INTRODUCTION

In the literature, the term meta-system refers generally to a system of systems, though this is ambiguous in regard to received systems theory. Meta-systems has become in my use of the term a general concept with several different meanings. In terms of general system theory and systems philosophy, a clear definition and understanding of the term metasystem becomes indispensible.[1]

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 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. [2]

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.[3]

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 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:

All "things" and relations are composed of subsystems, and are parts of a larger super-system framework by which they are functionally related to other things and relations.

No "thing" or relation exists in total or complete isolation from a meta-systems context.

All "events" occur within a structural patterning that defines the behavior of a system or super system.

An event is determined by the meta-systemic relationships and events prior to that event.

A system is a finite and determinable set of contemporaneous and coterminous relations that occur between different things, such that the interaction between the things results in a consistent set of events and states that are self-restoring.

A system is a thing or has "thingness" to the extent that we may attribute a coherent set of emergent or synergistic properties to the patterning of the whole that can be said to be the consequence of the interaction between the parts. This "thingness" may be real or illusory--depending on whether we are referring to the pattern "in itself" or our attributions, labels, and understanding (i.e., knowledge) of the pattern. An event, or set of events, or system of events and relations, always occurs a priori to, before, our experience of that event. Our experience of an event or complex set of events is always our cognitive and behavioral response to the event, influenced by the event structure.

All systems occur within a metasystems context and may be classified as belong to one of four types of metasystem--basic, derivative, extended basic and extended derivative.

All systems, upon whatever level of there occurrence within a metasystems context, are patterned within a developmental paradigm in which the state-path trajectory of the system will be defined by non-linear dynamics that govern the system. Key variables, both internal and external, interact in complex ways to determine the developmental trajectory of a given system at a given time. Inherent variability of systems entails a range of possible outcomes for any given state or state-conditions.

All systems have a finite lifespan that is marked by a beginning, a period of development, a period of mature stability, a period of demise or decline, and an end.

All systems, at whatever level of their occurrence, are physically constituted by subsystems.

I use the concept of meta-system in several different ways and at several different levels of meaning. Thus the idea of the meta-system may be defined symbolically at more than one level, and this serves the purpose of reconciling the kind of dilemma between real and non-real systems quite well, for the concept of the meta-system allows us to dialectically transcend the question and problem of what is a system and what is a true system and to deal with systems both in terms of the observation of phenomena--in terms of themselves, and in terms we assign to them as ideal representations of reality.

In the first case, a "meta-system" is "beyond a system" and "about a system" and hence is a manner or means of stepping outside of a system in order to describe it and deal with it in a semi-objective manner. This is less obvious when we are dealing with a car engine or a hot-water heater in a home than when we are dealing with the psychological complexities of our own identity, for instance. Being able to get outside our own heads in a consistent manner to reflect upon what is going on in our heads, is more of a meta-system thing than trying to match the model of a working car-engine with the problem of troubleshooting a non-working one, but I think it ultimately serves the same kinds of end.

A meta-system in the first sense therefore is a dialogue about systems in general. Human knowledge is a symbolic metasystem in the sense that it represents a coherent dialogue about all kinds of systems. Human language too is a meta-system in this sense--almost all forms of human expression except the most basic exclamations, refer symbolic to some larger system or some part of a system, either in reality or in the non-real world of the mind's imagination.

The second sense of a meta-system refers more formally to the context in which any given system is naturally embedded, and which by relational extension becomes the natural field within which that system is configured. This second sense of meta-systems includes relationships to other systems, and if we explore the issue, we would discover that all systems are interconnected, not just at a single level, but upon multiple levels.

Thus in this second sense meta-systems is the framework of relationship between different kinds of systems at different levels, and the focal reference point is decentered away from a particular system, though that point of view could be part of a larger meta-systemic frame of reference. Systems cohere together and interact more or less deterministically, and it is often the case that such interaction leads to meta-systems integration at a higher level of stratification, and the emergence of new systems at that higher level that incorporate the systems in question.

In general, most meta-systems are thought of in a sense as being pre-systemic in that such frameworks are not usually as well integrated as full-blown systems, and hence tend to be more chaotic and complex in interaction than what passes for a prototypically integrated system. Such meta-systems contexts are common in larger contexts in reality, and it seems that it is a consequence of the extensive organization of systems that must interact in terms of their systemic behaviors and emergent properties. Much that goes on in the science of chemistry for instance can be thought of as meta-systemic in that different kinds of physical systems are being manipulated in relation to one another, to produce new results and interactions.

In the second sense of a meta-system, there is a larger meaning, which refers to what can be thought of very large, comprehensive systems. The universe in the total sense can be thought of as such a grand meta-system, within which all real systems are expected to occur. We do not really understand this grandest of all meta-system frameworks very well and our theories, based upon what we know and can see, are very limited. Similarly, there is a sense that the earth itself constitutes a kind of grand meta-system, in that all life that we know exists on this planet only and, so far as we yet know, nowhere else. The earth in a sense is an integrated whole that provides the necessary context for life to flourish and develop. That it has been stable and successful is attested to by the fact that life appears to have had a consistent and steady run of regeneration and multiplication on earth for almost four billion years. There may have been moments, like giant meteorite impacts, at which the rope of life may have been brought down to a thread, but it appears remarkably responsive and adaptive and in the long run capable of quick evolutionary diversification to explore and exploit almost every eco-trophic niche available to it.

The two forms of meta-system, meta-system as dialogue and meta-system as a kind of systems frame of reference, are in fact interrelated to one another in much the same manner as we attempted to interrelate real and non-real systems previously. In one sense we are a part of a meta-systems context of any system. Whatever system we may objectively specify, our knowledge, awareness and interaction relating to that system becomes a part of that systems meta-systemic context. In so doing, or so being, that system becomes relativized, both systemically and anthropologically, in terms of the context within which it occurs. If I were to offer a diagram of this kind of interaction, it would be something like the following:

We must in this regard seek to understand how, in our observations, we are ourselves part of the same meta-systems context in which the object of our observation exists, and we interact both with the context and with other systems within the framework that the object of our observation interacts with. In this regard I am not necessarily referring to observer bias or contamination of observational or experimental results, though it can lead to this. Rather I am primarily refer to the structure of implication that is found in knowledge about reality, and how this implication is biased by our own presence in the system, as well as by the interactions between different systems.

Ultimately, there is no separating the objective reality of a system from the structure of our knowledge about that system. Relatively speaking, though, we can produce versions of that knowledge which are more realistic and objective compared to other versions, and this is what happens when science progresses towards more truthful versions of reality, and more powerful models of understanding reality. This occurs through the mediation of the meta-system context always, whether we understand this or realize it or not. We have tended to look at science as an exclusively object centered activity, but I think it can be fairly demonstrated that science has never in a strict or actual sense been this, but this is really a kind of popular stereotype of how science normally becomes conducted. In all science there is a creative play between new ideas and new ways of seeing reality, and new observations of that reality. This play drives scientific discovery and even the "invention" of new scientific knowledge.[4]

Meta-systems dialogue therefore can be seen to provide the symbolic framework for our understanding and representations of systems of all kinds. It is our recognition that we can have no non-relative knowledge of a system in a completely objective, a system in and of itself, kind of way. Knowledge is human, and human knowledge just does not work this way. There is no knowledge of anything that may be said to be totally objective. Maintaining a meta-systems framework allows us to make explicit what might otherwise remain implicit about our models of systems, and allows us thus to bring these insights into question in a systematic manner.

Without our awareness of systems, the entire universe would exist and unfold without any sense of awareness of it. It cannot and does not know itself. It just happens, and it would continue happening regardless of whether or not anyone was there doing it for them.

From a meta-systems standpoint, in whatever scientific endeavor we may attempt, we can employ a basic metasystem frame:

1. All structures of reality, at whatever level they occur, exhibit systems behavior

2. All structures of reality, at whatever level they occur, cohere to form extended meta-systems that can be analyzed and accounted for in terms of the systems that lie at their base.

3. All behavior that we may observe, are a consequence of basic systems, or of the derivative meta-systems that arise from the interaction of basic systems.

The basis of systems theory is clear, unmuddled thinking. One must be capable of thinking through all problems to the nth degree, and set aside the "common sense" of received but muddled viewpoints, largely taken for granted, for the willingness to toy with ideas and play with alternative interpretations.

Dynamic metasystems may be said to be at theoretical frameworks that concern foremost the process of change in the natural order. Different dynamical systems occur at different levels in the natural world, with different sets of outcomes and different kinds and levels of antecedents to change. The process of change in much of the natural world, though often complex and therefore usually unpredictable in any precise manner, is also usually systematic and apparently at least "semi-determined."

These dynamical metasystems and the theoretical frameworks by which we seek to understand them can be said to constitute formal or at least quasi-formal paradigms by which our understanding of natural order and process is explained and made sense of. For at least what we might refer to as basic or fundamental dynamical metasystems, these paradigms may be said to be truly universal in the sense that they apply equally in all contexts of the universe, as long as the conditions for their application are given as true. It is in keeping with the cosmological principle, inferentially at least, that this is always so, without known exception.

We may divide dynamic metasystems into two broad types--what I refer to as fundamental metasystems include those that are universal and basic to the structure of reality, and include the dynamics of space-time, of energy, of gravitation, of matter and of motion. These systems may be said to be truly universal, in as broad terms as we can possibly understand this to be at this time. The other group include what I would call the developmental or derivative dynamic metasystems, and include biological life forms, human symbolic culture, technological civilization, informational metasystems, and cybernetic automation systems. It is not insignificant that all of these systems are unique to the patterning of those strictly found on earth, and four of five are those that can be said to be the product of human constructive realities. These derivative metasystems are complexly developmental, and they are unique in their patterning to those instances found upon earth.

It is this apparent universality of the fundamental dynamical systems, and the apparent uniqueness of the other derivative dynamical metasystems, that make them worthy of this digression and the elaboration of their paradigms for science, especially if we are to consider the general problem of what constitutes a universal system versus a general system model. When we talk about the idea of universal dynamics, as some kind of all encompassing paradigm or metaparadigm, then our purposes in this regard might be at least initially served, if not ultimately best served, by considering known forms of dynamical metasystem for which the presumption of universality is regarded as true or at least likely to be true.

Of course, we may ultimately find our presumption of the universality of such systems to be mistaken, to find exceptions in our universe to our presumed paradigms, and to find contexts in which such paradigms apparently do not seem to apply--already, for instance, when we consider the phenomena of super-conduction, normal thermodynamic considerations no longer seem to hold.

There are at least ten sets of naturally systems occurring in natural reality that can be considered to be either fundamental or derivative dynamical metasystems. These include from the most basic to perhaps the most complex and derivative: 1. Space-time Dynamics: 2. Gravitational Dynamics: 3. Thermodynamics: 4. Mechanical Dynamics; 5. Nuclear-Chemical Dynamics; 6. Bio-evolutionary Dynamics; 7. Symbolic-Cultural Dynamics; 8. Civilizational Dynamics; 9. Informational Dynamics; 10. Automational Cyber-Dynamics. I will undertake the explication of each type of dynamical metasystem in turn, and will seek to elucidate in detail how these metasystems are interrelated and interact with one another upon various levels.

The first five dynamical metasystems may be said to be universal and all encompassing--the second five metasystems may be said to be general, and possibly universal, depending upon our ability to scientifically redefine them in a manner that would enable us to account for all such possible systems whereever and however we might encounter them. So far, our knowledge of such systems seems constrained by the simplicity and narrow gauge of our own collective understanding, and by the limited experience with such systems.

These ten metasystems provide an all encompassing framework for our understanding of natural order in physical reality, as we understand physical reality at this time--upon the margins of the very small and the very large, and of the very far flung and complex, we may encounter or imagine the possibilities of additional dynamical metasystems--I have proferred at one point a infinitesimal metasystem, and upon the other extreme, of a universal metastate system that may in fact consist of multiple universes somehow interconnected. These kinds of possible systems, as well as extremely complex alternative systems, remain the stuff of scientific imagination, speculation and science fiction, rather than of sound scientific method. The imagination of such alternative systems constitutes the basis for an open scientific worldview and an inquiring frame of mind upon which healthy and progressive science critically depends.

I will seek to outline in sufficient detail each of these ten dynamical systems, and then I shall seek to summarize how these ten systems appear interconnected and interact with one another to create unusually and complex outcomes in the patterning of the natural world. Finally I shall seek to further elucidate the possibilities of additional dynamical systems that appear, at least for the time being, to be beyond our basi or even most advanced capacities for observation and calculation, with the understanding that this present state of our lack of knowledge and understanding, or the tools by which to achieve such insight and wisdom, may not always or even for very long hold true.

Fundamental dynamic metasystems may be said to be universal and to constrain all natural systems in basic ways. In other words, any system that is by definition finite and de facto limited is fundamentally constrained by such dynamical metasystems, and cannot behave otherwise, in such a manner that violates the fundamental principles of universal dynamics. This is not the same as saying that there may not exist a set of systems in the natural world, upon a given level, which fundamentally do not behave as expected according to fundamental dynamic principles--we have not scientifically yet met up with many such systems, with a very few possible exceptions. Superconduction and certain behaviors of quantum particles and phenomena do not appear to follow normal expectations of dynamics, and these kind of exotic phenomena lead us to the conclusion that universal dynamics, as much as we currently understand these, may not constrain and hold true for all events occuring in the universe, and that there may always be a residual set of events that violate one or more of these principles. It is not because our universal dynamics are not universal, but that they are more or less general covering law models, and that they stand in need of revision, and probably expansion and elaboration, with the discovery and addition of new knowledge about our natural world.

Space-time dynamics is based upon the fluid pattern of space-time, and the capacity of otherwise empty-space time to exhibit properties in the transmission of various forms of energy. Gravity might be construed as the flow of space-time in the reverse direction of gravitational radiation. We may understand the dynamics of space-time flow dynamically in terms of the inverse relationship between space and time--the more space that is involved, the slower the rates of time involved. When we wish to consider the fundamental dynamics of the flow of space-time, we are left with a huge dilemma, for it is difficult to construe space time in any but the most conventional and common place sense as if it were a vast expanse emptiness containing a number of planets, stars, galaxies, etc. To hypothesize that space-time, that we normally construe as vacant and devoid, may be constituted by some form of strange fundamental substance, and this peculiar substance may flow somewhat like a liquid or a plasma through space.

Space time may very in relative density--the denser space-time, the greater the effect in terms of the speed of motion of objects, and the dilation of time and size of an object. Density of space time may be achieved through differentials of strong gravitational fields--there is a consequence of the compression of space-time.

The notion that space-time might actually consiste of a kind of "substance" or at least force, that it may have upon a very fundamental level certain physical procperties inherent to it and it alone, the idea furthermore that this self-same fundamental substance is all pervasive in the universe and is the source of all matter and energy, may seem some what incredible. It is much easier, and logically, much simpler, to assume that space-time is merely empty and that the universe was once an empty-state void--an infinite nothingness, to which somehow energy and matter were added after the fact.

Within the paradigm of space-time dynamices, we may see that space-time (portmanteau Spime) is a substance that recycles itself on a regular basis. It transforms itself, and constitutes the common clay from which energy and matter is shaped. Energy and matter contain spime in highly concentrated form--energy as light is an expression of spime,a kind of turbulence that occurs within the spime matrix.

All change processes are spatio-temporally coordinate and relative within the context of the spime-matrix. The universe may be said to be universally contemporaneous, even if relativistically non-simultaneous and causally independent in event structures. If the universe were seen as one vast rubber sheet, it would always be a present, that is continously reproducing itself with each reiterative moment--the process seems continuous, though it may become, upon fundamental scales, increasingly discontinuous or even quantum statistical and multidimensional. This vast sheet may be stretched and bent in a numberless variety of ways, but ultimately, it will seem, if one is on a local surface, to be the same flat and continuous expanse.

It is difficult to imagine this in four dimensions, in which the three spatial coordinate-reference systems are not compressed to a single plane--if we see time not as a sense of past, but of continuous presence, of a constant self-renewal, we come to a closer picture of the dynamics of space-time. Because we cannot gain an immediate observational image of the contemporaneous state universe, which we can infer to exist according to the cosmological principle, a realistic cosmological view of the universe in an omni-present state is next to impossible to infer or even imagine. Fortunately, structures in the universe seem stable and long-lived enough that our view at some distance coincides credibly with an inferrable present-state universe to a considerable degree, and by further inference we can project this view further and further beyond into the contemporaneous relams that we cannot immediately apprehend. Though we may never be able to see the contemporaneous, present state universe in the large, we may project a probably view that contains enough scientific credulity to figure as a central cosmological model and theory.

Evidence from such systematic deductive inference suggests that if the hypothesis of an original empty-state universe existed, then the universe is both much larger, probably infinitely large, and much, much older, probably infinitely old, than we have been otherwise wanting to accept. Science must halt at the edge of physical infinity, because it can recognize no boundaries within which to contain or account for such infinity, even if mathematics, the language of science, easily comprehends infinite sets and systems. The problem may be more vexing because if any system like universal space-time is infinite or eternal, then we cannot account for its origins or how it came into being, and the central explanatory project of science, then becomes impossible. We need to be able to explain how space-time, even if infinite and eternal, came into being and took shape, and arose from some previous unknown state. It becomes even more problematic when we consider the possibility that the matter and energy contained in space-time may also be fundamentally infinite and without beginning or end. We wish to explain how the first matter and energy arose, and this requires, it would seem, a basic finite set, a starting point.

One of the central problems cosmological science must come to terms with sufficiently therefore is an adequate, sufficient explanation for the possibility or probability of infinite state systems.

Infinite sets can only be explained as arising or being caused by infinite sets. We cannot explain an infinite system with resort to finite causes--finite antecedents can only beget finite consequents, no matter how large.

Our first question then is to ask if the universe was originally a zero-state or non-zero state universe--it arose from a finite set, and is finite, being ultimately closed, or else it arose from an infinite, and always infinite, set of antecedents, which would be precursor infinite states. We have developed a science that has always dealt with zero-state systems--non-zero state or open systems remain somewhat of a mystery and an enigma for scientific theory or methodology. A non-zero state universe would necessarily have to be an open-state and therefore ultimately an infinite-state system. Such an infinite state system may be infinite in a number of ways--temporally and spatially extensive, and infinitesimally infinite as well--it may also be on some unexplained but not unimaginable level multidimensionally infinite.

Scientific theory has been based primarily upon the study of closed, finite systems. If the universe is non-zero state, and open, then the only explanation for a infinite system was the transformation from a previous state that is also open and non-zero, presumably the latter system being a subset of the former. In other words, though finite zero state systems may arise from infinite systems, infinite systems cannot arise from zero state systems. If our systems in the natural world of energy and matter are infinite, then whatever precursor state giving rise to them had also to be infinite.

Though this may sound like begging the question, we can offer some evidence suggesting the infinity of the universe. The fact that Olber's paradox exist suggests that the background space-time framework that holds the stars may be infinitely deep, containing and engulfing in darkness an infinite amount of starlight.

Evidence for an open, infinite system exists in the principles of physical dynamics themselves--thermodynamic systems demand always an open reservoir--there is no such thing as a totally closed energy system and any energy system we may envision, no matter how large, is always contained within a background energy sink. This implies, indeed necessitates, essentially an infinite background within which to contain an infinitely large energy system. We can apply the same but converse principles to gravitational systems--any gravitational system, no matter how large, always demands an energy source, rather than sink, from the background field.

The state transformations that give rise to the emergence of infinite subsystems from previous infinite start-states must be developmental state-path transformations that involve the system as a whole, generally. We can speak of general, system wide transformations that arise as a self-constituting developmental process--a natural and logical outcome of a series of complex transitions.

An infinite state universe may contain an infinite number of subsystems that may also be infinite. Such systems cannot be explained in finite terms, or by resort to the explanation of systems that are finite, closed or zero-state. If we wish to seek evidence in the observable and inferrable universe, we might consider the question of the radiant diameters of observational spheres--if we are observing through our most powerful telescopes light of 15 billion lightyears depth, then we can conclude that that light was cast 15 billion light-years ago, with such a radius, in all directions. If we can conclude that the observational diameter of this field in one direction is 30 billion lightyears depth, and we look in the opposite direction for the same depth, we find our own observational sphere expanded inferentially to 60 billion lightyears depth. It would not be too difficult to infer an even larger observational diameter, of 120 billion lightyears, if we consider both radii in opposite directions together, and in this manner it is not too difficult to make a series of inferences that would expand the universe to enormous depths omnidirectionally. From the standpoint of an hypothesis of an infinite, open-state universe, we might conclude that we could continue expanding an infinite number of observational diameters, omnidirectionally, an infinite number of times.

We do not have to resort in a holistic science of universal systems that are open and infinite to questions of original causation of such infinite systems--explanation of such systems can only proceed from the position of the preexistence of some previous, infinite and open-state system. We must allow a form of scientific explanation that will permit us to depart from the reduction of closed systems to zero-state realities.

There exist in the natural world a general class of open, infinite state systems.

Such systems have always existed, albeit in some dynamic, developmentally alternative form.

These open, infinite state systems appear to contain other systems that are both infinite and finite subsets of the larger system.

These systems are universal in that they contain all other systems as subsystems, either infinite or finite, in such a way that:

a. all subsystems obey basic dynamic principles that define the structural dynamics and limits of all subsystems.

c. universal dynamics inform the fundamental structure and developmental organization of all universal systems and subsystems.

There is a sense that we cannot ultimately prove or disprove in an analytical scientific sense whether the universe is infinite or not, but from the standpoint of infinite systems, there is a sense that we may not need to prove this, rather than to demonstrate that such systems do exist by means of inductive and deductive proof, and to then seek to explain the developmental and dynamic processes that define and underlie such systems. It becomes important that we look for sufficient evidence to help explain the following:

1. Universal dynamic systems and their structural articulation in a broad range of systems.

2. Sufficient forms of empirical evidence for the developmental consequences of such systems.

3. Empirical evidence of open and infinite subsystems as part of a larger natural contextual patterning.

Unlike a finite system that may be contained by another system, finite or infinite, but contain only smaller finite system, an infinite system may contain but may not be contained, except by another larger infinite system of which it is a subset.

The challenge of science in dealing with infinite systems is that the questions of origins of something infinite is fundamentally inexplicable, except in terms of developmental evolution from other infinite systems. There is a fundamental difference between an infinite system and a very large system that remains basically finite. The trouble is that we do not know, and may never know, whether if the number of stars and planets and other bodies in the universe, the sum total of known matter, is finite and incredibly large in number, or if it is truly infinite and endless in extent.

The problem of infinity in natural reality is a central dilemma to a clear theoretical discussion of the universe. It is a question that ultimately cannot be avoided, though I think in many hypothetical constructions it is a problem conveniently side-stepped, and hence dismissed. There seems no clear resolution to this dilemma except perhaps a strange cosmic leap of faith to accept the presence of infinite systems as originally given, or otherwise. There is though a residual sense remaining that an original empty system might be universal in that it is not containable or contained by anything else, but is itself all containing. It would thus have been the great nothingness before there was anything or the great Something of the Universe itself. There is a sense that this primordial cosmic emptiness can stretch out in all directions forever. This view of an empty state system seems to lend credence to an Einsteinian cosmology and sense of space-time as somehow relative to the systems of mass and energy it contains.

There is a sense as well that we stand in our infant science dwarfed and rendered powerless before the grandness of the seemingly infinite universe--the problem of infinity thus seems too large for us to clearly or sufficiently deal with in our very limited and essentially finite powers of calculation or even imagination. Might there not be some region of the vast universe, unbeknownst to ourselves, the structure of which might be fundamentally different than anything we've encountered before, and there is some mysterious boundary separating that part from our own physical sense of the world? Such a possibility is neither impossible nor implausible.

Yet it is not enough to write that the universe simply always existed, at least in some basic form. Any scientific explanation must account for causes and explain how and what the universe came from. There must be something to have caused the infinite to come into being, to become what it became. And this kind of explanation cannot resort to a divine determinism. There are vast amounts of mass in the universe, produced by ever vaster quantities of energy, which may have itself been produced by some tremendously vast amount of essential something.

Gravitational dynamics is universal and all encompassing--it is a consequence of the formation and aggregation of mass based matter in the universe. It affects in terms of motion all bodies of matter in the universe, regardless of how small or large the intrinsic mass of the object.

With gravitational dynamics, there is a sense that systems in the long run tend toward gravitational unification. Gravitational unification may be defined as the tendency for multiple bodies of mass within a common gravitational field to become self-organized in the most efficient and ordered manner. Gravitational unification may involve the collision of mass bodies, which results in destructive outcomes for the bodies involved, but more often it seems to involve the capture and mutual rotational adjustments of bodies in space to stable long-term trajectories.

The capture of distant bodies in stable orbital trajectories from long-period or hyperbolic trajectories may involve a step-wise process in which the oribting body is brought increasingly into the system in decreasingly eccentric and increasingly stable trajectories. A comet coming into a solar system from far out upon the edges of the gravitational field of that system, may first become caught in a highly parabolic orbit--a chance encounter with some planet or other orbiting body may serve to shift this trajectory enough to result in a shorter term period closer into the nucleus of the system. Further interaction over time with other bodies, which seems possibly a key factor in the adjustment and unification of complex gravitational systems, toward an increasingly stable state-path. Eventually an object would approach a near circular trajectory upon the plane of ecliptic, the most stable orbital position such a body could attain.

In such a manner, a solar system that is upon some kind of orbit itself through a galaxy, serves as a kind of cosmic vacuum cleaner, catching up stray objects which happen within its gravitational field--most such objects either pass through, sling-shotted back out into the depths of space, or crash eventually into one orbiting body or another. A few such objects may, by pure chance, happen to become caught semi-permanently (for all intents and purposes, permanent) within a stable orbital trajectory around one or other major gravitatin body. For all the many thousands, indeed, millions of such bodies that have probably passed through our system sense the time it was a system, only a very very small percentage appear to have been effectively captured, and though we are discovering more and more irregular moons and other bodies and even micro-planets on wild trajectories, we can conclude that many many more have arrived into our system to be consumed one way or another, most likely into the sun itself, or else managed to escape to be flung far back out into space.

Gravitational dynamics constitutes a paradigm that is in many ways the inverse of thermodyanmics, in this superficial sense, at least, gravitational systems appear to violate every principle and implication of the laws of thermodynamics, and it is in the consideration of gravitational systems that we can see that thermodynamics does not apply unequivocally to all kinds of energy systems in the universe, but namely to light energy and systems that are the consequence of electromagnetic radiation.

Gravity and gravity based systems are not gravitational systems, but arise as the consequence of gravitational systems operating primarily upon objects of mass in motion. From the standpoint of space-time, we may state that gravity is the flow of space-time directed by gravitational energy toward the source of gravitation, or the relative center of gravity. Objects move towards a source because they flow and accelerate in the flow of space-time. They change position and speed largely as a result of their inertia.

The weight of an object is its relative measure of mass in a given gravitational field--i.e., it is the amount of energy required to counteract the effect of gravity on the object, to lift it from a resting position and to counter-act its tendency to fall toward the center of gravity.

Unified systems gain a state of inertial equilibrium unless disturbed by some outside contravening force.

Submotions within a given gravitational frame of reference are independent of the frames of reference in which they occur.

In the long run, all systems tend toward gravitational unification. Unified systems are organized by a hierarchy of gravitational dominance, based upon the absolute masses of gravitational bodies and their relative densities in space-time.

A gravitationally unified system will, in a larger gravitational frame of reference, move in a single direction as a single, complex body. Internal movements of sub-bodies of this unified system will move independently of this external motion. The clocks governing the relative internal motions are independent of the clocks governing the unified system as a whole, even though both sets of clocks occur simultaneously.

An objects net motion is the complex function of all its motional trajectories combined. There is no object in the universe that is not in some complex pattern of net motion.

Gravitationally unfied systems become increasingly ordered over the long run. Rotational bodies tend either towards increasingly stable orbital trajectories, or towards degenerate trajectories. The time-space axii of Keplerian rotational focii tend to be non-parallel, and non-linear, and to be in the long run either convergent or divergent.

Complex gravitational systems tend to be non-linear in their dynamic trajectories. In empty space-time, there is no preferred inherent direction of motion.

The principles of thermodynamics have relevance to undestanding universal dynamics to the extent that electromagnetic radiation is not only pervasive and intrinsic to almost all events occurring naturally in the world, but it is by means of this kind of radiation that we have our primary and most important means of remote observation of the universe--it is the source of factual knowledge upon which our understanding of physical reality and the universe are based.

The mechanical dynamics of motion and change of position and state are another energy-based paradigm of the universe that might be considered in relation to gravitational dynamics and thermodynamics. Mechanical dynamics are summarized by Newton's three laws of motion.

Mechanical dynamics are the mechanical principles of motion and work, and are basically defined by Newton's three laws of motion.

There are no absolutely motionless systems in physical reality--all systems are in motion, though all motions are relative to the gravitational frame of reference in which they occur.

Any mass based system may be part of any number of gravitationally unified frames of reference, if these unified frames are nested hierarchically within one another in a well system.

In empty space, any direction of motion is possible, and there is no obvious preferred motion absent a gravitational field by some gravitating body of mass.

We do not normally think of matter as being part of a dynamic system, as least not intrinsically, as we know matter to be normally one of the most stable and static products of the natural universe. A non-radioactive rock may be itself millions, if not billions of years old, and the atoms and molecules composing that rock may in fact be much older, presumably first formed in the nuclear furnace of some ancient and long extinct star.

The notion of Nuclear-Chemical Dynamics of matter follows from Einsteins famous equivalence of mass and energy. We know a small amount of matter containes huge amounts of energy. If we can go back one more step, if energy cannot be made or destroyed, only transformed from one kind to another, then we can conclude that the original universe may have been a vast empty reservoir of vacant space-time, that this reservoir contained an infinite amount of energy. Matter, like energy, was not made or destroyed, but merely, gracually, transformed from one state into another state that we more typically associate with matter based systems. These processes of transformation may be occurring beneath our very noses without our awareness.

Matter may be made and destroyed, but the stuff of which matter is made is forever, at least relatively speaking.

We do not really know the pathways in the original production of new, pristine matter during earlier epochs of the universe.

One conjectural pathway is new mass created in the furnace of a star, cast off regularly into the depths of space in the form of solar wind. The star itself maintains a stable equilibrium, and thus throws off the new mass it produces in prodigious and continuous quantities. Thus an average star is over the course of its life time producing new matter at extraordinary rates, enough matter to make many more stars. This model is based upon the presupposition that space-time, consistent of an ethereal substance, is consumed by a star through gravitational inflow, and this is regularly transformed into pristine forms of matter, namly new nucleons which migrate to the surface of the sun and then become cast into the depths of space.

By such a mechanism, we can explain the possible production of new mass from preexisting hydrogen-helium formations in stars, but we cannot explain where and how the original hydrogen was formed that consstituted the first stars, and presumably, there was an original set of first stars. Hypothetically, vast currents may exist, or have existed, in the vast depths of empty space-time--these currents may have on occasion converged in a manner to produce what might be called a gravitational cyclone, with a false center of gravity--enough pressures may have been involved inthis convergence to have the effect of what I would call a "white source" that would radiate light energy and possibly large amounts of nucleonic particles. Such white sources may in fact be quite vast, and they may, relatively speaking, become fairly long lived.

Any cosmogony theory must deal with a central dilemma of not being able to explain the first mechanism, or original state, from which all other states subsequently derived. If we push our theory of the production of matter from the somethingness of the seeming nothing of empty space-time, then we are left ultimately with a long early epoch of cosmological time in which the universe was essentially empty. We can hypothesize that hydrogen clouds gradually accumulated and aggregated, forming small stars that were relatively long lived. With the formation of long duration stars, the universe began to heat up. I've called this the "cold fusion" universe, compared to the "Big Bang" theory. The time frames we are talking about, relative to our own, are astronomical, simply ginormous. We can say that the universe is both very, very, very old, as it is very, very, very large.

Even if the pristine state of the universe was one vast emptiness of space-time, containing an unlimited amount of negative or potential energy, which gradually transformed into light and matter, we must ask still the question of where this original space-time substance originated from.

In other words, the universe as a whole may well be gradually trending from a long primordial period of vast emptiness, through a continuing cycle of the production and destruction of matter, until the systems produced become increasingly organized and consolidated into what can be called "black hole universes"--basically super-galaxies and galactic clusters organized around a few giant monster black holes. The exact history of its development would have been complex, chaotic and undetermined, but it would have become increasingly dense in terms of matter per amount of space-time. Star systems would have grown, in larger average size, as well as in number.

We may look a t a neutron and a proton, a nucleon or nucleonic pair, as a mini-blackhole. It is a structure in which mass is concentrated at a single small locus at any given moment.

The origin of pristine or nucleonic matter, outside possibly the production of stellar nuclear furnaces, remains a great unanswered mystery in the universe. The rate of production of new mass in the universe must be indeed prodigious but largely invisible, formed as it seems to be originally as a very sparse cloud or nebulae of hydrogen nuclei.

Once formed, such nebulae collect in regions in denser and denser formations, until by shear volume of mass, they begin to form large gravitationally focused aggregates that coalesce into stars. Once formed into a star, the nuclear furnace is produced that eventually resultes in the production of every element in the periodic table, probably more, all enriched and radioactively "white hot." Such elements are in a more or less pure plasma state, and thus do not occur as normal cold matter. The relative ratios and densities of elements in stars probably varies considerably over the life span of a typical sun-sized star--producing larger quantities of heavier atomic nuclei closer to the end of its cycle than at the beginning.

So far, the dynamics of systems discussed have involved physical systems that occur on the basis of physical principles or laws that provide order to observable reality. By and large, these dynamics are amenable to mathematical description and explanation. Derivative systems concern basic levels of natural systems stratification involving emergent properties that are not so simply describable in terms of mathematical equations.

Living systems as we know them on earth have been on earth for approximately the last four billion years, almost as long as the earth has existed as a "cold" terrestrial planet. These systems have in that time evolved along a single grand tree of life, such that all organisms on earth share a common fundamental genetic structure and means of replication, and all organisms ultimately share a common ancestry and a common protobiotic origin.

Living systems have evolved and the dynamics of this evolution, based upon natural selection and random mutation, has been explicated by Charles Darwin's theory. This evolution in the form of speciation has resulted in the relatively continuous differentiation of cellular and multi-cellular life forms, and the intermeshing of these life-forms in complex webs of interdependency, within a larger bio-geophysical metasystem framework that has been at least in part shaped by the pattern of evolving life forms.

Hominid evolution has given rise, particularly in the last 100,000 years, to what can be called symbolic-cultural systems of human adaptation that are founded upon the complex abstract functioning of the human brain, and our language capacity to communicate and convey complex understanding to one another. Cultural systems are dynamic in the sense that they have evolved with human gene-culture coevolution, and they have differentiated into a vast variety of forms.

Human societies, rooted in the symbolic cultural organization of the world, tend to aggregate and to form larger institutional frameworks and systems based upon the development of applied alternative systems technology. Human civilization can be said to be the rise of advanced human social systems founded upon the development of applied alternative systems.

A fourth paradigm worthy of consideration in this regard is informational dynamics, which are critically tied to human knowledge systems.

Human beings are creating computer-based systems of artificial intelligence and robotic automation which at some point in their development should begin to be self-organizing, truly "automaton," with emergent properties of automation and intelligence not accountable by the human programmer or the machine code.

[1] 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.

[2] 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.

[3] 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.

[4] I think in this regard that this kind of meta-system dialogue that has under-laid scientific activity and progress has largely gone unrecognized in and of itself, and left systematically undefined as a process of any true consequence in scientific inquiry.

Perhaps diagrams like that above provide a start to a more systematic framework for maintaining and developing such meta-systemic dialogues and models about reality.

[1] The point of departure for this work in advanced systems science, and what fundamentally separates it from the previous work in natural systems, is that it begins with the problem of the self-reflexive role of knowledge in the construction of our sense of reality. This is ultimately a separate problem than the question of physical reality itself, in which the question of our ability to know is assumed away and held in control except perhaps on the horizons of our knowledge of the physical universe.

[2] It can be demonstrated that a mechanistic view of the world is an inherently relativistic one, and therefore it can be extended systematically to embrace exotic phenomena that are not conventionally a part of mechanical explanations, especially not in any classical sense. Because it is relativistic, we can also correctly say that all naturally occurring systems are fundamentally non-linear and underdetermined control systems, by innate design.

[3] In the previous work, we took for granted the question of the objectivity of our knowledge, and thus planting it as a universal reference point, we assumed that the physical objective reality was all encompassing and embraced even our ability to know itself. In this work, we do not take this question for granted, but we plant instead as our universal frame of reference the inherent problematic of our ability to know reality, especially our physical reality, in fundamental ways. It is presumed therefore that what always lies behind this problematic framework is the solution of reality itself. We have shifted our fundamental coordinates and reference points, but the central dilemma of the relativity of our knowledge remains regardless of our starting point or frame of reference.

[4] The danger of this is to fall into the complacency of accepting a classical conception of a non-relativistic world in which knowledge has some final sense of certainty that is attachable to it. We know this not to be true, or we've learned that this is never the case in reality. Hence, there is always some sense of fundamental discrepancy between what we know as a conceptual system that is at least internally coherent, and what we experience in reality as a phenomenal system that is at least minimally consistent with our knowledge

[5] I would call it a form of rational truth, but it is not clear to me exactly what "rational" might mean in this case. Neither would I call it "logical" truth as well. I do not know if a moral system that is descriptive/prescriptive would be forthcoming from its elaboration or not. I would not prematurely say so, or otherwise, though any kind of moral formulation, no matter how metaethical, must be always critically suspect of some kind of relativity of values.

In a sense, such truth cannot be scientific, as science cannot ask and answer fundamentally non-scientific questions. It is essentially a form of metaphysical truth, thus it transcends the physical parameters of scientific systems. It is neither a purely abstract system in the same sense that mathematics is. I will not go so far as to call it a form of spiritual truth either, though this may be related to it, and may point towards a fourth kind of truth system lying somewhere beyond.

[6] I have attempted to do this in a synthetic and integrated manner that attempts to account for all types of abstract systems in equal measure. I have intended to do it in a way that remains faithful to the objectives of advanced systems science as a nontrivial system of knowledge and inquiry in the world. To do justice to this problem set would require perhaps an entire series of related works, but it is beyond the scope of this primer to attempt such detailed excoriation of all the implications entailed by such problems. I soon exhaust my own limits of tolerance of the obtuse and esoteric.

[7] What I do hold strongly to is what I refer to as an objective standard of scientific truth as the basis for all knowledge, and as a cornerstone for all systems theory which makes a claim to being scientific. I am not interested in quibbling on the head of a pin, or in exploring the infinite meanings of a grain of sand. This does not mean either that I do not have a strong streak of humanism or the humanities coarsing madly and somewhat illogically through my veins.

[8] Before the hard scientists of the physical persuasions should be so overly proud of their accomplishments in physics and chemistry, I would like to remind them that in their theorization they are not completely free of the conundrums and paradoxes that their symbolic language, or their paradigmatic communities, are prone to. In theoretical construction, physicists can be as muddle-headed, if not more muddle-headed, than the soft-shelled, namby-pamby brained social scientists. Indeed, because clear-headedness is in such demand and has such a premium precisely where the data is least clear as such and precisely where relationships are least certain and most equivocal, I would venture the claim that one-on-one a good anthropologist worth her salt tends to be less muddle headed, not more, than his hard-science counterpart, who too often takes his facts, his ideas, and his truths, for granted.

[9] My aim in this first part is not to determine a universal system of abstraction, as I do not think one exists and I think it is silly to presume anything we can construct can accomplish this. My aim is first to elaborate what I would refer to as a systems-based philosophy of science, one that is capable of standing sufficiently for all scientific knowledge and brings all scientific knowledge under a common symbolic umbrella. The next concern is to explore what I take to be relatively unchartered areas of mathematical systems, as systems of abstraction and as "abstractions" of systems. Finally, my aim is to elaborate a framework for what I prefer to call "possible systems" which, I guess, would be a framework for knowledge systems in general.

[10] Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, I want to comprehend how alternative logical relations cohere in symbolic systems, gain expression through the language and sense of mathematics, and can lead to the construction of knowledge systems and the organization, manipulation and transmission of information, particularly as this is advanced by theory of Automata and the question of Intelligence, to which I will hopefully return in a later chapter, in a later part, of this text. Perhaps this is already overly reductionist, as one scientist's model may be another philosopher's muddle, but it is the best I can come up with at this short notice.

[11] A perfectly ordered or determined system would be some kind of perpetual motion machine. A perfectly undetermined system would be a total energy reservoir or perfect vacuum that reached absolute zero. It would be the equivalent of saying that there is nothing. I believe these ideas may be interdependent to one another, such that our sense of order, whether absolute or relative, is founded implicitly upon some sense of disorder, and vice versa.

[12] Thus a standard frame of reference should permit us to make systematic inferences relating to the functional structure and structural functioning of a system. I believe that gestalt theory applied to metasystems may provide such a standard frame of reference.

[13] . I deal only with those issues that I consider most important to our sense of reality and worldview, and that cannot be excluded if we are to entertain any illusions about being comprehensive. Though I make a stake in comprehensiveness of perspective, I make no claims about being complete or exhaustive in this regard or in any other way. It is a beginning for other work, hopefully basic, ground breaking and foundational in some respects, but it does not stand in place of work that remains to be accomplished in the future.