by Hugh M. Lewis

So far we know of only one living system in the universe, though conjecturally we believe that there must exist many similar kinds of systems scattered throughout our own galaxy, and through the many galaxies that are within our current observational compass. We have so far found no direct evidence of life that has spontaneously arisen outside of the earth's biosphere, but due to the fact of existence of life on earth we can infer the likelihood of a similar occurrence under similar set of conditions in other locations of our contemporary universe.

This living system is characterizable as the sum of all biotic components, relationships and organisms contained within the earth's biosphere. Life on earth, the living system as a whole, is a single global meta-system of which all forms are but instances of the same general system, and all instances are but enclosed in the same general system.

It is most important to characterize this entire system as "hologeistic" and "holothetic" in the sense that though we may analytically parse and separate individual organisms or even subsystems from the whole, all systems are bound up within a general, single meta-biotic context we refer to as the biosphere, and "Life" as a whole is represented by this biosphere, and earthbound Life or all living systems currently known, are presumed to be related to one another, however remotely, within a single family tree that dates back to a single period and place in our earth's history where and when life first originated. The biosphere is in other words a single well integrated web of life, with many levels and compartments of subsystems that overlap in the larger context of the whole, and that share many basic processes that are characteristic of all living systems, including a basic dependency upon some source of external energy, water, and the presence of various forms of essential elements. Such systems have come to depend as well upon some means of reproduction as well as upon the exchange of biotic-based energy & nutrients within a meta-biotic system. 

If we are to characterize this system globally, we must focus on the most general bio-geophysical feedback cycles and basic solar & geothermal energy inputs into such systems. This includes primarily the daily energy of the sun that is broadcast upon the earth upon a diurnal cycle, with a few minor instances of systems existing in relation to geo-thermal energy sources, and the great cycles that are driven by the system, including the hydrologic cycle, the carbon-oxygen & nitrogen cycle, the cycles of various basic minerals.

As far as we can tell, life on earth began in essentially a single place and period in earth's remote history, approximately 3.5 to 4.0 billion years before present, and the first clearly emergent life forms were probably most like prokaryotic or simple one celled bacteria that lived in some kind of water-based solution. This system was capable of expansion due to adaptation through mutation and evolution leading to elaborated differentiation of forms, and gradually extended from a few restricted locations & environments to encompass the entire earth in a highly evolved biosphere. It is likely that genetic transmission systems of early living systems at this level included means of horizontal transmission and the emergence of viruses or viroid self-replicating strands of DNA, as well as conventional vertical transmission of systems through cellular mitosis. The next step seems to have been the extension of such bacteria into extreme environmental habitats and the emergence of range of extremophiles that are characterized as archaeo-bacteria. Whether archaeo-bacteria may have emerged first, leading to a general form of prokaryotic bacteria with basic differences of cellular structure & metabolism, is an undecided question. 

Next to emerge was a form of eukaryotic bacteria that represented an advance in structure over simple single celled prokarya, and may possibly have occurred as the result of horizontal symbiotic interactions & genetic exchange between prokarya during which one or more bacteria became incorporated by and into the structure of another bacteria, and developed specialized structures and functions within the environment of the host bacteria. This led directly to the possibility of multi-cellular structures and organization leading eventually to the emergence of multi-cellular organisms. 

Living systems soon became spread around the entire earth, and began to develop its own meta-biotic contexts that tended in the long run to transform the earth's surface into conditions more suitable for biospheric development. Living systems thus became interdependent in a counter-adaptive and co-evolutionary manner to one another, especially across basic trophic levels of energy exchange, and thus became part of the meta-biotic context in which new life forms and new kinds of living systems could evolve. We cannot easily or simply disarticulate the biosphere today, or any of its components, in a manner that would allow us to say where one system clearly leaves off and another begins. We cannot know or forecast beforehand the indirect consequences upon the remaining meta-biotic system of removing any single species or set of systems from the larger picture of the entire biosphere.

With the advent of the Space age, with travel into outer-space and the view of the world as a single lonely planet in space, we have achieved a more apparent realization of the earth as a single meta-system, as a living planet, as a "space-ship" that harbors the only and most precious cargo we know of to exist--life in the form of biological systems. We are ourselves biological systems rooted to the same natural patterns from which all life forms have come. We cannot contradict the dictates and constraints of our own biological being without paying the price of such contradiction. 

It is vital to see that a meta-biotic framework for comprehending living systems on earth stems directly from this concept of holothesis/hologeisis of the earthbound biosphere. This is not merely for issues of future global ecology of human civilization, but for straight-forward purposes of scientific biological investigation.

General Systems Essays, Vol. I