Chapter I
Meta-systems has become in my use of the term a general concept with several different meanings. I have worked with the concept for a couple of years now, coining the term as the result of theoretical development in natural systems theory, though the spirit and gestalt of the meta-systems framework existed in a rudimentary manner before this time. The concept has subsequently developed in several directions and has thus come to take on a wide multiplicity of meanings that reflects its wide range of adaptability and functionality as a conceptual tool and framework for the comprehension of reality at multiple levels. It has therefore become something of a metaphorical catchall and general purpose term that can cover a wide range of specific meanings that are not necessarily or at least directly connected. I offer the term dialectically to provide a systematic means for stepping outside of the hermeneutic and possibly ideological circle of our own systems thinking and thereby to gain a greater sense of objectivity and reality in relation to the definition and articulation of systems.
In the most general sense, the meta-system can be referred to as a grand design strategy that views all of natural reality as being ordered complexly but systematically, and all knowledge relative to understanding this order as being potentially integratable. In theory a meta-system becomes therefore a comprehensive system of knowledge relating to the scientific understanding of reality, and it offers the potential for the articulation of this knowledge relating to complex problem sets at different levels in reality in what can be considered a coordinate and consistent manner. Work in meta-systems theory and design has approached this ideal in a very approximate manner and yielded more or less a single comprehensive knowledge system with teleological design extensions. But this work is far from complete and even further from a grand sense of refinement, much less perfection. The expectation becomes to articulate such a meta-system in real terms, even if in reduced and rudimentary contexts in an embryonic manner, and to eventually develop and refine its framework to the point that it approaches its ideal of being an effective comprehensive system.
There is an important caveat in this--all systems, as knowledge systems, are human based and therefore they are prone to the variables and foibles that are inherent to the nature and cultural differentials of human beings. All institutional systems are only as strong as their weakest linkages, which are invariably human linkages. The meta-system must be therefore designed in a manner that effectively takes this human element into realistic account, and is capable of adaptively compensating for it and countering its negative effects at every point that this influence may be felt. The design of the meta-system from a human standpoint then becomes something similar to the design of the American federal government on the basis of the United States Constitution.
But there are several other alternative meanings for the term meta-system as I have used this in my various writings on the general topic, all of which have validity in special frames of reference. It is important to highlight these alternative uses and meanings of the term as well, within the overarching framework of the general definition just given above. In another comprehensive sense, all of reality can be considered to be hypothetically a grand meta-system--the universe as an open and possible multi-state system can be referred to as a meta-system and this meaning can be extended to embrace a wider definition of what is reality. Implicit to the term meta-system in the grandest sense is an implied underlying sense of order, even in spite of lack of direct or obvious relationship and the obvious presence of a great deal of disorder or random chaos in patterning, or the inherent under-determination of systems in the first place.
But for the most part, meta-systems refers to the more applied and practical problems on several levels that concern bringing to reality and articulation behaviorally and materially of the possibilities that are otherwise only implicit within the framework and general conceptioning of meta-systems. Therefore, meta-systems refers as well in a special scientific sense to the methodological and operational design to experimental applications derivable from natural systems theory. Meta-systems refers as well in a slightly different framework to a special class of theoretical and or applied problem that is exemplified most characteristically by being hetereogenous and stratified systems, or "mixed" systems that arise as the consequence of the interaction of several subsystems from different levels of natural stratification.
I have adopted the term meta-science as the use of a general meta-systems approach when applied to methodological and operational issues in the application of the sciences. I have also adopted the term "meta-culture" to refer primarily to human applied meta-systems, or what can simply be called human-made or constructed systems, which may be scientific as well. It is something of a misconception to suggest that these terms designate meanings that are mutually exclusive as it is quite apparent that all knowledge systems are de facto human made systems, and therefore meta-cultural, even those that can strictly or generally be called meta-scientific or meta-systems. Similarly, meta-cultural systems may be called meta-scientific to the extent that they involve systematic understanding and articulation of applied systems in a consistent and realistic manner.
I define a meta-system as a logical model of a delimited system that is based upon a philosophical and scientific understanding of the primary concepts and variables underlying the structural patterning of the system. It is therefore the study of the logic, the pattern, the structure, the philosophy and knowledge relating to our understanding of what we define as a system. How we define and delimit a system is critical to our final understanding of that system and how we choose to relate to it in the larger scheme of things. Definition and delimitation are normal parts of analysis that is preparatory to learning about and understanding a system. It is clear that we may begin with different presuppositions and primes that are implicit to our definitions of things in reality, and these will predetermine the outcomes of our knowledge and relationship to these things. Part of the purpose therefore of a meta-systems approach is to explore the conceptual foundations and implications of the models that we employ to understand our world, and to not only question these foundations, but to test them for their validity and accuracy in relation to the real world. This is by no means the only purpose or definition of a meta-systems approach.
I define meta-science as the logical and philosophical concern with the conceptual foundations of scientific knowledge and practice, both in a general sense as well as in specific applied senses of the term. Meta-science becomes a systematic approach to meta-systems understanding, and becomes a methodology for approaching natural systems in reality.
Metasystems science is the methodological and operational outcome of natural systems theory. All real things are parts of systems. These systems can be analytically classified according to natural problem and pattern sets based upon the stratification of these systems in nature. Thus we can identify physical, biological and human systems, and these three types are the generally occurring systems that we know of at this time. We can further analyze these three general types of systems into wider classes of subsystems that these labels incorporate. Such sub-classifications can be made in a number of different dimensions, depending upon which dimension of such systems we construe as being important in our analysis and synthesis.
Natural systems theory was based upon the identification of these three natural types of systems and their explanation and elaboration within a larger systems framework. This tripartite model of natural systems is bound to change especially as we discover extraterrestrial life forms and forms of alien intelligence that is comparable to our own. We should expect and anticipate this kinds of changes and their reverberation for our world view and how we relate to the world in the future, at least so that we will not be caught completely off guard with the unexpected when it does finally occur. I believe a metasystems approach provides a fruitful and constructive methodology to systematically extend our knowledge and understanding of systems to heuristically embrace what can be called possibilistic systems.
We may extend the classes of systems along another basic dimension to include what can be called real systems as well as abstract, ideal or "non-real" systems. These are larger encompassing sets and subsets of natural systems. Human applied and artificial systems, especially those that achieved some degree of autonomous function, can be referred to as real systems of a special form. A rocket ship and a toaster oven are examples of real applied systems that would not be naturally occurring if they were not invented and designed through human knowledge and work. At the same time, certain forms of knowledge system that underlie the sciences and our understanding, can be referred to as abstract and non-real systems. At this time we cannot clearly say if these systems are strictly the product of our own human knowledge and thinking, and hence subject to the constraints of anthropological relativity, or whether these systems might be appropriate to non-human intelligent systems, and hence part of a broader framework than we can prove at this time. Clearly, if we achieve contact with alien intelligence, then they will have acquired a form of technology, or real systems, that were based upon a creative intelligence that required both real and non-real forms of knowledge and understanding. We would expect at least a common ground of agreement in terms of mathematical language and possible in terms of sensory-awareness systems.
We may say that all systems are in the first place physical systems. We may reduce the human brain to cells, thence to molecules and atoms, and thence to even more minute physical structures and processes. But in the process of analytical boiling we remove and lose permanently what it is about human brains in functional contexts that make them special and central to human systems. Thus all biological systems are seen as a subset of physical systems, and consequently all human systems are seen as a subset of biological systems. As mentioned, the composition and boundaries of these sets are liable to change as we discover new naturally occurring systems in the universe. Systems of these types cohere together because they are bound within special contexts or frameworks of their articulation. We construe such systems therefore from the standpoint of the organismic principle--that systems and their components achieve their identity within natural contexts as parts of a whole, and that therefore exhibit what are called emergent or synergistic properties. Composite and derivative patterns that occur as a function of the whole, and cannot be explained through analytical reduction to the parts.
Metasystems science therefore is primarily about synthesis of the parts into the whole, and the understanding the patterning of the parts in their formation of the whole. It involves an attempt to understand not only the real state-path trajectory a system takes, but the likely and alternative state-path trajectory such a system may make, under varying circumstances. This is the basis for systematic observation and controlled experimentation of systems.
Metasystems has been a spin-off and direct consequence of this involvement in natural systems theory. In fact, a metasystems framework and approach is implied throughout natural systems theory, especially in terms of the application of this theory to real world problem sets. It has concerned in particular those hybrid and inbetween classes of systems, or mixed systems, as well as the problem of the inter-level integration and organization of complex systems. Furthermore, it has involved the understanding of the class of heterogeneous systems that occur in the natural world, systems that incorporate all or some of the different levels and types of natural systems. It has offered a systematic methodology, through extension of set and number theory to cover a diverse range of real sets and phenomena. It has also lead to a concern with applied and what can be called the development of artificial metasystems, which are humanly-constructed systems that extend the compass of reality as well as our knowledge of reality.
A metasystems framework constitutes the basis for what I would call a paradigmatically informed or reformed general field of the sciences that transcends the problems of analytical specialization and limitation of worldview. I would make the claim that all forms of science, as applied knowledge systems, represent not only the articulation of natural systems theory, but are essentially a form of metasystems science, or meta-science, in their own articulation and in their relation with the larger world.
The metasystems concept is also employed in the sense of the alternative development off an applied metasystem, which is a grand strategy that coordinates the application of knowledge to real systems in a comprehensive framework. The object of an applied metasystems framework therefore is the encouragement of constructive crossover and feedback between areas of knowledge specialization and expertise, without the loss of fidelity or reliability of knowledge systems, and hence it becomes the intentional, planned integration of real systems, and the knowledge systems upon which they are based. The design of an applied metasystems framework has therefore been guided by the requirements of promoting and facilitating such integration in real systems. It has led to the focus upon redesign of systems in areas where knowledge is naturally integrated, or achieves a degree of integration as a consequence of the problem solving involved in such a field.
It becomes important within such a framework of applied metasystems to focus upon the dilemmas, trade-offs and challenges between the problems of the integration and adaptive articulation of systems in the real world. The development of such an applied metasystems provides a framework and context for the development of integrated subsystems and for their effective articulation. At the same time such articulation depends upon the articulation of such subsystems in a number of areas. This is an inherent problem set that can only be resolved through devising and improvising successful solutions that accomplish both integration and effective articulation at the same time. If articulation proceeds at the expense of integration, or integration is promoted with defective articulation of subsystems, then the feedback processes involved become destructive rather than constructive and complementary. This is in part a challenge of creativity and intellect, but also one of experience and exploration. To promote these processes in a creative manner allows a higher rate and degree of central problem resolution than can be otherwise achieved.
These two sets of challenges are met simultaneously by pursuing several strategies at the same time. Because the overall problem of the applied metasystem is so large and complicated, it must be divided into its component subsystems, each of which poses its own problem set requiring similar but smaller scale, more specialized and focused resolution. At the same time, the problem of how to divide the overall system, and then how to construct such a system from components, becomes a question that provides a common frame of reference for the coordinate and complementary development of the subsystems. Conventional science has largely proceeded by means of the former method to the neglect of the complementary approach which has proceeded naturally by self-organization, and has combined a heavy handed empiricism with a entrenched and conservative academic but enlightened scholasticism. The result of this I believe has been a deemphasis of the kinds of holistic approaches that systems development requires, and an overemphasis upon specialized and analytical approaches.
As mentioned previously, some areas of knowledge lend themselves more readily to a metasystems approach than other areas. But it remains true that any field of knowledge can be oriented, and possibly redefined in terms of its basic operating parameters, to be more sufficiently compatible to a metasystems framework. The problem in defining a metasystems framework in an applied sense has been the identification and redefinition of these basic areas and their configuration into a workable pilot framework.
The challenges of integrating expertise, and development of multiple expertise or means of cross-over of knowledge and skills, between different metasystems areas in such a manner as to preserve the quality and detail of knowledge and its application, becomes critical to the success of the application of such a system in the real world. This challenge is offset to some extent by the contextualization and constructive complex of reinforcement that the metasystems framework itself provides in social and organizational institutions. The ability to effectively institutionalize a metasystems framework in a corporate sense becomes therefore strategically critical to the success of the system. This in turn requires working out a metasystems framework conceptually and on paper, and its improvised implementation in the real world in an experimental manner.
The entire sphere of reality, or total universe, may be said to be one grand metasystem, of which all other systems are subsystems. Any general problem set we encounter may be looked at from a metasystems point of view, and the nature of the solutions we offer to such problem sets are meta-systemic from the standpoint of both the understanding they bring to the problem and in terms of the application of the solution itself. From this perspective, the solution becomes part of a larger metasystem that we are seeking to construct or develop in fulfillment of this grand design.
Ecology in the field of biology, and to a lesser extent conventional evolutionary theory, constitute synthetic metasystems approaches in a field that has been largely and at times almost exclusively analytical in orientation. To date both ecology and evolution as general problem sets lack a comprehensive unifying theory or synthetic point of view that sufficiently accounts for all aspects of these rather broad and eclectic areas of biological systems. Similarly, in the physical sciences, cosmology represents an area that is particularly meta-systemic in character--and it is perhaps for this reason, and for the lack of training of physical scientists in meta-systemic approaches, that cosmological knowledge remains so uncertain and controversial and paradigmatically prone to ideological influence. Similarly, most of the human sciences remain fundamentally meta-systemic in orientation and hence naturally prone to multi-paradigmatic interpretation and failed attempts at paradigmatic closure of general problem sets around certain "schools" of inquiry.
It is clear that the symptoms of the failure to address metasystems frameworks for what they are, in a methodological and operational manner sufficient to their problem sets, include paradigmatic closure or the lack of paradigmatic unification, the plethora of alternative and often conflicting points of view that point to a fundamental lack of certainty over basic knowledge areas and a lack of agreement over common terms and terminology, reflecting incomplete systems of classification, categorization and propositional organization of reality. In a sense, all the sciences and any particular scientific field may be characterized in this manner, what has been termed by some as epistemo-pathology, but it is evident that there are certain areas of scientific inquiry and certain natural problem sets or dimensions occurring in reality that are particularly prone to these kinds of relativistic issues, while other areas of science have made remarkable progress, largely through theoretical development, that have transcended these limitations.
There is a sense that knowledge that is articulated primarily at a physical level is more readily expressible in a purer mathematical form, and the principles and laws that govern physical phenomena are therefore more amenable to logical and mathematical formulation and proof, than derivative and higher order systems that are more difficult to express in clear or elegant or meaningful mathematical formula. Mathematical systems applied to any biological system, upon any level, rapidly breaks down in its applicability and generalizability. There are some basic mathematical formula that are quite useful in a fundamental sense in the biological sciences, but they generally cannot be extended in an unexceptional manner to cover all cases. This difficulty to some extend guides and constrains research and research methodologies in the biological sciences. Even more so is the case of the human sciences, where very few if any mathematical formulas carry any great theoretical significance beyond narrow contextual boundaries. We may say in general that the more derivative and higher order the emergent properties of a system, in terms of its integration and articulation in reality, the more difficult and problematic it is to simplify its structural rules of operation in purely mathematical formula. We must recognize though that even such simplicity upon a fundamental level or cosmic scale may be more apparent than real, when we discover for instance quantum and other relativistic phenomena that tend to complicate our equations and indicate the presence of underlying systems characterized by derivative, rather than basic, properties. It is clear though that the higher up the great chain of order we go in the natural world, the greater the interpretive parallax and hence paradigmatic uncertainty that we encounter in our knowledge about such systems.
We can say that such a grand design is essentially non-arbitrary and therefore contra-ideological in its development, if we can make the assertion that it is derivative of natural and logical consequences of general processes of human development. It is not to say that human decision-making and normative valuation does not enter into the picture of its shape and construction, but that such systems are either bound to develop regardless of whether we deliberately strive to implement them or not, or else it is likely that the human species will eventually fail, as an exceptional, intelligent species.
Meta-systems science attempts therefore to pick up the theoretical and methodological ball where the conventional sciences have tended to leave off. The main characteristics of meta-systems science and natural systems theory are the following:
1. The holistic emphasis of the contextuality of constructed frames of reference, complemented by analytical reductionism and resolution of particular or specific instances or events.
2. The cross-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary "hybridization" of knowledge systems that follow lines of least resistance in the natural ordering of phenomena in the world, paying respect to the emerging social and historical stratigraphy, landscape and boundaries of knowledge systems.
3. An emphasis upon the theoretical construction of alternative frames of reference derived both deductively from natural and rational reason, and inductively from empirical observation and experimentation.
4. The use of both a "systems" modeling or heuristic approach to learning, design and problem solving, in a framework that is itself meta-logically contextualized by a meta-systems framework that serves to contextualize such approaches within a comprehensive knowledge framework.
5. An emphasis upon the comprehensiveness of objectified knowledge systems, or of a "scientific worldview," that nonetheless does not exclude or preclude or occlude an interest in the particular or the specialized frame of reference and that does not factor out necessarily or methodologically other possible ways or forms of knowing reality.
Whether or not our "total reality" is ultimately disheveled, a cosmological hodge-podge and a fateful crap shoot, or it is quintessential clockwork that Einstein and others dedicated their lives to discovering, becomes from the meta-logically perspective of meta-systems science and natural systems theory a "hen or egg" kind of dilemma. It is a form of paradox that we cannot answer, like Goedel's Theorem or like the Cretan liar, in the terms of its own intrinsic logic, but can only resolve if we are able to step outside of its conundrum and contextualize the complementariness of its relationship. Niels Bohr wrote especially the importance of the recognition of complementariness of structure in reality and its consequence for our scientific worldview and he applied this to the biological and anthropological sciences as well as to his own fields in physics. In this sense, meta-systems science and natural systems theory therefore follows directly in the footsteps of Niels Bohr's observations about the changing ontological and epistemological status of science in human reality.
The theory embraced by this approach is not without its methodological madness. I have sought a combined systems approach that includes information theory and communication theory with nonlinear dynamics, alternative control theory, theory of automata and alternative intelligence. I have sought thereby to define a legitimate role to the understanding of knowledge systems and knowledge systems theory, the role, function, status and structure of knowledge in our reality, and the possibility and probability of non-human forms of knowledge. Such an approach allows us the opportunity to both grapple with the terms of our arguments, however paradoxical they may seem, with one arm, while keeping the other free to stand and work beyond the terms and terminologies implied by an particular argument or problem set. The objective of such an approach ultimately is to integrate any such knowledge into a larger working system of understanding--a system that is ultimately comprehensive in a total, but relative, sense. Knowledge systems science has many interests and many applications, and knowledge theory leads to both experimental methodologies as well as to knowledge engineering applications. There are many pressing issues in our humanly ordered world that are well addressed through these kinds of applications, and particularly when it comes to the problems of the translation and reconstruction of our knowledge systems, and the use of such systems in the inculcation, integration and adaptation of human reality.
Thus we arrive at a final definition of meta-systems science, and that is of a knowledge systems theory and methodology that has the fundamental problem of the integration of reality and the description and explanation of all real phenomena, whether this is natural or humanly constructed.
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I have formally organized the metasystems framework to encompass five main levels of stratification/articulation. Arbitrarily, these five levels I have called the general or global, the inter-regional, the intermediate or regional level, the areal and the local.
1. Global (or universal or general) encompasses the total metasystem, the total universe, all of reality, or any generally delimited super-systems framework relative to any given system under consideration.
2. The interregional level encompasses basic partitions of the global and focuses upon the problems of the interaction, integration and differentiation of larger regions or mega-systems that tend in their patterning to exhibit structurally stable characteristics. This level generally comprises what can be called "mixed" or heterogeneous metasystems. In terms of physical reality we would refer to the observational universe, non-abstracted systems of applied knowledge (operational methodologies), and larger scale conglomerations of human social organization that tend to be structurally less stable over time than smaller configurations.
3. The regional or intermediate level encompasses in physical terms the main natural divisions of reality--the galaxies and clusters that can be found in the universe, the basic divisions of science between biology, physical phenomena and human phenomena. In organizational terms we can speak generally of departmental organizations. Regional structures tend to be more stable over the long run that larger inter-regional systems. This comprises the main prototypical "systems" level in the classic sense.
4. The areal level politically would include state or provincial kinds of divisions, and socially natural or culturally based distributions of people in space and time. They are the first level of subsystems formation. The areal level in the universe would for instance encompass this galaxy, or this region of the galaxy, or this particular solar system, depending upon one's larger frame of reference.
5. The local area would be politically at the district or county level, and can encompass as well the township or city as a integral entity. It is socially and politically speaking the zone of immediate consequence and articulation of working systems--the everyday, concrete, practical level of people engaged in their daily routines and business affairs.
It is to be seen at once that these levels are ultimately relative, and it is my belief that we cannot define a non-relative system of classification for the stratification of systems in reality. I am of the opinion that the larger metasystem of the total universe is probably infinite and open in certain ways, and that its fundamental structure is probably also infinitesimally reducible. Therefore we can set no absolute upper or lower limits to the kinds of cosmological or geographically based models or systems of classification that we may develop. Similarly, in human knowledge systems, I recognize no extensive or intensive boundaries to what is knowable or possible, and therefore I can observe no non-arbitrary or non-relative systems of classification of this knowledge, in a total sense.
But being relative, the concept of metasystems is not thereby jeopardized or rendered useless either as a system of knowledge organization or working articulation or as a framework of generalization and theoretization about reality. In fact, from a theoretical point, at all levels, there appears to exist what can be considered non-arbitrary and relatively absolute limits or factors that serve to constrain and induce a sense of order to all systems whether these are naturally occurring or are the cultural artifacts of human contrivance and invention. The speed of light and absolute zero appear as two such limits that seem to order at least most observable physical processes.
These levels are given in geographical terms, though they apply equally to the geographic distribution of metasystems in the real world as much as they would to the abstract distribution of knowledge or to the organizational distribution of people in productive or reproductive working contexts. In a simplified framework it is possible to reduce these five levels to three levels, that would correlate with the super-system, system and subsystem framework. These are largely relative categories that depend upon the level and area of application. We could say that any metasystems perspective would in a rudimentary manner encompass at least these three areas. Moving in the other direction, we could state that a metasystems framework could be differentiated to as many as seven or even nine levels coordinate and symmetric with the intermediate level. These seven or nine or even eleven levels of differential stratification would reflect the increasing developmental growth of the metasystems framework that would require either a high degree of deterministic integration or alternatively chaotic self-organization of pattern.
Ultimately, we may articulate or at least stipulate an infinite number of levels for the metasystem that we develop. The proviso of doing so is at least two-fold--first is the consideration of the optimal utility value of increasing differentiation/stratification and the requirements of synthetic integration that such stratification depends upon to be successful. In other words, too much complexity as the result of stratification is not necessarily a good thing, and may in many instances represent an inoptimal kind of solution to any particular problem set. The second proviso follows from the first, and it is the recognition that as systems are stratified to new levels, either ascending or descending (and usually both simultaneously) then what occurs with our systems framework is an exponential "explosion" of complexity and information that must be handled. We reach what can be called a systems "bottleneck" of an information explosion that quickly outstrips our limited means for handling this information in a useful manner. In this sense a simplified, reduced, but workable system is preferable to a complex, heavy and unwieldy one that promises much but falls short in its performance.
It must be emphasized that at whatever level we start at, in a relative way, when we stratify systems we stratify in both directions towards increasing generality/scope and increasing differentiation and intensification at the same time. This is as true for our understanding of physical and biological systems as it is for our development of knowledge or organizational based human systems. In any system, we can posit a kind of differential symmetry of structure which states that for each level descending in the stratification of a system in terms of increasing complexity, there is also a corresponding ascending level of increasing generality that reflects the integrative characteristics of such systems.
Descending order in stratified systems therefore leads to increasing degrees of complication of detail with increasing focus of structure. I call this the differential calculus of descending developmental elaboration of systems. The implicit ascending integrative configuration of such systems I refer to as the integral calculus of ascending developmental generalization of systems. For each level of differentiated elaboration in a system, there may be said to be a corresponding level of integrated generalization relating to that system. These are again relative to a central and intermediate level which can be seen as the main point of reference for any meta-systemic complex.
It has been the case that the elaboration of knowledge has tended towards the descending order, without the same degree of ascending generalization that would be implicit to such systems. To some extent this generally lop-sided situation in the articulation of our knowledge systems can be related to the fact that general ordering and organization of systems tend to have political and structural overtones and implications that are controlled human interests groups. As a result, generalized metasystems tend to be overall fragmented and to reflect the fragmentation and hyper-compartmentalization of knowledge systems across the board. The general direction of development of metasystems are therefore in the hands of powerful interest groups that arbitrarily constrain this development in preferred ways.
What is sought in any metasystems framework is what can be called certain design elements that allow working metasystems to remain optimally practical and adaptable. These design features may include something like the following:
Modularization of componential subsystems.
Multipurpose or general purpose systems.
Inter-system transference and exchange networks.
Practical problem set delimitation & working definition.
Componential reduction of complex problem sets to smaller, more workable units.
What is also sought as a goal in all metasystems applications is ultimately the achievement of a relatively optimizing heterogenous solution that serves to reduce the information bottle-neck by means of simplification of the information flow and handling functions. These kinds of solutions are largely achieved through reorganization or reconfiguration of working elements and the modification of these working elements (streamlining, specialized adaptation) or the invention of new working elements, that serve to simplify and reduce the larger problem set to practical and workable proportions.
In the elaboration of stratified metasystems, it is not long before the complexity of detail tends to swamp out and preclude the possibility of elegance and simplicity of understanding of pattern. The information explosion that occurs as a result is an expected outcome of such developmental elaboration of systems. Heterogeneous optimizing solutions provide us a reasonable handle for managing, manipulating and controlling such complexity. Generalizing frameworks that are seen as being complementary to particularizing instantiations of pattern should at least in principle if not in practice provide the sense of direction and structural understanding that permits effective resolution or solution of problem sets to be developed.
It is apparent as well that the intermediate level remains in all frameworks however simplified or developed as the central anchor and reference level for any metasystems framework. Again, this intermediate level is largely a relative point of reference though I have arbitrarily anchored this level in a basic human systems framework within the larger system. This follows the logic of the anthropological relativity of all knowledge systems that are extant, and can only be revised when and if we encounter alien forms of intelligent life that offer to us alternative knowledge systems.
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Meta-systems theory allows us to step back from the complications and complexity of systems theory, or from any given system that we are considering, and to find a shared frame of reference as well as an alternative, synthetic methodological approach to the understanding of these systems that is equal and equally scientific compared to any analytic approach. Metasystems as a framework for systematic science fills a void and a deep need in the sciences, for the sciences generally fall down in the problem of synthesis and in areas where problems of synthesis of understanding come to the foreground. As such a systematic operational approach to metasystems is complementary to typical experimental approaches in science. Nowhere does a metasystems approach replace analysis and observation in science or a reliance upon empirical knowledge. Metasystems therefore provides for us a systematic means for assessing and putting together our ideas and theoretical constructs, our conceptual models, that relate the facts and information we have in relation to a scientific view of the world. Metasystems is an approach that is centrally concerned with the problem o the construction and revision of scientific worldview, its organization and reevaluation when it proves contradictory to known or demonstrable facts.
As the result of theoretical development in natural systems theory, I've come to a new framework within which to construe science methodologically as an integrated system that is both intrinsically and extrinsically inter-disciplinary by design and that comes to focus on real world problems sets that are defined by their heterogeneity and complexity and by their lack of single factor solutions. I have referred to this approach to science via applied natural systems theory as metasystems science, or meta-science for short. We might look upon it as science of science or as a system of a system, but we must understand it as well as constituting its own applied operational framework that combines and incorporates a broad range of methodologies and interests with its own unique methods and interests that serve to demarcate it out as a separate scientific concern, albeit focused upon the problem of integration, stratification and differentiation of natural systems.
Applied metasystems can be said to be project-based systems that articulate in the real world to serve a variety of purposes that are strategically designed within a metasystems framework. These systems are knowledge based in the sense that their functioning and successful, adaptive articulation depend upon application of appropriate information and accurate understanding of problem sets and contingencies in an on-going process.
Imagine the beginning of a metasystem is a germinal proto-type that is like a seed that one plants into the ground. It slowly grows under conditions of fertilization and develops and in the process differentiates based upon its inherent design template. Its differentiation into specialized subsystems and components is far more complex than we can even imagine a system like a tree or an animal. When we consider that such systems occur not singly, but in populations, we see that this proto-type system will grow not only to its only limits, but reproduce itself in a growing multitude to create an entire population of metasystems.
Ideally, the metasystem offers the most appropriate and optimal solutions upon multiple levels--local, regional, inter-regional, and global, as well as extraterrestrial regions, and furthermore these solutions are fully coordinate and integrative between the levels at which they are applied.
The metasystem is designed and intended to serve as a system within a system as well as without a system. Its purpose is to eufunctionally reinforce preexisting systems in a manner that alleviates the stress of circumscription that these systems invariably suffer from. The articulation of the metasystem should lead to net greater achieved efficiency in the utilization of basic energy resources, through informational redesign, as well as an increased productivity of such energy resources through alternative sustainable sources and integrative technologies. It represents therefore a more for less design revolution that was spoken of by R. Buckminster Fuller.
Imagine a single integrated system of human organization on earth that was relatively non-authoritarian and non-totalitarian in its effects and control structures, offering to people the potential for the maximum fulfillment of their lives in a healthy manner. It sounds like a millennial vision close to paradise--a social dream come true. But it is the promise of science, not religion, which can make possible a better world that is free of the violence, the uncertainty and the problems that plague perennially our human dominated world.
There is a sense in developmental modernization of a convergence of optimal adaptive design, and of integration of knowledge systems. If one follows the logical and natural consequences of developmental systems to their final conclusions, then one can see clearly that certain critical pathways are vital to the achievement of a world system, and other pathways are guaranteed deadends. It follows that a successful world system must achieve equilibrium and consonance within a global ecology, and therefore must be built upon an energy platform that at once offers the superabundance of derivable sources of power, and at the same time is minimally destructive to the global ecosystem. We are lead by means of such logic, if it is rigorously pursued, to conclude that our choices for a successful future are perhaps more narrow than we may otherwise believe to be the case, and that the viable options we have for consideration may not be so viable in the long run.
I propose the deliberate elaboration by intentional design and integration of a single integrated, global and extra-terrestrial metasystem, the purpose of which is to secure for life on earth and for the human species a stable earth-bound platform for survival in the long run. This design of the metasystem is by definition grandiose but it seems to me at this stage of our development of modern civilization neither unrealistic nor undesirable when compared to the alternative scenarios that might develop if we do not pay heed or figure out our future prospects in any clear sense.
Any government that fails to pay heed now to a metasystems design framework, when one is clearly available and articulatable in the world, must be considered to some extent to be negligible and recalcitrant in their primary sense of responsibility for the care-taking and welfare of its people and for the earth. Governments control the wealth and structure of any nation enough that they do not need to await alleged considerations of market receptivity or marketability of alternative and new technologies that are mandated by a metasystems approach. To use these kinds of excuses to not pursue in an aggressive manner new technological platforms, when the expertise and experience is already at hand, is to abnegate from its central responsibility to the future of the people.
I do not claim that a metasystems approach is the end all or final answer for all the world's problems. I see a metasystems framework as a possibility that is emergent from the development of scientific knowledge and new technologies, but its full articulation seems to require that we even rethink to some degree our traditional sciences and their applications in a manner that encourages inter-disciplinary transfer and feedback between different branches of the sciences, and general knowledge integration across many otherwise disparate regions of information and knowledge.
The challenges and promise of a metasystems approach in a contemporary and future setting of global development runs much deeper than merely the improvisation and implementation of new productive technologies. It entails as well a general symbolic reorientation and what has been called a general "maze-way" reformulation of worldview that permits people to see through many of the unquestioned prejudices and illusions of their beliefs and knowledge, and to adopt a completely new symbolic foundation for a worldview that can be shared cross-culturally by all of humanity.
I see a metasystems approach therefore, if it is to be carried forward in any viable manner, as to be potentially far-reaching and revolutionary in relation to the modern world upon a number of levels. I do not see the world that is based upon a fossil-fuel industrial platform, as it is now, being able to achieve the energy-production levels that would permit it to attain a higher-order energy production state as a world civilization. The only sources of fuel available to humankind that would permit this higher-order energy level are the combined resources of solar energy, hydrogen-water conversion and gravitational energy. The availability and cheapness of energy is a major cornerstone to the development of any civilization, and the fact that the entire energy industry in the world is held predominantly in the hands of a few oil-moguls and their governments runs against the spirit and the grain of a metasystems framework.
The second resource cornerstone of a metasystems framework for the achievement of world civilization would be the wide-spread production and distribution of healthy and inexpensive food. This second requirement requires, like the first, successful government coordinated intervention in farming and agricultural projects that would elevate the production levels and facilitate the processing and distribution of food-stuffs throughout the world. This resource cornerstone of a metasystem is connected to the third cornerstone, and that is a healthy natural metabiotic system in which human systems can articulate successfully, nondestructively and adaptively. Human development and modernization does not need to be destructive or out of synch with the natural world, but can achieve a role of stewardship and care-taking over the planet. The planet is one big greenhouse and we are its managers now and care-takers. We are also its principle occupants.
It is upon these pillars that I see the bridge to our collective human future being built, and this foundation constitutes the basis for a elaborated, applied metasystems framework on the earth. A metasystems framework has other and farther reaching implications for the organization and transmission of knowledge than the applied forms to the solution of earth-bound dilemmas. There are important theoretical and philosophical considerations of such a metasystems framework, and there are also other implications forthcoming from such an alternative framework that involve how we articulate science and technology, and how we adapt to and relate to natural systems both on the earth and beyond the bounds of the earth's gravitational hold. It is these other considerations that I turn to in this text, as they serve as a prelude and a symbolic-conceptual foundation for an applied approach to metasystems.
I see metasystems as a theory about the possible arrangement and state of human affairs on earth that is a consequence of the reconceptualization and reorganization of our knowledge systems in a manner that would permit us to wield these systems with greater effect and efficiency in our future endeavors. Thus its elaboration comes as a prelude and necessary precursor to the achievement of such a real working system upon the earth.
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The logic of a general or applied metasystems approach, and of natural systems theory, is in a sense inexorable. If one accepts its primes, then one cannot but help follow it to its nth-conclusions as a kind of knowledge system. It is not merely a logic of propositions, but a human based intuitive and creative logic that leads to the testing of alternative propositions and the proposal of new possibilities. It is furthermore a form of symbolic logic, or reasoning that is tied to the symbolic representation, particularly through language, of reality. It is a logic that is unconstrained by prior knowledge or preconceptions, at least not in any relativistic sense. From this standpoint, systems are systems, and all things in reality cohere into systems that can be understood and explained as such. Thus in such an approach there is little direct prior attachment to the signification or implications of knowledge.
The logic that is inherent to a metasystems approach could be said to be inherently metalogical. It is in a sense a logic of logic, but it is also a kind of grand and natural alternative logic that permits us to step beyond, at least in theory and imagination, the boundaries of classical logical systems, to entertain and construct alternative possibilities in the world. The investigation of alternative possibilities comes before and is a prerequisite to the discovery of new knowledge about the world. It is a systematic methodology that entails distinguishing analytically between what is possible and what proves impossible.
The logic of the metasystem is that any system requires work to build and maintain, hence systems must conform to basic laws of thermodynamics and usually must operate within certain margins of efficiency or limits of tolerance. All systems are imperfect in the sense that they adhere to the laws of thermodynamics, and all systems, as situations bound within a space-time continuum, are marked by phases of beginning, growth, maturation and decline and final demise as such. All systems can be said to be composite and therefore intrinsically heterogeneous.
The inherent heterogeneity of all metasystems, indeed of all systems possible in nature, if we accept as true the infinite reducibility of nature, adds a dimension of complexity to our understanding of metasystems in general. Metasystems are inherently complex systems, and as such they tend to have other characteristics such as undetermined and non-linear dynamic character. Non-linear dynamics makes the mathematical modeling of such systems super-difficult, but the stochastic chaos usually allows us to simplify our understanding of such systems heuristically on the basis of a few key or composite variables, which form the basis for theoretical discussion and hypothesis formulation in regard to such systems when little is known in detail about them.
The logic of metasystems thus tests the limits of our own knowledge, and seeks to extend these limits to regions otherwise unknown in a systematic manner. We follow its operational methodologies and heuristic problem solving or knowledge engineering strategies in order to develop more realistic and more accurate representations and propositional frameworks about metasystems. As a meta-logic, the logic of metasystems thus becomes a logical form that is self-correcting, a kind of learning system that is capable of testing its own premises and propositions of reality and thereby modifying its propositions in keeping with reality.
The logic of the metasystem becomes ultimately the logic of the system of systems, and in the largest context of all, systems gain their sense of purpose and function in relation to the larger meta-systemic framework in which they are situated in terms of their articulation and achieved integration.
The logic of the metasystem also entails that, because the metasystem is a knowledge-based framework, it is a human system first and foremost, and is relative to a human kind of logic, or what I would call "symbologic." Thus metasystems are primarily human systems of knowledge and it is important to understand therefore the implications of this human dimension in metasystems. We can be referring therefore to eidetic physical structures in reality, say the system composed by a hydrogen atom, but we must in the process take into account in an explicit manner the point of view of the human observer, and more importantly, the human inferer, in the understanding of such a physical system, much less the application of such a system to other kinds of systems.
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The metasystem can be seen not just as an ideological or programmatic framework but also in a more general sense as a symbolic framework, and indeed it is so because all human knowledge is by design symbolically structured and articulated as a dialectic, or an on going problem solving, question asking, adaptational strategy that is based upon knowledge representation. The symbolic aspects of a metasystems approach and its implications for reality need to be made more explicit. We must see these symbolic dimensions as not just ideological frameworks for defining a particular viewpoint of the world and reality, but as the fundamental way in which we construe reality, psychologically, socially, culturally and linguistically, as well as how this reality becomes organized and shaped through our knowledge systems and experience. It is clear that our knowledge shapes our experience of the world as much as our experience shapes how we think about and come to know and relate to the world. There is a sense that the articulation of metasystems integration will come to reflect and be reflected in the symbolic integration of human knowledge and in symbolic representations. On a global scale we can talk about the emergence of a global culture, or meta-culture, that would be a product of this dialectical process and its development. There is furthermore a sense that, because symbolic structure is how knowledge shapes and becomes shaped experientially, that the metasystem becomes the medium as well as the message and the meaning. In other words, we should look to this form of metasystems integration not just in terms of shared knowledge structures, common consensus and agreement on basic facts and ideas about reality, but in terms of how we come to cognitive see and think about the world in a fundamental way.
The inherent symbolic divisiveness and the natural tendency towards symbolic dialectological differentiation that has been pervasive in human history and probably throughout most of its prehistory, is contrary to a fundamental trend suggested by metasystems integration toward the achievement of a common symbolic foundation and framework that is flexible and adaptable enough to work for most if not all people in the world regardless of their other cultural and historical differences. I see an effective metasystems framework as capable, perhaps for the first time in human history, of overcoming the basic cleavages and deep-seated divisiveness that is a product of cultural and symbolic differences between different human societies and cultural systems. I do not see this as being particularly or exclusively religious or scientific in orientation or result, but as a symbolic framework that is larger than this and inclusive of these frameworks in alternative senses. Metasystems as a framework offers a comprehensive enough symbolic platform to reconcile philosophically religion and science, as well as different ethnocultural orientations, all in a systematic manner.
The symbolic dimensionality of a metasystems framework rests upon the anthropological relativity of all human knowledge, and recognition of the basic manner in which this knowledge is universally structured and culturally conditioned. It becomes only by means of such a framework that the conception of anthropological relativity and symbolic structuration of knowledge can be most clearly objectified and to some extent, "controlled for" in our accounting of the effect that the knower brings to the thing that is being known as well as to the "relative" state of knowledge of the world. In other words, it provides us a means of stepping outside of the ideological circle of knowledge in order to reflect upon knowledge as an ideological system. It is this that leads us to the role of the anthropology of knowledge and cultural constructivism in understanding the articulation of knowledge and its principle evolutionary function in human adaptation.
There is a sense that the strategic point of view of the outside-inside observer that is possible through an anthropological paradigm of knowledge has been critical to the development of a metasystems approach as well as to the development of natural systems theory at all levels of its articulation. It is only by stepping beyond the ideological-behavioral frameworks of knowledge systems that we can evaluate these systems critically and in a neutral and objective manner. Intellectual development in the anthropology of knowledge forces this kind of exceptional orientation and positioning in the world of knowledge.
To the extent that the metasystem is a knowledge based system that depends upon the transmission, articulation and modification of knowledge in the world, we can say that a central concern of a metasystems approach is in the symbolic acquisition of new forms and functions of knowledge systems, and indeed the development of new knowledge systems themselves. And this concern centrally falls upon the problem of human development, and especially upon the problem of education and knowledge acquisition. Education and its redesign within a metasystems framework has been identified as a central and probably pivotal component of an applied metasystems strategy.
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I propose metasystems theory as the basis for the integration of sciences upon a new level of articulation, or for the elucidation of what I would call meta-science, which would comprise the methodologies and knowledge stock of metasystems theory. The basis for metasystems theory and meta-science rests upon the inference that all things in reality are interconnected, however remotely, upon one level or another, and this interconnection between things is the basis for the integration of reality. It is the regular and recurrent nature of these interconnections, as well as the variant processes of change that occur within such interactions, that constitutes the basis of knowledge and metasystems science. The disparate nature of knowledge in different scientific domains has tended to occlude what can be considered an interdisciplinary approach to natural and real world problem sets in reality, much of which by nature demands input from a variety of different disciplines and perspectives. What is occluded I believe is not only a coherent and comprehensive worldview that can be called scientific, but also, and more important, a general operational approach to the understanding of reality that rests upon such comprehensiveness of perspective. If reality is an undichotomized whole, if real systems that occur within it happen in a naturally integrated manner, then it stands to reason that the knowledge systems we derive from and bring to bear upon this reality might be also similarly integrated and reflect this holism and comprehensiveness of perspective.
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Science has proceeded upon foundations that have been empirically and methodologically strong, but theoretically and conceptually weak. It has been weakened in part by the lack of an overarching worldview that can be considered to be scientific. This central and general weakness pervades all fields of science, more or less. It is not so much the case that human beings are creatures with limited conceptual abilities, so much as it is the symbolic form and function that human conceptuality takes, and the inherent constraints placed upon conceptual systems by the fact of their symbolization. Symbolization involves more than metaphorical encapsulization or linguistic expression. It also entails a level of organic embodiment of the symbolisms such that they seem real. Such concretization of symbolizations tends to obscure the facticity of their abstract character and origin, the result of which are the perpetuation of certain kinds of informal fallacies of reason and undue and unself-critical attachment to received points of view. This creates the foundation, as Kuhn remarked, for making scientific though paradigmatic and for its constructive reification.
It comes to me as a paradox perhaps, that it is often the case that scholarship in the humanities and affiliated social sciences tends to achieve a much stronger conceptual foundation and prowess than in the sciences, though the former disciplines by their nature lack a strong empirical or methodological orientation that is comparable to the sciences.
It is the case as well that conceptual systems and the languages that encode these in the sciences tend toward a strong mathematical model that constrain conceptual abstraction in certain ways that lacks the flexibility that symbolization and a concern with a looser system logodaedaly permits.
The strength of conceptual development rests in several parameters:
1. A strong and detailed knowledge of facts and realities.
2. A critical and reflexive approach to all such knowledge.
3. The capacity to construct alternative systems to fit realities.
4. The critical development of such systems and their reality testing.
This approach is not fundamentally different from a general form of scientific method that incorporates heuristic problem solving and hypothetico-deductive experimentation. Indeed it is not, except that it tends, I believe, to be looser and more powerful on the abstract end of things than are the received realities of scientific theoretization.
My concern in the development of a general metasystems approach for the sciences is two-fold at least. First it is my desire to offer to the general sciences a means for developing conceptual systems that are at once stronger and more flexible both because they are less prone to the ideological and paradigmatic conundrums of their own facticity as constructions, and because they offer a more powerful means of conceptual construction than that afforded by a strict reliance upon mathematical description. Secondly, it is to provide for general science an actual set of conceptual constructions that stand as a set of alternative constructs for further development of ideas surrounding central issues in the sciences.
The Greek philosopher's realized a form of conceptual development that was far stronger and more powerful than any other period of human history. They used largely a critical approach to naturalistic observation, combined with a rigorous logic tied to language and a notion of "truth" that permitted them to construct models of their world that were far in advance of their actual technological state. We find in Leonardo da Vinci and in Albert Einstein a similar conceptual prowess of mind, and in Charles Darwin a realization of this prowess for the biological sciences.
I believe that it is Einstein's analogy of attempting to figure out the mechanisms of a watch by the external examination of a pocket-fob that provides us the clue to the understanding of a natural systems theoretic approach. In this, the role of both inductive inference in the face of empirical uncertainty, and hypothetico-deductivism in the midst of rational uncertainty, are critically important as a way for logically deriving and evaluation different kinds of conclusions.
Often it seems that ideas and theories surrounding reality are set in the stone of social consciousness, with a sense of commitment and investment into them that is all too humanly real. Conceptual systems are nothing but framing devices that can be applied for best fit to anything we want to use them for. They can be concocted and constructed for almost any context or situation that we wish to deal with. They permit insight, as beyond the face of the pocket-fob, and they permit understanding of hidden realities beyond the face that leads to a form of vision with the mind.
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Metasystems science is the basis for natural systems theory. Basic rules underlie all complex event structures, and these can lead through interactive development to chaotic patterning such as we observe in all of nature. These rules order all relationships and constrain their interactions in certain determinative ways. These rules are rarely so absolutely determinative that they do not permit a range of variation of pattern to result even in very basic relationships in nature. The form of the rules and resulting epigenetic patterns are very similar in all systems, and we can describe these using certain kinds of mathematical metaphors, such as non-linear control systems and inter-harmonic oscillatory feedback systems. We can say that physically, all natural systems behave somehow to the basic and universal rules of thermodynamics. Therefore, for natural systems to have achieved the kind of systemic order of relations that define their implicit rule structures, they must be capable of performing some kind of work, which can be defined as the directive organization of free energy toward some reiterative or determinative function. This usually is characterized as some kind of feedback process that leads to predictable states of energy transformation or transference. We can see in all
natural systems a stochastic tendency for emergent patterns of order from a random background of disorder. Most natural systems arrive at these emergent patterns as the result of organization and work that happens as a result of a complex set of underlying event structures that are themselves relatively non-isotrope.
If we see the entire universe and all things within it as being constrained by a universal background that can be said to be cosmologically isotropic, then we can all event structures that occur within this background, that are configured upon this substrate, at any level, as being relatively non-isotropic or partially determinative structures. What appears to occur with natural systems of all kinds and classes is the emergence of new properties at new levels of "integration" that are the result of underlying patterns of relatively local non-isotropic structures. Physical reality can be said to be stratified like so many tissues on an onion such that at whatever level we wish to identify order and pattern, we can find it composed of underlying orders and processes that are themselves composed of underlying orders and processes.
It has been a central tenant of natural systems theory that this process of analytical reductionism in nature can continue ad infinitum--the structure of physical reality can be said to be infinitesimally reducible such that we can define no final absolute, self-constitutive "atoms" or particles of reality.
Another tenant of natural systems theory is that the total universe, that comprises all of physical reality, is infinite in extent. We can recognize no limit or boundary to its external structure or distribution. The infinitesimal and infinite aspects of the universe are complementary and I believe interdependent notions.
The third tenant of natural systems theory follows from the first two, and it concerns time in relation to space. Time is also without limit, hence we can say that the universe is eternal--it had no beginning, and will have no final end.
These three tenants cannot be directly proven or demonstrated in any empirical manner, though I believe, given enough physical evidence, we can derive their proof in a deductive manner. I would claim that these proofs can be found in logical extension of the universal laws of thermodynamics, which specifies that for any limited system we may define, there will always be a surrounding vacuum or energy sink within which that system operates in a thermodynamic manner.
It is indeed difficult to reconcile these kinds of notions with our symbolic understanding of reality. We naturally seek beginnings and ends to all processes. We cannot think of something that is not somehow "bounded" and limited in some way. Reality seems more solid if there is something fundamentally hard to rest upon.
The second set of claims in natural systems theory is that all process in the universe is essentially random, indeed, inherently uncertain process, and that all order arises stochastically and relatively from a background of disorder. At whatever level, rules that order the universe are implicit and relatively underdetermined structures that are the consequence of the isotropic organization of reality. There is no predetermination or grand a priori design involved in this patterning or its underlying relational structures.
We can say that the total universe is composed of physical reality, and this physical reality is in its most basic sense random and isotropic in structure. Order and pattern emerge in physical reality as a result of the inherent randomness and possible variation of pattern that are permitted within it. We cannot say, I believe, that physical reality is the same in a relative sense in all areas of the total universe except in the most basic and fundamental level of its lack of overall order and organization. I believe we can make a claim that physical reality is infinitely variable in a relative manner, and this infinite variability of structural patterning of physical reality can be called its intensive infinitude. Intensive infinitude can be used as a form of deductive proof of the analytical infinitesimal structure of physical reality. In general we can call the universe a non-zero state universe.
In a non-zero state universe, we can say that in physical reality there cannot be nothing.
As a result, we can define no absolute structural discontinuities of pattern in the universe.
In terms of time and space, there can occur no absolutely discontinuous states in physical reality.
All discontinuities of physical reality are therefore relative to the structure of time and space in which they are found to occur.
Relative discontinuities are universal in occurrence.
We may say that all naturally occurring structures are non-predetermined. We may state the following principle.
1. There is no absolute predetermination in physical reality.
a. If some form of causal determination is found to exist, it is a relative and partial form.
As a result, we say that all order in physical reality is incipient and emergent in its manifestation.Order does not exist before its demonstration in patterned regularity, and design does not exist independently of the phenomena that design stands for. I believe it to be a fallacy of misplaced abstraction to mistake our symbolic conception of design for some abstract reality that exists independently and a priori to the reality that it is associated with. Sense of order is what we bring conceptually to the patterning we observe--order is inherent to the phenomenal patterning of reality but is not independent of this patterning.
It follows that, if we adopt a premise about a zero or non-zero state system as a model for the fundamental structure of physical reality and for the total universe as a whole, then these premises may lead to radically different kinds of conclusions. It must be seen that, whatever our starting assumptions, or whatever the exploration of alternative assumptions may entail in our theory construction, whatever structural models we do adopt should conform in principle to the basic rules that can be said to regulate all systems.
If we find systems in which properties are intrinsic and emergent from the patterning itself, we can speak of a pattern of an emerging state universe. Emergent states, that can be characterized by a distinct set of associated properties, can be said to compose natural systems at all levels. It makes no sense then to attempt to superimpose a model of the structure of the universe that would be fundamentally at odds with this characterization of emergent states.
In this manner, information that we attribute to systems by virtue of their design organization and functioning, is a form of knowledge that we bring to the experience and understanding of such systems. In scientific form, they usually represent abstractly generalized and adumbrated explanatory models for such systems as a generalizable class of patterns that are observable in reality. We can say that information is inherent to the natural design of systems, though this design is only implicit and intrinsic to the patterning of this system. Information reflects the alternative states and transformation of systems, and the repetition of pattern found in such systems.
All natural systems that perform some kind of work can be said to have latent or inherent information, which can be said to be a structural and repetitive order of pattern in relations of components of such systems that renders such systems partially determinable or relatively deterministic. This information reflects discrete emergent properties that relate to the energy dynamics that are associated and involved in these systems. Real systems work because they involve the transfer of energy in discrete states and amounts, and they can be said to contain information because they are organized functionally as such systems.
Informational properties or attributes that we may ascribe to systems are the sense-making function of our knowledge and understanding that we bring to our experience of such systems. It is experience that is always mediated through some form of sensory input and modulation, and frequently by means of other technological instruments that permit us to perform measurements and to extend our compass of observation to a wider range of phenomena in reality. Information in natural systems reflects our own sense of intelligence that we apply to such systems. It does not relect any sense of intelligence that is inherent to such systems, especially if such a definition of intelligence is used in the manner of meaning some kind of arbitrary or predeterminative function.
Strict application of the laws of thermodynamics determines that in nature there can be no completely closed or self-contained systems, just as there can be no fully determined or predetermined systems. All systems must in some manner interconnect and open out onto a larger reality. Among other things, this openness entails that all natural systems will have an inherent life-cycle or state-path trajectory such that each such system can be said to have a beginning, and intermediate period of development, and some end or terminus as a system, beyond which point the components of the system cease interdependency and are recycled back to the larger system from which it was configured in the first place.
Reality can be seen as a vast system of transference and exchanges and transformations of objects from one state to another, from one level to another. Change is the only universal principle that we can apply to reality, in relation of course to the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. We can say that the basis for all observed physical changes in the universe is a change in the energy state of a system and its related properties.
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Emergent Properties, Complex States and Metasystems
Emergent properties are what characterize naturally ordered systems that achieve relative non-isotropic integration, and these properties create holistic systems within systems and lead to the stratification of reality upon multiple levels of design and function. Emergent properties permit the organization of entire sets of subsystems into a single system, which can then be treated as a member of another larger superset. Rules of order and relation underlying such systems may in fact be quite simple and underdetermined from the standpoint of the operating components and their behavior, and yet they are sufficient to give rise to a new order and level of integration over the system.
We may define a metasystem in terms of the emergent patterns and properties that characterize such a system. This implies that any metasystem, as a naturally occurring phenomenon, is complex and multiply determined by different components. It follows that the intentions of a metasystems science is to seek to explicate and understand the emergent properties and processes that are associated with complex event structures and patterns in reality upon different levels. There may be underlying structures or patterns of relation between different levels that would be similar or non-isotropic.
Emergent properties of systems arise as the result of the consistent interactions between the components of a system, and is generally defined by a complex set of equilibria that such systems are capable of maintaining over time. The key defining trait of emergent systems is their cardinality or determination that permits them to be characterized and to function, as a single coherent system.
We are left with a paradox, in that all definable systems are subsystems of the universe, within which everything is interconnected, and hence such systems are finite, but they exist within a total, overall system that is itself infinite in scope and extent. It is difficult to define the total universe in a systemic way that takes into account its infinitudes, except as a metasystem or a metastate universe that comprises an infinite series of alternative state universes that are distributed in both time and space.
To the extent that systems are interconnected to other systems, they can be said to be multiply determined or underdetermined by such connections. Any system has some minimal measure of independent determination of function that allows it to be distinguished on some level as unique and separate from all other systems. Any system must therefore have some sense of a boundary mediating mechanism that creates a sense of segregation of function of the system. Feedback mechanisms in semi-closed loops generally define such mechanisms. To the extent that a system develops feedback between its various components, can that system be said to be relatively independent and partially self-determined as a separate system.
Each delimited state in nature may be characterized by the properties that it exhibits. Properties can be defined as those energy based patterns that are made predictable as a result of the systemic integration of components of a system. A series of states that are integrated both in time and in place can be said to constitute a system.
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Super-complexity, Natural Stratification and Metasystems
Metasystems in nature would not exist were it not for the emergent properties associated with underlying structural patterns of relation and determination. It follows that there is a tendency in nature for metasystems to develop into what can be called super-complex states of development, and we may understand a super-complex metasystem as being one in which emergent properties are derived from other emergent properties that may be derived from even other emergent properties, such that systems are built on top of other systems, at the base of which may in fact be yet other complex systems. For a superimposed system to be effective at a higher level, it must be capable of keeping in check and controlling the functioning and state-path behavior in a more deterministic manner than these systems might otherwise exhibit if they were not bound in nature to a larger sense of order.
Super-complexity denotes also what are known as supercritical states, or what can be called overdeveloped conditions that lead to saturation of systems and hence their potential crises or the rise of unpredictable supercritical events that hasten the breakdown of the system or its reduction to a lower level of stability.
We see most metasystems as occupying and existing in a kind of steady-state equilibrium, and equilibrium better characterized perhaps as dynamic state. It is furthermore a complex equilibrium that defines the metasystem in terms of its super-complexity. I will define super-complexity as an information function, as the number of possible alternative transition states that may occur at the same time, in succession. It can be seen that modeling such systems or creating solutions to the kinds of problems they pose quickly achieves a search solution space of astronomical complexity. To say astronomical is not inappropriate, because in spite of its underlying order, the universe itself constitutes the ultimate super-complex metasystem, and we can see how super-complexity is articulated within the physical reality of the universe itself.
We find super-complexity at any order of natural reality we examine, and the solutions we are able to derive for many problems represent really only rough and ready estimates and approximations in lieu of the ideal standards based upon parsimony and exactness of fit. It stands to reason that our methods for studying metasystems must be capable of effectively handling the super-complexity that such systems incorporate. This is not always possible, but it strikes me that this is a goal to strive for in the construction of complex alternative systems. Most often, we subsume complexity beneath labels and terms that mere gloss the problem in terms of its most salient (at least to ourselves) dimensions. This leads to considerable observational and interpretive parallax towards events and the problem sets that are implicit to them. Beyond the relativity that super-complexity confronts us with, the limitations of our own knowledge systems, we must seek to get at this sense of complexity in a manner that will permit their accurate and faithful modeling without necessary oversimplification or over elaboration of detail.
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Anything may be considered a metasystem, if it is looked at from a complementary standpoint that considers the behavior, holistic integration and functional composition of the thing in a systematic manner. Metasystemic studies therefore consitutes a specific kind of perspective, both critical and hermeneutic, toward an understanding of naturally occurring phenomena in reality. Science is inherently metasystemic if it is not ideologically bound to a certain preconceived framework or paradigm. Since all science is to some extent paradigmatically biased, it can be said that science achieves a metasystemic perspective to the extent that it is able to overcome and control such bias.
If anything is a possible metasystem, it is to be considered a particular instance of a broader class, or a complex intersection of a range of different classes, of phenomena. These hypothetical classes of phenomena are expressed temporally as well as spatially, and in this sense we may refer to the life-cycle or trajectory of things, and the possible patterning of alternative trajectories expressed by a class of things. In this sense, we may say for instance that a culture is a metasystemic class, a complex set of things, of which any one individual member is but an example of this class. It can be seen that classes define the range of variation possible, and that they tend to be complex polythetic systems that share certain affinities at some percentage or proportion.
No two things are exactly alike, nor can such things occur at exactly the same place and the same time. This entails that each instance of a metasystem, of a thing so described, will be unique and particular to a given set of circumstances shared in an exact way by no other system.
Classes are lumped into other classes, and we develop taxonomic hierarchies of relationship and membership of things in larger and larger systems. By this means we trace the relationship and relativity of things in the context of other things, and determine the degree of distance between things. This is true of the taxonomic classification of life on earth, that implies an evolutionary tree of development--the exact disposition of things within this large tree may be open to question, but the general shape and distribution of the main branches are known and accepted by consensus of agreement. Everything alive has an exact historical and natural provenience that relates it, however remotely or indirectly, to every other living thing on the earth.
We may make the following generalizations about natural metasystems:
1. All of physical reality, which includes the total universe, constitutes a single grand meetasystem that is in some complex manner minimally integrated.
2. All naturally occurring metasystems in reality are interrelated, however remotely, to one another, at least on some minimal basis.
3. All metasystems are incompletely determined, and to the extent that they are underdetermined, they are subject to change.
4. Change can occur systematically and stochastically, and the study of systematic change, or the dynamics of metasystems, is the basis for scientific inquiry into such systems.
5. To the extent that systems are determined in some basic way, it can be expected that they will not change in that basic way and they will exhibit no pattern variation.
6. In the final analysis, only nothing does not change absolutely, therefore all things change in a relative way.
In this last regard, we can say that both order and disorder become structured in complex ways and interact dialectically with one another at multiple levels of pattern integration. Much of this patterning is referred to as chaotic and it leads to the automatic formation of structures that exhibit emergent properties. We can say that physical reality, in total and in all its parts, is inherently dynamic as a universal structure--in both its sum total and in all its many parts. Change seems to be the only truly universal characteristic of metasystems science.
Metasystems concerns first the analysis of the processes of stratification of natural systems, and secondly, the total or holistic systems that emerge upon each level of natural stratification. The sense of metasystemic holism applies not only to systems in a total or universal way, but to the description of entire subsystems as these occur separately in space and time, in relation to a larger metasystemic context. Thus the geophysical study of the earth constitutes a metasystemic study of a complete subsystem within the framework of the solar system of which it is a part, and also of the larger universe. The earth is made up of many components and dynamic processes in variegated structures, and in a sense is a complex heterogeneous mixture of these components with a patterning that defies any neat or parsimonious formulation.
Metasystems necessarily concerns chaotic and undetermined systems as these occur naturally in reality. The effort of metasystems is to seek to understand the structural and functional aspects of entire systems, their life-cycles and alternative pathways of development, as well as the kinds of chance influences that affect the development and state-path trajectories of such systems. It is furthermore to excoriate the deeper structural levels of such systems to understand out its various components might cohere and be accounted for in the first place.
Within a metasystemic framework, we can refer to the entire or total universe as a comprehensive metasystem. Thus, we can also refer to the biospherical system of the earth, the only known place in the Universe where life exists, as constituting also a total comprehensive metasystem. Also, as well, we can say that the human species, somewhat remarkably, have also come to constitute on earth a comprehensive metasystem.
The analysis of stratification between levels implied in metasystems research entails in a sense both cross-disciplinary perspectives between many fields of study, as well as a metaphysical and metalogical comprehension of the basic patterns of relation that occur between all levels from a systems point of view. From the standpoint of naturally occurring metasystems, problem sets are created that cross-cut many disciplinary boundaries of expertise and scholarly interest.
It can be said that in general, most metasystems are mixed and heterogenous, and most of them exhibit a complexity of phenomenal patterning that resists simple or straight-forward descriptive explanation, regardless of their size or scale of organization. Metasystems in general tend to be historically unique though they share fundamental properties with all other possible systems.
The dialectic between metasystems and natural systems
Symbolically, a metasystem may be many things at the same time depending upon its use and context. I use the term to mean several things, and this symbolic and metaphoric flexibility of the term does not diminish its value as a critical concept in understanding the integration of knowledge in general.
First, a metasystem may mean a "system of a system" or what might be seen as a general model of which many real systems are approximations or variants. We see in science that we construct general theoretical models of natural systems, and then test out our models for goodness of fit either observationally or experimentally, revising our models when there appear to be systematic discrepancies with the evidence of natural phenomena. A theoretical model of a natural system, say an ecosystem, therefore represents a kind of "metasystem" of that natural system.
Secondly, a metasystem may be said to be "the total system" of a system within a system, either of a particular system or kind of system, or of any kind of system upon a particular level of analysis, or even of the "supersystem" by which were refer to the collection of all possibly occurring systems in reality. In this use, the metasystem is not so much a model or a representation of a real system, but the total reality of such a system in all its possible alternate states. We may see this difference phenomenologically if we understand that each particular instance of a system represents only one possible approximation of the total metasystem, which comprises all possible states, and would encompass as well the entire state-path trajectory of the system through time.
In between the first and the second meanings of the term metasystem, we may place the actual human knowledge of and experience with the on-going and instantaneous natural system, and between our theory, reality and the total compass of all things possible we have an on-going dialectic of question and answer, testing and observation, construction and revision.
This dialectic has been critical to the progressive development of scientific knowledge and awareness of reality. We use our metasystems models to continuously test and reevaluate our knowledge in the world. We do not in this endeavor seek to discover what the system is, as it presents itself to us in our observations, so much as what the system can be under a range of alternative possibilities. Metasystems science thus leads to a broader range of understanding about natural systems as our scientific knowledge grows, develops and differentiates with ever increasing degrees of refinement.
This dialectic must be construed as the basis for all scientific method in the sciences, and therefore constitutes the foundation for construing science within a systems framework.
We may say that by this means we are led to a third meaning of metasystem, and that consists of the comprehensive knowledge and models of the principles and properties that govern real and natural phenomena. This metasystem is the successful result of the dialectic that leads to the discovery of new information and insight about reality, and to the refinement and development of our models about reality as to render these models simultaneously both more useful and more accurately representative of reality.
Behind all of this rests certain presumptions that reality is organized by a basic set of principles that manifest themselves in terms of properties that we associate with reality in different ways. Reality in this sense is "self-governing" and "self-controlling" and "self-organizing" as systems, and though we must assume that the sense of order that is embedded in reality is ultimately random and stochastically based (i.e., it is an underdetermined metasystem), nevertheless its sense of order and organization can be said to be rule based and these rules are explicable and derivable in linguistic or mathematical terms suitable for scientific understanding and knowledge. We might call these rules of inference or of implicature concerning the self-organization of natural systems.
Rule based understanding, or formal theory, of natural systems is seldom if ever arrived at by a literal translation of systems theory to a particular field of inquiry. Rather, the systems models serve as general benchmarks and constraints to the development of such theory. We understand readily that all things in reality cohere into systems at multiple levels, but we understand as well that these things are not all the same nor do they form systems that are all describable or understandable in the same terms. Systems that are developed tend to be relativistically unique to the instantaneous configuration that is occurring, and because systems stratify at multiple levels simultaneously, it is understandable that the rules that are found to be applicable for understanding and explaining phenomena in one system or at one level, are not the same rules that are necessary for the theoretical description of other systems at other levels of integration.
Metasystems science centrally concerns the problem of the physical integration of reality. This problem is considered to be a larger set that contains the solipsistic problem of the symbolic integration of worldview. We may understand the relationship of the problem of physical integration to symbolic integration as the relationship between the physical relativity of knowledge and the anthropological relativity of this same knowledge. Integration stands as a key term in understanding the patterning of natural systems, and its problem evokes for us questions and mysteries that form the basis for scientific inquiry. The problem of integration can be seen as a consequence of the notion that all things in reality are related to everything else, however indirectly and remotely, and that reality is stratified upon multiple levels of relationship. How reality coheres to constitute at least a partially integrated metasystem remains therefore a fundamental problem of scientific inquiry.
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All systems that we can think about are essentially knowledge systems that are symbolically constructed. The natural systems they represent are in and of themselves inert and incapable of self-reference or a sense of identity in the world. They are by themselves without the human intelligence component systems in which trees fall silently in a forest without notice and in which stars collide and burst on a regular, semi-random basis without further mention of the deed. We say that natural systems are implicit to the patterns in terms of the redundancy and stochastic structures that these patterns reveal to the human observer, or rather in terms of the information they yield upon observation. And no observation is or can be conducted in a completely naïve apperceptive sense without the automatic and built-in filtering processes that are the result of our conscious awareness and the conceptual models and understanding that we bring to our organization of experience and to our making sense of our awareness of the world. This is to be aware of the world, of the experience of reality, in terms fundamentally different in kind than that of a dog or a rat or a bird or a fish. It is to be not only consciously self-aware in the world, but reflexively so. It is to be aware not only of the world but of one's own awareness in that world, moment by moment, breath by breath. And we may say even when we are wide awake we are never fully or completely aware or conscious of our world, but we always perceive it, and conceive it, in a partial and partly distorted form. But however imperfect and incomplete, this kind of human awareness is enough to effect a kind of transcendence of existential context, of biological imperative, that I would call symbolic.
Thus all systems as knowledge systems are symbolic in organization and reflect the human being as both knower and articulator of knowledge in the world as well as the general life-situation of that human being. We like to call them rational but they are in fact as much rationalized and rationalizing as they are actually logical or factual about the world. They represent symbolic models we have of the world, or of parts of the world, and these models are built from parts and pieces we define and the relationships that we decide to interconnect the many pieces with.
It is our dilemma as human beings that we have no choice but to see the world in this way, with our symbolic models, in a manner that gives order to our relations and apprehensions about the world. These models are hardly static affairs, but are continuously changing and developing depending upon the changes in the relationships and patterns of response we maintain and are capable of carrying on with the world. Even if we attempt to deliberately suspend the influence of these models, they remain unconsciously embedded, not only in the subconscious background of our own brains, implicitly prestructuring how and even what our experiences with the world are, but they are also similarly embedded in the field of social relationships and the sense of order we bring into the world and shape the world by. Even if we could rid ourselves of our own preconceptions and biases in this regard, it proves virtually impossible to rid other people of theirs, especially if they are not even cognizant, much less willing, of a need to do so. And so when it eventually comes to pass that we must interact with such people, as life always constrains us to do, we are forced to reshape and yield our own models, however independently achieved, in order to do so.
In this way we must see all systems, as general, abstract theoretical systems, as knowledge systems that are representational and explanative in function, and as ultimately constrained by the symbolic-cognitive relativity of the human subject as central knower and articulator of these systems. This I call the anthropological relativity of all knowledge systems, and hence of all systems we are capable of knowing in however an objective, scientific manner.
First, Second, Third and Nth order Systems & Relational Theory
We refer to systems complexity in a relative sense of the position and level at which they occur in a larger metasystems framework--relative to encompassing systems these systems become subsystems, and they in turn become supersystems for the subsystems components that are encompassed within the boundaries of their definition. As we proceed from one level to the next, either ascending or descending in the hierarchy, it is clear that the order of complexity that we encompass in our metasystems framework increases exponentially. We cannot describe this exponential increase in clear and uncertain numerical terms. We cannot assume there to be a doubling, trebling or quadupling of complexity, thus we must leave the exponent as well as the main term as variables. We can write an expression for this exponential increase of complexity of order in a system in the following manner:
((X (x))y)z
We have to have a way of handling the terms, and we know from the logarithms that exponents are added together or multiplied. We can address any system in the following manner. For any given level, there is at least one higher order of generality or abstraction which should represent an order of magnitude of simplification. We would address this kind of model indicating ascending superordination and descending subordination in the following manner:
c(b(a)
X (x)y)z
For the same level, there is always also one lower order of increasing differential specification which should represent a corresponding order of magnitude of complication. We can say as a rule in general metasystems that generalization implies specification, and simplification implies complication. As a consequence, we may identify 3, 5, 7 or even 9 or 11 orders of magnitude to comprehensive metasystems, and we find that expert knowledge sometimes attains these levels, at least descending if not always in the ascending comprehension of systems. We would thus identify a 3 level stratified system as a first order system, a five level stratified system as a second order system, a sevel level stratified system as a third order system, and so on.
We must understand that the variable terms themselves would represent what could be called complex non-linear instantaneous state-values. In other words, the central term X would denote in most natural systems not a single value or variable, but a set or matrix of multiple values or variables that would be related by some function. At the same time, it is assumed that the exponential values are related to the central variable in terms of some functional set of derivatives or integrals. We would state that the ascending terms would represent integrals of the system, and the descending terms would represent derivatives of the term--derivatives and integrals being defined in an instantaneous manner. In the application to a calculus of space-time dynamics, this model represents simultaneous systems that co-occur independently upon the same levels of stratification in accordance to the cosmological principle.
I have coined the term relational theory in reference primarily to the understanding of the structure of human symbolic systems in order to get a handle on the structural aspects of naturally occurring metasystems. In relational systems it can be said that there are no apriori primes or starting values, but each term is definable in reference to some set of other terms within the system. There are thus no anchor points by which to ground the system or upon which to build the system. I believe metasystems as these naturally occur in reality represent such relational structures. We assign to these relational structures properties and values that are associated with a given level of specificity/generality in such a system, but we cannot designate in a non-arbitrary manner the upper or lower limits of such a system. I would state anthropologically, from the standpoint to the anthropology of knowledge and anthropological relativity, that this central paradox of reality is as much an artifact or consequence of our own knowledge or way of understanding reality, as it is anything intrinsic to reality itself. We are referring to a set of limiting conditions at which epistemological and metaphysical considerations converge. We do not say that this patterning is intrinsic to the order or patterning of reality in an of itself. We only infer this sense of order from our own knowledge frameworks and filters. Reality in and of itself, divorced from the experience of human knowledge, is none-self-aware. It can be said to contain information in an implicit and theoretical sense in its patterning and organizational structures that it assumes, but this patterning is stochastic and ultimately blind.
The paradox in a physical sense though is that physical reality appears to reflect and embody this kind of relational patterning, and all physical aspects of reality can be said to constitute a grand relational meta-structure within which there are no fixed or predetermined coordinate reference systems. In other words, we must contend not only with the paradox of anthropological relativity of knowledge systems about reality, but we must contend as well with extrinsic limits to this knowledge in terms of the physical relativity of our systems of understanding and our capacity to observe naturally occurring systems without influencing these systems by means of our observation.
Equilibrium & Super-systems
It may be said that naturally occurring systems that exhibit redundant and consistent properties upon an organismic level attain a certain relative equilibrium of structure that permits us to refer to it as a system that is at least partially closed and partially self-determining. This equilibrium exists as a kind of dynamic balance that is maintained through self-organizational patterning with the frameworks in which the system exists in the first place.
Equilibrium can be said to be complex, dynamic and inherently underdetermined. In nature it is almost always non-linear in its patterning, and hence its equilibrium is used to account for its state-path trajectory, or developmental patterning, within a larger metasystemic context.
In short form we refer to a system of natural patterning as a "system" because it exhibits a relative structure that we associate with a set of properties that we refer to as emergent or synthetic to the system. When we analyze such a system, we break it down into its definitional or componential primes, which we treat as if given and non-relative, the emergent properties of the higher order suddenly disappear and we attempt to determine the network and transition structures that occur between the component parts without the benefit of a holistic integration of the system in terms of its transcendent properties. This represents a basic dilemma of scientific theory and explanation between analytical reductionism of the system into its component parts, and synthetic generalization of the interaction of the component parts in relation to the system as a whole integrity.
There are certainly properties that are evident upon one level that are not fully accountable for by the terms and relations of the underlying levels. Thus analytical explanation falls frequently short of its intended aim of full comprehension when it is done without the aid of synthetic theoretical hypothetization about the system as a whole and its metasystemic provenience in a larger scheme of things. This constitutes what I refer to as the scientific dialectic that is continuously switching back and forth between analytical explanation on the one hand and synthetic generalization on the other.
Emergent properties associated with metasystems are the consequence of the operation of the metasystem upon a transcendent level of integration. These properties depend greatly on the fidelity of order of the underlying system upon which the emergent properties are based. Emergent properties really can be seen only as the sensible qualities that are available to our knowledge at some level, by which we understand systems and their composition in the first place. Emergent properties can be seen as dependent upon the integrity of the underlying system, and these properties are those primarily that we attribute to such systems. Emergent properties define systems in a stratified sense and entail that a system is integrated to its surroundings in relation to other parallel systems, and form together what can be called a supersystem. Nature is thus organized at multiple levels of integration, each level exhibiting its own independent sets of properties, and yet each based upon the systems resting beneath it. The stratification of nature was not achieved in an instant, and represents probably the result of a series of highly unlikely events, which can be described as an occurrence of change within a situational context. That this stratification exists is undeniable, and yet there is what can be considered to be a central dogma of this stratification, and this is that all systems tend toward increasing size and scale of complexity in their integration. This integration is achieved in a basically physical and mechanical model, at all levels. The organization of emergent properties at different levels, or their stratification and ranking between levels, is a derivative consequence of this physical integration of natural systems. It follows that the basis of scientific explanation is always physical, and this this explanation will grow increasingly general as we move from the physical to the higher emergent orders of natural systems. The degree of complexity of such systems can be seen to expand exponentially as well, such that we can consider the following kind of model:
…….(V3(W2(X1(Y00 )z)z) z)z)z……
where X is the starting point (zeroth entity), superscript z is the relative power or exponent of increased complexity, subscripts represent successive orders of levels, and …..VWX represent in creasing emergent properties associated with the subsystems.
All scientific explanation begins in and leads back to the explanation of the physical processes that underlie and account for the basic emergent properties that are associated with any given level of integration of reality. Secondarily, scientific explanation is concerned with the problem of the derivative or resultant systems that emerge or are developed as a result of the interactions of physical process in some kind of order.
All naturally occurring systems exhibit emergent properties upon discrete levels of stratification, and there is no natural system that is not so endowed and that is fully comprehensible in a completely constitutive manner. The emergent properties of all natural systems are an indication of the fundamental relativities of such systems, both physically and anthropologically in the sense of our knowledge and understanding, and even observation of such systems. Natural systems theory breaks down and stratifies reality in this manner into natural and logically ordered sets occurring upon different levels of superordination-subordination. In fact natural systems stratify in terms of a spectrum ranging from purely physical phenomena on one extreme to purely symbolic and metaphysical phenomena upon the other extreme, with biological systems ranging somewhere between these two extremes. We can range along this spectrum from one end to the other and notice discontinuity only in terms of the emergent properties that are associated with a particular level of the spectrum. If we sought a purely analytic approach, we would find for instance that this emergent discontinuity of systems breaks down and systems appear more or less continuously reducible in terms of components and components of components and so on ad infinitum.
We can say that the most comprehensive natural system is the physical system, and of the physical systems the most comprehensive is probably the fundamental unified field system that encompasses the total universe as a metastate and possibly multi-state system. At the same time, when it comes to the emergent properties of energy, of various forms of elemental matter, and of organic molecules, cells and biological systems, each of these is a sub-set of the larger and more basic system in which it rests. We arrive at human systems, which relate ultimately to other possible intelligent systems in the universe, at the other end of the extreme as a form of natural system that is capable of automaton self-awareness, or consciousness, and to some extent a measure of self-determination tat is relatively non-stochastic or non-random.