All natural systems are self-organizing. They are not self-organizing in any self-deterministic manner in the sense that their design is somehow inherent to the parts that compose such systems. Rather, they become spontaneously organized by themselves when conditions conducive to their organization, are ripe and available. These conditions are invariably complex and stochastic in the sense that they are largely based upon the concatenation of random variables by chance. 

Biological systems are the epitome of natural self-organization, and their finite complexity defies not only description, but our imagination and sense of credibility. It is no wonder when we deal with the myriad intricacies encountered in living systems in almost every form of their expression that we are tempted to believe in some sense of predetermination of pattern. We may say of course that biological design is genetically predetermined, as indeed it is. It is in fact by virtue of non-random genetic determination that life has been able to perpetuate itself and to recreate itself anew on a continuous basis. This "self-replication" is something no non-living system has yet been observed to do. But the question of predetermination comes before the phenomenon of genetic predetermination--how did life get to the point of being able to replicate itself in a reliable and consistent manner?

If the original organization of living systems on earth was unpredetermined, then it was stochastically achieved within conditions that were suitable to its spontaneous self-organization. We can imagine that this was probably only accomplished by much "trial and error" without implying of course any deliberate intentionality to the chances processes then occurring. The genetic organization of life was not achieved by an preordained plan or a-priori sense of structure. It was achieved through the chance concatenation of factors that made the organization of genetic codons probable.

If we examine natural evolutionary development of living forms, we find that it is based upon two principles at least--1st) chance point mutation in genetic coding sequences that lead to a process of significant alteration of cellular structure, function and pattern as a function of RNA transcription; 2nd) it has been demonstrated that DNA structure and transmission has undergone several major transformations in the course of evolution, probably associated with the emergence of new forms of life, and these kinds of transformations of the transmission process appear to have been based upon inherent structural variability of the DNA machinery, built in from the beginning. (From a systems perspective, these principles of evolutionary dynamics at the genetic level are predictable.)

We can find the evolution of living systems to be a continuation of natural systems principles of underdetermined self-organization upon a completely different level, and in fact, operating upon several levels simultaneously. The inherent multi-level variability of ecological and evolutionary systems has resulted in the differentiation of life into a vast number of alternative forms and designs, and it has resulted in a kind of blind genetic algorithm, a kind of exploration of alternative possibilities of structure in systems. We are reluctant to credit any form or sense of "teleological purpose" to this patterning of Taxon cycles and evolution of increasingly complex and sophisticated forms of life, but we can safely invoke systems principles like "equi-finality" to explain how complex systems can blindly explore a large range of possibilities of an even larger search-solution landscape and in the process hit upon remarkable design solutions for life forms to take.

We must somewhat smugly credit ourselves, Homo sapiens sapiens, as one of those wonderful solutions of this process of the blind exploration of life's possibilities. I say so not in sarcasm to our many faults and chronic history of violence and greed, but in respect and awe of a natural world that can produce such complex creatures, however imperfect in nature.

I have addressed the question of the non-predetermination of self-organizing natural systems not because this has arisen recently as a popular issue in modern American political culture dealing with this neo-creationist ideology of "Intelligent Design." Rather, my purpose for addressing the problem of predetermination in natural systems was to provide some kind of conceptual platform in a quasi-formal sense for explaining how natural systems may normally arise, indeed, must arise, from purely chance conditions which result in the formation of "pre-systems" or conditions for the organization of systems. This can only be understood when local conditions permit the augmentation and concentration of energy as a working gradient against the normal and random process of entropy, i.e, the non-random organization of natural energy in "pockets" mediated by some kind of "boundary" mechanism.