CHAPTER ONE

NATURAL SYSTEMS THEORY

by Hugh M. Lewis

Systems of information occur naturally in the universe based upon ordered patterning of phenomena--whether it is the eternal waltz of the planets and their moons around the sun, the chemical structure of plastic, the growth rings of an aged tree, a school of fish, or the social organizations of humans. The objective status of this phenomena is confirmed in the sense that we can scientifically predict their occurrence independent of our own subjective experiential confirmation of their occurrence. And yet the status of our ontological knowledge of these naturally occurring patterns are inseparably linked to our knowledge of these systems, such that our a posteriori knowledge can distort, relativize and explain such patterns systematic ways. The result of our knowledge of such phenomenal patterns are that our sciences constitute a coherent set of theories concerning natural information systems which underlie and regulate the phenomenal patterning of the universe. These systems theory can be considered natural to these extent that in every case, the occurrence of natural phenomenal patterning is in every instance the independent variable of our theoretical constructions of such systems theory. Such natural information theory can be considered to be operationally systematic in the sense that the things to which it is related and from which it arises is at some level of human experience statistically non-random, objectively real, minimally ordered in a manner which is propositionally coherent, predictable and hence controllable, lending itself to experimental replicability, and to the extent that its order is anti-chaotic--subject to expectable change. They can be considered to be functionally systematic in the sense that the phenomenal patterning itself is minimally nonrandom and determinative in a manner that is separate and independent of our own empirical knowledge and validation of such patterning. They are informational in that they are essentially anti-chaotic in the minimal definition of the term. They are minimally nonrandom, structured or ordered patterns of occurrence. Such natural information systems are theoretic in the sense that their operational explication is tied to and inseparable from our knowledge of such systems.

Science as a broad generic label covering the natural and social sciences is a term rooted in the explication of natural systems theory. Natural systems theory as a covering law model of the sciences in general. Scientific theories must account for "facts" as these are construed, and provide facts where none exist. A fact is a datum or bit of knowledge the empirical truth value of which is considered, at least statistically incontestable and credible. Scientific theories must make aspects of our reality more available, in terms which are independent of our cultural biases or culturally defined predispositions of knowledge.

Naturally occurring systems obey the basic laws of thermodynamics. Though they are information carrying in their implicit order that is minimally antientropic and self-sustaining, they cannot be perfectly efficient or closed or eternal in the purely physical sense. All such systems thus are subject to decay and erosion. Systems effect an internal hyper-coherence by means of demarcating a finite boundary by which all relationships between the internal patterning and dynamics of the parts of the system and the world are related. Systems also may occur in relation to other similar or different systems, and thus come to form symbiotic communities which are corporate in the sense that though individual components of the entire collectivity erode and die, the collectivity as a whole continues. Biological systems have effected continuity and natural perpetuation through reproductive replacement, and reproduction has become central to both the definition of living systems and their evolutionary change.

Natural systems are ordered at a discrete number of separate yet interdependent levels. These are the physical level, the chemical, the biological, and the cultural. The aegis of forces and predictable patterns of relationship between the parts are distinct at each level, though each level is built up of the lower levels. Thus higher level systems cannot be analytically reduced or explained purely in terms of the lower level of analysis. Biological processes and evolutionary theory can be unlocked in terms of the bio-chemical and molecular reactions, just as these can be understood in terms of the atomic weights and numbers of the elements composing the complex organic chains, but these by themselves are not enough for comprehending the structure of patterning of the cell, cellular development and differentiation, the organic constitution of the entire organism, or the behavior of the biological organism in relation to a community of such organisms, a community situated in a complex web of different interacting communities. At the same time, theory invoked at a higher level of informational patterning is more complicated and less parsimonious or precise as that available for the lower levels--losing the mathematical precision and abstraction characteristic of the physical laws of matter. Still, at each level, super-structural organization of collectivities of systems occurs which becomes extremely complex.

The laws of the higher level cannot be invoked to explain those patterns which occur at a lower level, and those laws and principles occurring on more basic levels of analysis appear as distinctly different from those of a higher level. This is what is referred to as the definitional hierarchy of multiple determinations. Lower level systems are more independently occurring than higher level systems. Systems of information occurring at different levels are multiply determined by forces and factors of relationship occurring at each level of analysis.

Besides the four basic levels of analysis, there are also several discrete "sub levels" of analysis within each level--a componential or particulate level at the most rudimentary level, an organic level of articulation of the parts or components in the composition of a self-contained system of information, and a super-organic system of such a system in a larger collection of similar or different systems. The patterning which occurs on each of these sublevels involves principles of relationship which cannot be accounted for on the basis of the lower sublevels. These three levels of analysis--the sub-organic, organic and superorganic, occur in a parallel manner in all four levels of systems analysis, and it can be hypothesized that similar kinds of relational systems prevail upon each of the parallel levels.

Thus another characteristic of naturally occurring systems becomes apparent--that is that all naturally occurring systems appear as collectivities of multiple similar systems. No naturally occurring system, beyond that perhaps of the entire universe itself (which itself may be just a definitional problem), is a unique or singly occurring system. Any system that can and does occur in nature, will occur in nature more than once. This brings up basic philosophical questions that we cannot answer at this time--such as the status of extraterrestrial life, especially of "intelligent" life, and the possibility of multiple universes.

Besides the entropy, noise, antientropic informational capacity, the basic multiplicity and spatio-temporal finiteness of all naturally occurring systems, we can speculate other basic shared properties of such systems. First all such systems are subject at every level to a basic universal principle of change--all systems change and are subject to the changes of other systems, and these sources of change are the source of new information and noise within the system. Internally generated change is referred to as endogenous, external sources are referred to as exogenous. Change is a basic statement of the inherently dynamic inconstancy of relations between parts of of parts.

Anther facet of all naturally occurring systems are that they are all variably subject to the same basic physical constraints--the irreversibility of time and the non-duplicity of space. Time, at whatever rate it occurs, is always experienced as a unidirectional process. One thing cannot be in two separate places at the same time.

Naturally occurring systems occurring at different levels of analysis constitute multiple feedback systems both within and between the levels. The occurrence of such feedback networks within alternate systems is important for understanding the inherent complicity, multiplicity and indeterminancy or relational causality of such systems at all the levels of analysis. A feedback network must be defined as a partially determined cyclical hierarchy in which the inter-functioning of the parts influences the state of the whole system--either to one of growth, stasis or decay. It is the cybernetics of such partially open feedback networks which describe the dynamics and mechanics of the system as informational and regulated. Functional homeostatic equilibrium can be defined as the continued steady-state of a balanced system. The kind of positive feedback characteristic of growing and differentiating systems must be distinguished from the homeostatic or balanced feedback that indefinitely maintains the same system in an undifferentiated statuses. Furthermore, the negative feedback which characterizes degenerate or regressively decaying systems can be distinguished also from these other kinds.

It is apparent that the study of different systems upon different levels of analysis must be approached in a holistic manner than will attempt to understand the dynamics of the system as a whole as well as in relation to other systems or in relation to its component parts. The holism of natural systems theory does not preclude analysis and the formulation of analytical laws. It does direct our attention toward the phenomena as a whole--to its patterning that cannot be adequately reduced. Analytical reductionism that attempts to explain the phenomenal patterning of the whole exclusively in terms of the analytically distinct parts, must fail to grasp the relative conditioning played by the context of other systems and levels and of the whole, upon the patterning and interrelations of the parts.