Natural Systems Theory

by Hugh M. Lewis

http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/

Part III: Biological Systems Theory

The biological sciences have been the most successful paradigmatically unified sciences to date, and they have been the most successful in the productive incorporation of systems-based thinking in terms of eco-systems and synthetic ecology. The challenge upon a theoretical level has remained connecting systems-based ecological theory with evolutionary theory.

It is known that natural selection occurs on the ground, with the individual organism, confering success or failure through selective adaptive and reproductive advantage. This is a clear demonstration of a systems-based ecological concept: the organism that eats and successfully avoids being eaten, lives to reproduce and pass its genetic information on to future successful generations. It is clearly, in simplistic form, survival of the fittest. But this model does not scratch the surface of the true complexity of living systems and how they develop over time in the biosphere.

The principle concern of biological systems theory is a general accounting of the foundations of living systems and a realistic description of their patterning at all levels of their stratification.

An acceptable definition of living systems must include the following components:

1. All living systems exhibit properties of self-sustaining and self-organizing growth.

2. All living systems are organized into fundamental components called cells.

3. All living systems consist of evolving populations of organisms that change over time in adaptation to changing environmental conditions.

4. All living systems respond to and interact with their environment

5. All living systems follow a natural life-cycle of birth, development, maturity and death.

6. All living systems maintain a complex metabolic functioning upon the cellular level that is maintained in equilibrium within certain tolerance limits.

7. All living systems achieve populational longevity and intergenerational continuity through reproduction. A population that fails to successfully reproduce is an extinct population.

It is debatable which of these features should characterize living life forms beyond the framework of the earth's biosphere. For known biological systems, we may say the follow universal characteristics also apply:

All biological life forms are organic and carbon-based, and depend greatly on hydrogen bonding for there basic molecular structures and processes.

All biological life forms follow the central dogma of genetic replication of complex protein structures and associated macro-molecules.

All biological information and design is contained in RNA and/or DNA structures.

All biological life forms maintain a continuous meta-biotic relationship with a bio-geophysical substrate from which it derives its primary form of energy and into which it excretes its waste products of metabolism.

From a more general systems standpoint, it may be said that all living systems tend to differentiate from the simple toward the more complex.

All living systems are therefore complex self-organizing and self-replicating systems.

We find biological life forms occurring on three basic levels of analysis:

            1. The microscopic level of cells.

            2. The organismic level of multicellular organisms.

            3. The macroscopic, corporate level of populations, species, taxons, biomes, ecosystems, realms and the entire biosphere of the earth itself.

Clearly, we can see that the third level has many further differentiations that might be made. What is critical at all these levels is to see that an organism, as a system, must interact in defined ways with its environment, an environment that critically includes other organisms.

Biological Systems Theory

Significant and steady progress has been made in the biological sciences in detailed understanding the structures and patterns of life, especially upon a microscopic and bio-chemical level, and in the technological applications and extensions relating to this understanding. Less progress has been achieved upon a macrobiological and ecological scale, though yet significant and noteworthy. The principle concern of biological systems theory from a metascientific point of view is therefore an understanding of what can be called the metabiotic context in which life originated, including the conditions that promoted the stochastic formation of the first reproductive life forms, and the development and interaction of this context within an eco-evolutionary context. It is not that we do not understand a great deal about the metabiotics of living systems already, as we are clear upon the environmental requirements that such systems need in order to function and achieve their development and survival.

What appears to be lacking in this regard can be called a central organizational theory, a grand synthesis, that comprehends all biological systems, at all levels and in every context of their articulation and occurrence, in a systematic and coordinate manner. Perhaps this is an impossible goal, given the inherent complexity and indeterminateness of all biological systems, especially upon a macroscopic level. But it is clear as well that life has achieved remarkable success upon earth as a result of its ability to maintain both an internal sense of organization through adaptation, and an external sense of order in relation to the metabiotic environment, and it is clear that without this effective kind of order life would have probably failed long ago.

Biological systems are complex molecular structures that are so arranged that they interact in a manner that permits: 1. Continuous growth and regeneration of the system derived from elements drawn for the immediate environment; 2. Reproductive modification and evolutionary differentiation of such systems such that in time, a single system, will become two or more separate systems; 3. A self-sustaining metabiotic equilibrium to be established between the system and its host environment.

Any system that meets these three criteria, more or less, can be categorized as a living biological system. The minimal form that such systems have taken on earth have been in viral and bacterial, or prokaryotic. These minimal forms of living system determine that something like a cell is the minimal constituent organization of living systems. But even viruses can be seen as essentially parasitic extra-cellular entities that depend nevertheless upon cell invasion and subsequent lyses for the fulfillment of basic living requirements. It follows that a pre-biotic system must have been a kind of pre-cellular system that nevertheless permitted the eventual development of simple cellular forms, and the movement from some kind of pre-cellular to fully cellular form must have entailed the bounding of nucleic acid chains constituting the RNA-DNA complement of a cell within the cytoplasm contained within a cell-wall, or glyocalyx, and the subsequent differentiation of internalized organelles or cellular substructures that enhanced the equilibrium and function of the cell.

The amazing feature of all biological systems on earth is their remarkable protein plasticity which is the product of the central dogma of earth-bound biology, the formation and conformation of complex protein structures from basic amino acids, and the metabolization of stored forms of chemical energy for the construction and function of these complex molecular structures. This basic protein plasticity translates into the adaptive functioning and formation of complex mechanisms of biological tissue, such as motors and sensory apparatus, that permits the multi-cellular organization of life to achieve new levels of integration of such systems. We cannot ignore this degree of plasticity of form and function in our consideration of the evolutionary development of complex metabiotic systems.

It follows that any biological system that occurs beyond terrestrial limits for earthbound biological systems must have minimally these basic adaptive traits, though the particulars of how they function and may be organized may vary considerably. I would predict that all or at least most biological systems discoverable in the universe would probably be carbon based, or what we could refer to as "organic" systems, and that these systems would probably utilize the elements of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in very similar ways as these processes occur in terrestrial biological systems.

This has much to do with the electrostatic characteristics and hydrogen bond characteristics associated with combinations of these elements. It seems inconceivable to think of any living system, especially as a complex metabiotic system, outside of some source of water. Water has attributes that make it uniquely appropriate for biological systems. Water may have been a common byproduct of many early planetary formation processes, but the train of natural events that would permit its accumulation on a scale as found on earth, the watery planet, may be relatively unusual, and I would suggest, probably a necessary prerequisite for the formation of any living system. Large masses of water, as found in the oceans, permitted the cooling and stabilization of the temperature of the earth and a regulation of its climates. It would have permitted the kind of displacement of continental land forms and the drift we find as on the earth.

Early prebiotic conditions for life demanded the presence of large, stabilizing body of water and a hydrologic cycle. The atmosphere of the planet would not have been of the same composition as it is today, and may have passed through various phases of ammonia or carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide compounds. The large abundance of silica in the earth's crust suggests that silica-carbon compounds containing sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen may have been precursor even to the formation of large quantities of water. One would expect both a very active volcanism, a thick condensed and turbulent atmosphere that may have been very active in creating lightening storms on a regular basis, and possibly a continuous round of meteorites and comets showering the surface from crowded night-time skies. Solar radiation, perhaps more intense in some wavelengths and particle emissions that it is even today, must have played a critical role in this early phase of proto-biotic development. Thus, the atmosphere could not have been completely cloud covered with gases, but partly clear. These basic conditions have been replicated in the laboratory and have demonstrate the formation of a range of organic compounds that would be considered prerequisite to the formation of biological life-forms.

Life on earth probably originated during one single period of time when the general conditions became most suitable for this kind of development to occur. The life that formed at this time was capable of surviving and proliferating in the world, via the waterways that were then established, and then became capable of rapidly adapting itself to a wide range of environments and changing climactic conditions. Eventually, the biosphere took shape and complexity to the point that itself produced a stabilizing influence on the bio-geophysical framework that supported life in the first-place, with the gradual emergence of oxygen in the atmosphere and the formation of an ozone layer sufficient enough to protect living systems that emerged from the water onto land. Photosynthesis by algae was an early adaptation, and this photosynthesis fueled the biosphere.

The object of biological systems theory therefore becomes the understanding of this sense of inherent, systematic order of living systems relating to their adaptive equilibrium and capacity to change rapidly to meet changing circumstances. We should expect, furthermore, that all living systems, whether terrestrial and earthbound, or hypothetically extraterrestrial and alien, must achieve a similar kind of systematic success in their adaptive organization if they are to survive and develop evolutionarily. From this we may state some initial propositions:

1. Living systems tend naturally toward evolutionary differentiation in order to achieve adaptive success to changing environments.

2. Living systems depend upon the interaction and maintenance of an effective meta-biotic context for their adaptive survival and reproductive success.

3. The metabiotic context for all living systems consists of a bio-geophysical substrate that is critically conditioned by co-evolutionary and eco-evolutionary relationships between differentiated organisms. Many of the changes that occur in this context are the consequence of the evolutionary differentiation of organisms

Therefore, it follows that the evolutionary differentiation of any living population of similar organisms and the metabiotic context that conditions the survival and success of these organisms are not only interconnected, but inextricably bound together as a complicated and interdependent, or what can be called a complementary system of relations. To specify causal arrows or primary determinants of such a system is to beg the question of the hen or the egg.

Biological systems theory tends to be concerned with answer certain kinds of questions of the natural world. For instance, the explanation of the stochastic origin of living systems from pre-biotic inorganic conditions is important to understanding how living systems that subsequently formed were organized and articulated in a larger geophysical setting. The problem of the extinction of species, and especially of mass extinction episodes, becomes important to explain as a critical outcome of the formation of a climax ecology and the oversaturation of the system by certain central biota. Similar, the question of the sustaining meta-biotic context for the shaping of living systems and the articulation of these systems in larger ecological frameworks becomes important. The question of the likelihood and existence of extra-terrestrial biotic systems, and the necessary prerequisites and predictable structures for these systems becomes important to answer as well. Understanding living systems from a synergistic and holistic point of view requires that we understand the emergence of superorganic properties of living systems at different levels, and the coordination of biological systems upon multiple levels of integration.

If we understand evolutionary speciation as a form of meta-biotic differentiation of an organism through success generations, or regenerations, and we can understand that, at the level of the multi-cellular eukaryotic organism, such reproduction is primarily social and sexual, entailing the exchange of genetic information between different but similar organisms, then we have set up a dynamic of population differentiation and the occurrence of a macro-biotic patterning of differentiation that incorporates the individual as the member of a larger group. So strong and critical are the ties of the individual to the group, that loss of an effective group context spells almost invariably the death of the individual.

The cooperative achievement of such reproductive populations represents both an advance and at times a disadvantageous constraint over reproductive and adaptive possibilities of organisms, and is similar to the revolutionary achievement of multi-cellular organisms over singe-celled organisms. Individuals in groups yield something, but gain something back, and effectively interact and cooperate to create an entirely new level of metabiotic organization that did not previously exist before such social interaction took place.

When we see extinctions upon the macrobiotic level, we are seeing the relationship and dependency of the individual organism upon the group in full swing--in fact, we see little significant evolutionary change nor significant extinction events associated with the speciation of prokaryotic and one-celled organisms. Group and social organization of living systems appears therefore to raise the stakes considerably of the evolutionary game--it involves both greater risks and greater rewards, and pushes the entire system to a new and higher level of organization and functioning.

Large groups as wholes are in the long run and in the large more resilient to normal and small fluctuations of meta-biotic pattern, but tend to be more susceptible to major changes and shifts of meta-biotic pattern, compared to individuals and less socially organized forms of life, that may be less flexible upon a local level of adaptation but demonstrate greater survivorship in times of greater environmental stress.

            The natural tendency of groups is to expand beyond their adaptive limits, unless such expansion is counteracted by meta-biotic factors that serve to restrict or limit population growth. Therefore, in the evolutionary long run, it is likely that successful groups will expand beyond the carrying capacity of the larger region of their habitation, resulting either in the fragmentation of the population into sub-populations with a greater likelihood of competitive exclusion and phyletic differentiation of subgroups, or else the population as a whole must face the prospect of extinction.

The more dramatic and marked the environmental fluctuation, the more intense and extensive its effects, the greater the likelihood that populations, as coherent evolutionary species, will become doomed to rapid extinction. From the standpoint of meta-biotic systems, mass extinction events can only be reasonably explained by high levels of over-saturation of regional ecosystems coupled with extreme and unusual environmental fluctuations.

So far, in the natural history of life on earth, no mass extinction event has represented a total extinction event, though it is not unreasonable to speculate that life itself may have had several fitful starts and stops in the early phases of its development. A total extinction event would entail the loss of all life on earth as we know it. This is not an impossibility, but its likelihood does not seem to be great, because of the achieved diversity of the total global ecosystem. The number of mass extinction events that have been recorded in the fossil record indicate that the earth's environment may have periodically undergone major shifts or changes that affected the entire profile of life. It is probably impossible to say which of these major events was the greatest extinction event. It is probably also impossible to identify the total number of minor extinction events that have occurred in earth's biological history.

It is important to emphasize that from a meta-biotic standpoint, such extinction events are not primarily or exclusively explained by major environmental fluctuations alone. It is entirely possible that these fluctuations themselves may be in part due to the influence of living systems and their evolutionary trajectory, and that there may be inherent mechanisms of change and biotic reorganization of living systems which, under the correct conditions, can trigger extinction to occur upon a massive scale.

Understanding of extinction events is critical to a meta-biotic comprehension of living systems in a manner similar to how understanding and explaining cycles of economic depression are critical to the theoretical explanation of political-economic systems. This analogy is fitting because both cases are constrained and controlled at similar levels of complexity of interaction and relation that makes simple or straight-forward deterministic explanation impossible. The mechanism of mass extinction is diagnostic of the systemic relations of meta-biotic systems, and the explanation of these events can only be reasonably made at a meta-biotic level of understanding. Again, it is likely that unicellular organisms have remained for the most part resilient and largely immune to such large scale fluctuations of the meta-biotic system, though bacteria live and die daily in massive amounts. We can predict from such a general model that therefore the Giant Sequoias will eventually disappear from the earth, whether or not the hand of humans is involved in their destruction, and that the Giant Whales will also eventually pass in an evolutionary blink of an eye, while the organisms that thrive upon the decomposition of these giants will continue in a largely unaltered manner to feed upon their corpses. There is a critical meta-biotic reason for this difference, and this reason underlies the patterning of all forms of life as we know it.

The explanation of extinction therefore goes beyond conventional evolutionary theory that is focused upon speciation and implies extinction in the phrase "natural selection." At the same time, the understanding of the functioning and evolutionary development of metabiotic systems also comprehends more than merely the explanation of extinction from a theoretical point of view. If we see extinction events as expectable, if not predictable byproducts of larger cycles of development in natural, self-organized systems that tend toward complexity, then we can understand that a complete and comprehensive metabiotic understanding views extinction as but one possible outcome of many alternative pathways of development. It is an outcome, a consequence, of specific series of "events" that occur systematically throughout a large and complex system of biolotical relations, but it is never a fully determined outcome in the sense that other outcomes had some likelihood of occurrence. It is an outcome that eventually develops for all kinds of living organisms at all levels, but for a complex variety of different reasons, visits some kinds of organisms more frequently, or with greater likelihood, than other kinds of organisms. Hence, at this level, natural selection, especially as a form of extinction at the species level, can be said to be metabiotically governed by factors that may transcend and be beyond the control of the selection forces and adaptive capacities of any particular kind or coherent population of organisms.

Conventional evolutionary theory construes selection as primarily operating upon the individual, and altering the profile of the population gene pool as the result of differential selection, both in terms of adaptive survival and in terms of reproductive success. But this kind of natural selection invariably becomes mixed with another form of natural selection that operates in the background of all organisms lives. It is a form of selection that comes in a variety of ways and can operate upon a variety of levels at the same time--either through the physical environment or in terms of eco-evolutionary relationships or inter-specific relationships with other organisms. It is impossible therefore to tell where and when one kind of selection leaves off and another kind takes over. Certainly an organism that is weakened by hunger is more susceptible to disease and illness, and an ill organism would be less responsive to its environment and therefore more prone to predation, and an organism that is marginalized or ostracized from its group context would be more prone to hunger in the first place.

Death by disease is a form of selection that often is beyond the adaptive capacity of organisms to control, and can sweep through and decimate the ranks of an entire population in very short order. It is unknown if entire species have been lost due only to disease, but this represents a kind of selection that is not clearly accounted for by conventional evolutionary models. Thus, natural selection as a process governing biological evolution must be understood in terms of the true complexity and systematic order that it represents and involves. At any given time, selective factors compose matrices and regimes of interacting determinants that influence the evolutionary outcomes for a population or for any individual of a population.

These multiple factors operate in correlation to one another to influence the chances, or the stochastic outcomes, governing the survival of any organism or any group of organisms. It is therefore to be asked if natural selection doesn't always tend to favor the "fittest" or simply the "luckiest" and if the latter is the case, then it is true that evolution is completely blind. There is some partial measure of biological determinism involved in the evolutionary development and differentiation of species, and therefore the best answer is somewhere between the two--fitness and fortune both play an important part in defining evolutionary outcomes and success. This partial determinism is complex and of a complementary form. It therefore admits of no primary determinants or key causes, but only of a range of interacting variables.

For the most part, organisms also carry forward in an evolutionarily blind manner. They cannot predict the outcomes of what it is they do, nor do any organisms, even human beings, exhibit that much long range planning or sense of calculation of factors and conditions of their environment for adopting the best strategy. Therefore, selection that occurs usually occurs in spite of, or at least without reference to, the intentions or drives of the individual organism, though it invariably affects the options and outcomes governing these behaviors. Certainly, the better adapted the organism, the better that organism is capable of managing most events possible in the framework of that organisms life-world. Most organisms have evolved sophisticated if instinctual mechanisms of defense against predation for instance, particular predation by certain "known" forms of animals. The introduction of a foreign predator therefore, whose behavior is not in sync to an established metabiotic system of relations, may have a very destructive effect upon that system, as the organisms of such a system will suddenly encounter a new agency of their environment that they are without defenses or ill-equipped to deal with. Such an introduction of an alien species may have a consequence of selective disequilibrium to the preexisting system in a manner very similar to a sudden climatological fluctuation or change of availability of a limiting resource, for instance water.

The likelihood is great that any alien organism intelligent and advanced enough in its civilization to contact and visit the earth will almost invariably result in the destruction and displacement of humankind as the top-organism, and, unless such a species has an especially benign and pacifistic bent, might well result in the replacement of humankind. Such an organism may have biotic requirements similar enough to mammalian or animal forms of life that it might in fact be able to freely adapt to the earth's environment, excepting the great likelihood of infectious diseases that could possibly prevent and destroy such a species.

But this likelihood appears in fact to be quite remote--a greater likelihood is the earth being struck once again by a very large comet or asteroid. Contact with an intelligent life form in the universe will most likely be by indirect communication, receiving remote electromagnetic signals that exhibit regular artificial patterns. These signals may be so remote that they may have come from a civilization that was long since vanished from their planet.