would have elaborated some form of symbolic intelligence and culture. But we should not assume therefore that such creatures would be anything comparable or similar to human or anthropoid forms of intelligent systems as these are found upon earth.
It appears to me that the measure of intelligence of any system would be in terms of the meta-systemic science that that system has attained. It appears to me that in terms of science, some common ground of understanding of principles would be had. This would be true, for instance, in basic mathematical knowledge structures, as mathematics remains the language of science. It would also be true metaphysically in terms of the propositional organization of knowledge and inference structures. In other words, it seems to me that very intelligent creatures must at some level of their evolutionary development exhibit a convergence of intelligence upon scientific metasystems, in the sense that very different creatures must at least become in fundamental aspects "like minded" if nothing else. This universal like-mindedness would be evident in terms of the artificial and alternative patterning that such living systems developed for themselves in their civilization and augmentation of reality. We would know alien intelligence at least in terms of the tools and functions to which it put these tools.
In other words, we must hypothesize that we can only seek to know alien intelligence in an abstract sense that transcends real differences, and in an applied, operational sense that brings these differences to realization.
It would behoove us therefore, if we are to seek to understand alien intelligence, to seek to understand the structure and limits of our scientific knowledge itself.
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Being anthropocentrically relative, metasystems theory faces several inherent dilemmas. The liar's dilemma was already broached. We must understand that the metasystem by definition and design entails the possibility of prevarication. No information system could be assumed to be intelligent if prevarication were not possible within such a system.
Another dilemma of such anthropological metasystems is that in the conceptualization of metasystems theory in an abstract sense, or in its operational application in the real world, we confront of a problem of being subjectively caught up within the system that we are seeking to objective describe, as if we were not a part of the system itself. Among other issues, this leads us inevitably to the challenge of solving the problems of our own survival and adaptation on earth, as a metasystem. We are left with the challenge of trying to engineer human systems that are effective in overcoming our own innate shortcomings of intelligence and lack of intelligence. These issues become unavoidable as part of our metasystems development.
A third kind of dilemma is the inherent structural dilemma of all metasystems, and of the concept of the metasystem. Metasystems are in theory all encompassing, and yet any metasystem is by definition bounded and constrained, contextualized and encompassed within some larger system. It is in part a dilemma of context, and in part a dilemma of level of structural relation by which we seek to define and understand any particular metasystem we seek to comprehend. In other words, we must seek to define metasystems generally, or any and every metasystems, in terms of metasystems that are part of these systems. If we cannot step anthropologically beyond the metasystem of our own biology and culture, we cannot step metaphysically beyond the abstract parameters by which we seek to define metasystems in the first place.
This dilemma relates us directly back to the first liar's dilemma. We cannot have information if we had no possibility of being wrong. Information as order encodes its own disorder. In order to escape such a dilemma, we must posit some larger metasystem, and so on ad infinitum. Thus we can see that indirectly, the first dilemma is related structurally to the anthropocentric and anthropomorphic question of being bound within the constraints of our own knowledge system. Somewhat paradoxically, in our conceptions of the physical structure of reality and the total universe, we are also bound within a very similar kind of dilemma--any cosmological model we develop leads us directly to the conundrum of hypothesizing a metastructure to contain that model. It follows that the kinds of solutions we find for one aspect of this "metalemma" will lead to resolutions of its other aspects. On one hand, we can see that the universe in the largest sense must be self-contained entirely, somehow. On the other hand, if we are to agree to such universal laws as thermodynamics, we must see that whatever scale or structure we posit for the universe must leak into a larger background context, if it is composed of energy. It is impossible to imagine, it seems, a universe that is at once infinite and totally self-contained, and these seems like an oxymoronic, self-contradictory statement.
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Finally, I must close with the notion that there is an entirely different way of looking at metasystems as these relate especially to ourselves, as human beings, and relate ourselves to reality. All other life forms that we know can be said to be a part of metasystems and yet are not reflective of or upon the metasystems that they constitute or share. As intelligent life forms, we have the capability of thinking about our meta-systemic relationships, about where we came from, and where we might be going in terms of the metasystems we are a part of.
In other words, I think it is important also to construe metasystems as a possible metasystem, as something that is real and applied in the real world, especially that is the product of human civilization and development. We have reached a juncture in our own history of development that we must consider the possibility of the elaboration of a grand metasystem that best serves our interests as a species and a form of life on earth.
The development of a metasystem from this point of view is one that brings to teleological consequence the implicit structures and purposes of knowledge that is inherent to what we have already elaborated. Such a metasystem would comprise a kind of permanent long term solution to the problems and predicaments that confront humankind, particularly upon a global level.
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There has been an unfortunate and pervasive trend in higher education, and in the world at large, that thought and knowledge has been prestructured and constrained in certain paradigmatic ways that discourages the freedom to think differently or to explore openly alternative points of view. Received points of view that are in conformity with largely unquestioned and unproven paradigms of knowledge, or what I would call as scientific ideologies of worldview and knowledge, predominate the literary forums and professional dialogues as well as the general mindset of the legitimate scholars who profess this knowledge. This is regardless of the simple historical conclusion that whatever our ideas or ideologies, the measure of goodness of fit to the realities or the lack thereof and therefore of the discrepancy between received ideology and reality, it is the reality that in the long run shall prevail. Therefore the unmitigating failure to deal effectively with reality in a non-ideological manner represents the failure to realize the potential benefits of scientific knowledge in the reform and introduction of innovation in our world. Ideologically driven policies and programs, and theoretically ill-founded research efforts will all fail to the extent that the premises of these collective efforts do not accord with actual reality.
Of course, what is reality in this sense remains an open question, and therefore subject to debate and competition of ideas and the resources that accrue to legitimization of ideological orientations. This is the case because there remains much about our world that we do not truly understand, even though we may have the illusion of understanding that comes with belief and knowledge. There remains even more things unknown and as yet undiscovered that we may never truly come to understand, though we would be embarrassed to admit this.
Reality in many ways remains quite contestable regardless of the sense of authority and perhaps spurious sense of objectivity that scientists and their administrators and advocates bring to the common table. The contestableness of ideas and knowledge is a mixed blessing, for while it permits the ascendancy of ideology and false belief and the restrictive control of paradigmatic thought over dialogue and thought, it also ensures us that this sense of control can never become total or complete or completely closed as we might fear it becoming in the worst-case scenarios.
Nowadays the boards of inquisition are composed mostly of self-serving administrators and gate-keeping academics who mostly have their pet-peeves and narrow sense of intellectual territories to protect and promote, often at anyone's expense. The greatest damage they seem to be doing is simply stifling dialog and the open exchange of ideas, and the systematic structural frustration of potential intellectual growth by free thinking intellectuals. But for richer or poorer, free-wielding intellectuals will continue to think outside of the paradigmatic fold regardless of the sense of received legitimacy they are able to bring to their work.
My greatest concern therefore is with the independence of thought, or rather the relative lack of such independent thought, that is being consistently promulgated in academia in many different areas, as a consequence of current predominant paradigms that govern our collective view of the world. These paradigms are simultaneously both scientific and ideological, and they appear to have a governing influence on new directions being taken in research and funding of scientific projects. Gate-keeping in academic and administrative circles, as well as in publishing forums, tends to protect those who have a paradigmatic investment to the intellectual status quo, and professional ostracism and social death greet those who wish to question or actively go against this status quo. There has been little that has been unintentional about this state of affairs--often the effort to protect a theoretical framework or one's status-role identity within such a framework or promote a particular view of the world is deliberate, and, even more, deliberately coercive and intolerant of any form of alternation.
We live in an unusual era, for it is wrought with great contradictions. Never before have we created more new scientific knowledge and the pace of this acquisition is accelerating with each passing year. Communication and information storage systems are achieving levels of integration and articulation that make even traditional text-based systems look archaic and primitive. And yet, at the same time, we are perhaps ensconced in an era and within a larger system that maintains its own symbolic and ideological blinders, and that sets limits to what we know and imagine about our world in invisible ways. So all powerful has the current world system become, that it has become very difficult and problematic to think beyond its bounds or framework. Any new evidence is automatically interpreted to fit the received framework, rather than attempting to redefine the framework to accommodate and make better sense of new information.
Theories predominate in the physical and social sciences that demonstrate a fundamental lack of paradigmatic unity. Einsteinian relativity is proving to be, like the predecessorial models of Newton and others, but limited and limiting "covering law models" that have a place in the larger scheme of things, but that by themselves are insufficient to account for all the phenomena that occur.
Dogmas have been promulgated, of the Big Bang and of political economic structure, that make a crime of dissent and that constrain the freedom of thought in basic and essential ways. And it is especially where political economy and the Big Bang structure converge that we can expect to find the worst case of this kind of paradigmatic closure. This convergence is most clearly felt in the ossification of old-boy networks within academic institutions at all levels, and in the unmitigated and wide-open brain drain that has lead to a selective bias in favor of foreign brains over domestically produced software.
A similar situation occurs in the social sciences, in general, but here the intrinsically divisive and complex nature of the knowledge and subject matter tend to occlude the action of paradigmatic and structural control factors that influence and constrain thought in critical ways.
I have taken central issue with the Big Bang theory of our cosmos because it attributes nearly the entire process of the physical creation of the universe to a single event structure, the nature of which is without precedence or exemplification in the known, observable universe, and without explanation by known physical processes and laws, which in itself defies the application of the Cosmological Principle, and which leads us to many unaddressed contradictions and logical conundrums if we realistically consider its consequences.
I accept (not without reservation) Thomas Kuhn's general accounting of the paradigmatic structure and history of thought in the physical sciences especially, and in accordance I see the Big Bang theory as having become in the last half century especially a received orthodoxy, a paradigm par excellence, within which all data and all knowledge must be conformed and made to fit, even if this leads to rather absurd and logically contradictory conclusions. And this goes to show how even very bright and brilliant minds can be shackled by the constraints of unquestioned prejudice and a structural framework that rewards intellectual conformity and punishes through systematic denial and ostracism any form of intellectual alternation.
Knowledge does not only exist in an ideal world of propositions and abstract relations. Knowledge coheres on a living landscape of the everyday world. It is in this natural landscape that knowledge gains expression, validation and historical reality. Thereby knowledge develops, grows, changes. It is not only changed by the world, but it acts upon and serves, through human agency, to change the world as well. Therefore we can describe a certain kind of noetic equilibrium of human reality that is the consequence of the interaction between knowledge and the world. Knowledge is invariably embedded in an intricate web of human social relations and is both the motivating force, the framing justification and the consequence of human action in the world. We must see knowledge therefore, however formally defined or ideologically received or conventionally constructed, as intrinsic, indeed integral, to human reality in a practical, everyday sense. Furthermore, knowledge becomes critically constrained by its real world relations and expressions. Therefore, knowledge is not as free and pure as many may believe, but is subject to coercive forces that channel, shape and predefine its expression.
Knowledge to a great extent becomes the product of culture and cultural worldview. It is both the by-product and the basic building block of worldview, and in this it serves its ideological function. Values shape our knowledge, even in ways that we do not directly see or understand. Much of the constraining force that cultural and psychological orientation exhibits over knowledge therefore becomes indirect and implicit to the background context of our understanding. How we see the world and respond to it in a typical manner is very much the result of this set of constraining relationships. Like culture itself, this connection between culture and knowledge is transparent and invisible to our objective consciousness, and only emerges to the foreground of our awareness when it becomes symbolically relativized by alternatively constructed realities.
We cannot completely disembody our selves, or rather our apperceptive awareness of ourselves in reality or the knowledge that comes with it, from the subjective contexts in which this knowledge arises, gains shape and has force and power. We have, through our sciences and wisdom, been able to disengage our knowledge in a relativistic manner from its subjective frameworks, and some knowledge, (i.e., abstract and mathematical knowledge) can be claimed to exist independently of any real system. We achieve gain in our knowledge as a function if this capacity to "objectify" it in a relative manner, or rather in a manner that is relatively independent of any embedded context in which it has significance.
Symbolic knowledge provides us the illusion of truth, or of being generalized and unembedded from any real contexts. I call this an illusion because in fact all knowledge remains embedded in our own organic environment at least. The illusion of symbolic generalization is a necessary and important illusion in reality, for it is the basis of our intelligence and capacity to understand reality in a disembodied manner. That intelligence rests on an illusion, a magical trick of our symbolic capacity, comes as something of a paradox that plagues our comprehension of reality as something greater than mere physical existence. Though it is ultimately only an illusion, it is a necessary and indeed a grand illusion. Most religious and other ideological belief stem from this epistemological and rational illusion that is rooted in the symbolic structure of our knowledge and conscious awareness. This is a part of the anthropological relativity of knowledge and of the experience of reality.
Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.
Last Updated: 03/08/05