James Grier Miller, Living Systems (1978) - 0 views
-
reality as an integrated hierarchy of organizations of matter and energy
-
General living systems theory is concerned with a special subset of all systems, the living ones
-
a space is a set of elements which conform to certain postulate
- ...266 more annotations...
-
s. Euclidean space
-
metric space
-
topological space
-
Physical space is the extension surrounding a point
-
My presentation of a general theory of living systems will employ two sorts of spaces in which they may exist, physical or geographical space and conceptual or abstracted spaces
-
Physical or geographical space
-
Euclidean space
-
distance
-
moving
-
maximum speed
-
objects moving in such space cannot pass through one another
-
friction
-
The characteristics and constraints of physical space affect the action of all concrete systems, living and nonliving.
-
information can flow worldwide almost instantly
-
Physical space is a common space
-
Most people learn that physical space exists, which is not true of many spaces
-
They can give the location of objects in it
-
Conceptual or abstracted spaces
-
Peck order
-
Social class space
-
Social distance
-
Political distance
-
life space
-
semantic space
-
Sociometric space
-
A space of time costs of various modes of transportation
-
space of frequency of trade relations among nations.
-
A space of frequency of intermarriage among ethnic groups.
-
These conceptual and abstracted spaces do not have the same characteristics and are not subject to the same constraints as physical space
-
Social and some biological scientists find conceptual or abstracted spaces useful because they recognize that physical space is not a major determinant of certain processes in the living systems they study
-
interpersonal relations
-
one cannot measure comparable processes at different levels of systems, to confirm or disconfirm cross-level hypotheses, unless one can measure different levels of systems or dimensions in the same spaces or in different spaces with known transformations among them
-
It must be possible, moreover, to make such measurements precisely enough to demonstrate whether or not there is a formal identity across levels
-
fundamental "fourth dimension" of the physical space-time continuum
-
is the particular instant at which a structure exists or a process occurs
-
or the measured or measurable period over which a structure endures or a process continues.
-
durations
-
speeds
-
rates
-
accelerations
-
irreversible unidirectionality of time
-
thermodynamics
-
negentropy
-
"time's arrow."
-
Matter and energy
-
Matter is anything which has mass (m) and occupies physical space.
-
Energy (E) is defined in physics as the ability to do work.
-
kinetic energy
-
potential energy
-
rest mass energy
-
Mass and energy are equivalent
-
Living systems need specific types of matter-energy in adequate amounts
-
Energy for the processes of living systems is derived from the breakdown of molecules
-
Any change of state of matter-energy or its movement over space, from one point to another, I shall call action.
-
It is one form of process.
-
information (H)
-
Transmission of Information
-
Meaning is the significance of information to a system which processes it: it constitutes a change in that system's processes elicited by the information, often resulting from associations made to it on previous experience with it
-
Information is a simpler concept: the degrees of freedom that exist in a given situation to choose among signals, symbols, messages, or patterns to be transmitted.
-
The set of all these possible categories (the alphabet) is called the ensemble or repertoire
-
.) The unit is the binary digit, or bit of information
-
. The amount of information is measured as the logarithm to the base 2 of the number of alternate patterns
-
Signals convey information to the receiving system only if they do not duplicate information already in the receiver. As Gabor says:
-
[The information of a message can] be defined as the 'minimum number of binary decisions which enable the receiver to construct the message, on the basis of the data already available to him.'
-
meaning cannot be precisely measured
-
Information is the negative of uncertainty.
-
information is the amount of formal patterning or complexity in any system.
-
The term marker was used by von Neumann to refer to those observable bundles, units, or changes of matter-energy whose patterning bears or conveys the informational symbols from the ensemble or repertoire.
-
If a marker can assume n different states of which only one is present at any given time, it can represent at most log2n bits of information. The marker may be static, as in a book or in a computer's memory
-
Communication of almost every sort requires that the marker move in space, from the transmitting system to the receiving system, and this movement follows the same physical laws as the movement of any other sort of matter-energy. The advance of communication technology over the years has been in the direction of decreasing the matter-energy costs of storing and transmitting the markers which bear information.
-
There are, therefore, important practical matter-energy constraints upon the information processing of all living systems exerted by the nature of the matter-energy which composes their markers.
-
organization is based upon the interrelations among parts.
-
If two parts are interrelated either quantitatively or qualitatively, knowledge of the state of one must yield some information about the state of the other. Information measures can demonstrate when such relationships exist
-
The disorder, disorganization, lack of patterning, or randomness of organization of a system is known as its entropy (S)
-
the statistical measure for the negative of entropy is the same as that for information
-
entropy becomes a measure of the probability
-
Increase of entropy was thus interpreted as the passage of a system from less probable to more probable states.
-
according to the second law, a system tends to increase in entropy over time, it must tend to decrease in negentropy or information.
-
therefore no principle of the conservation of information
-
The total information can be decreased in any system without increasing it elsewhere
-
but it cannot be increased without decreasing it elsewhere
-
. Making one or more copies of a given informational pattern does not increase information overall, though it may increase the information in the system which receives the copied information.
-
transforms information into negative entropy
-
smallest possible amount of energy used in observing one bit of information
-
calculations of the amount of information accumulated by living systems throughout growth.
-
the concept of Prigogine that in an open system (that is one in which both matter and energy can be exchanged with the environment) the rate of entropy production within the system, which is always positive, is minimized when the system is in a steady state.
-
in systems with internal feedbacks, internal entropy production is not always minimized when the system is in a stationary state. In other words, feedback couplings between the system parameters may cause marked changes in the rate of development of entropy. Thus it may be concluded that the "information flow" which is essential for this feedback markedly alters energy utilization and the rate of development of entropy, at least in some such special cases which involve feedback control. While the explanation of this is not clear, it suggests an important relationship between information and entropy
-
amount of energy actually required to transmit the information in the channel is a minute part of the total energy in the system, the "housekeeping energy" being by far the largest part of it
-
In recent years systems theorists have been fascinated by the new ways to study and measure information flows, but matter-energy flows are equally important. Systems theory is more than information theory, since it must also deal with energetics - such matters as
-
the flow of raw materials through societies
-
Only a minute fraction of the energy used by most living systems is employed for information processing
-
I have noted above that the movement of matter-energy over space, action, is one form of process. Another form of process is information processing or communication, which is the change of information from one state to another or its movement from one point to another over space
-
Communications, while being processed, are often shifted from one matter-energy state to another, from one sort of marker to another
-
transformations go on in living systems
-
One basic reason why communication is of fundamental importance is that informational patterns can be processed over space and the local matter-energy at the receiving point can be organized to conform to, or comply with, this information
-
the delivery of "flowers by telegraph."
-
Matter-energy and information always flow together
-
Information is always borne on a marker
-
. Conversely there is no regular movement in a system unless there is a difference in potential between two points, which is negative entropy or information
-
If the receiver responds primarily to the material or energic aspect, I shall call it, for brevity, a matter-energy transmission; if the response is primarily to the information, I shall call it an information transmission
-
Moreover, just as living systems must have specific forms of matter-energy, so they must have specific patterns of information
-
example
-
example
-
develop normally
-
have appropriate information inputs in infancy
-
pairs of antonyms
-
one member of which is associated with the concept of information (H)
-
the other member of which is associated with its negative, entropy (S)
-
System
-
A system is a set of interacting units with relationships among them
-
.The word "set" implies that the units have some common properties. These common properties are essential if the units are to interact or have relationships. The state of each unit is constrained by, conditioned by, or dependent on the state of other units. The units are coupled. Moreover, there is at least one measure of the sum of its units which is larger than the sum of that measure of its units.
-
Conceptual system
-
Units
-
terms
-
Relationships
-
a set of pairs of units, each pair being ordered in a similar way
-
expressed by words
-
or by logical or mathematical symbols
-
operations
-
The conceptual systems of science
-
observer
-
selects
-
particular sets to study
-
Variable
-
Each member of such a set becomes a variable of the observer's conceptual system
-
conceptual system may be loose or precise, simple or elaborate
-
Indicator
-
an instrument or technique used to measure fluctuations of variables in concrete systems
-
Function
-
a correspondence between two variables, x and y, such that for each value of x there is a definite value of y, and no two y's have the same x, and this correspondence is: determined by some rule
-
Any function is a simple conceptual system
-
Parameter
-
An independent variable through functions of which other functions may be expressed
-
The state of a conceptual system
-
the set of values on some scale, numerical or otherwise, which its variables have at a given instant
-
Formal identity
-
variables
-
varies comparably to a variable in another system
-
If these comparable variations are so similar that they can be expressed by the same function, a formal identity exists between the two systems
-
Relationships between conceptual and other sorts of systems
-
Science advances as the formal identity or isomorphism increases between a theoretical conceptual system and objective findings about concrete or abstracted systems
-
A conceptual system may be purely logical or mathematical, or its terms and relationships may be intended to have some sort of formal identity or isomorphism with units and relationships empirically determinable by some operation carried out by an observer
-
Concrete system
-
a nonrandom accumulation of matter-energy, in a region in physical space-time, which is organized into interacting interrelated subsystems or components.
-
Units
-
are also concrete systems
-
Relationships
-
spatial
-
temporal
-
spatiotemporal
-
causal
-
Both units and relationships in concrete systems are empirically determinable by some operation carried out by an observer
-
patterns of relationships or processes
-
The observer of a concrete system
-
distinguishes a concrete system from unorganized entities in its environment by the following criteria
-
physical proximity of its units
-
similarity of its units
-
common fate of its units
-
distinct or recognizable patterning of its units.
-
Their boundaries are discovered by empirical operations available to the general scientific community rather than set conceptually by a single observer
-
Variable of a concrete system
-
Any property of a unit or relationship within a system which can be recognized by an observer
-
which can potentially change over time, and whose change can potentially be measured by specific operations, is a variable of a concrete system
-
Examples
-
number of its subsystems or components, its size, its rate of movement in space, its rate of growth, the number of bits of information it can process per second, or the intensity of a sound to which it responds
-
A variable is intrasystemic
-
not to be confused with intersystemic variations which may be observed among individual systems, types, or levels.
-
The state of a concrete system
-
its structure
-
represented by the set of values on some scale which its variables have at that instant
-
Open system
-
Most concrete systems have boundaries which are at least partially permeable, permitting sizable magnitudes of at least certain sorts of matter-energy or information transmissions to pass them. Such a system is an open system. In open systems entropy may increase, remain in steady state, or decrease.
-
Closed system
-
impermeable boundaries through which no matter-energy or information transmissions of any sort can occur is a closed system
-
special case
-
No actual concrete system is completely closed
-
In closed systems, entropy generally increases, exceptions being when certain reversible processes are carried on which do not increase it. It can never decrease.
-
Nonliving system
-
the general case of concrete systems, of which living systems are a very special case. Nonliving systems need not have the same critical subsystems as living systems, though they often have some of them
-
Living system
-
a special subset of the set of all possible concrete systems
-
They all have the following characteristics:
-
open systems
-
inputs
-
throughputs
-
outputs
-
of various sorts of matter-energy and information.
-
maintain a steady state of negentropy even though entropic changes occur in them as they do everywhere else
-
by taking in inputs
-
higher in complexity or organization or negentropy
-
than their outputs
-
The difference permits them to restore their own energy and repair breakdowns in their own organized structure.
-
In living systems many substances are produced as well as broken down
-
To do this such systems must be open and have continual inputs of matter-energy and information
-
entropy will always increase in walled-off living systems
-
They have more than a certain minimum degree of complexity
-
They either contain genetic material composed of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
-
or have a charter
-
blueprint
-
program
-
of their structure and process from the moment of their origin
-
may also include nonliving components.
-
They have a decider, the essential critical sub-system which controls the entire system, causing its subsystems and components to interact. Without such interaction under decider control there is no system.
-
other specific critical sub-systems or they have symbiotic or parasitic relationships with other living or nonliving systems
-
Their subsystems are integrated together to form actively self-regulating, developing, unitary systems with purposes and goals
-
They can exist only in a certain environment
-
change in their environment
-
produces stresses
-
Totipotential system
-
capable of carrying out all critical subsystem processes necessary for life is totipotential
-
Partipotential system
-
does not itself carry out all critical subsystem processes is partipotential
-
A partipotential system must interact with other systems that can carry out the processes which it does not, or it will not survive
-
parasitic
-
symbiotic
-
-
-
Fully functioning system
-
when it
-
Partially functioning system
-
it must do its own deciding, or it is not a system
-
Abstracted system
-
Units
-
relationships abstracted or selected by an observer in the light of his interests, theoretical viewpoint, or philosophical bias.
-
Some relationships may be empirically determinable by some operation carried out by the observer, but others are not, being only his concepts
-
Relationships
-
The relationships mentioned above are observed to inhere and interact in concrete, usually living, systems
-
these concrete systems are the relationships of abstracted systems.
-
The verbal usages of theoretical statements concerning abstracted systems are often the reverse of those concerning concrete systems
-
An abstracted system differs from an abstraction, which is a concept
-
representing a class of phenomena all of which are considered to have some similar "class characteristic." The members of such a class are not thought to interact or be interrelated, as are the relationships in an abstracted system
-
Abstracted systems are much more common in social science theory than in natural science.
-
are oriented toward relationships rather than toward the concrete systems
-
spatial arrangements are not usually emphasized
-
their physical limits often do not coincide spatially with the boundaries of any concrete system, although they may.
-
important difference between the physical and biological hierarchies, on the one hand, and social hierarchies, on the other
-
Most physical and biological hierarchies are described in spatial terms
-
we propose to identify social hierarchies not by observing who lives close to whom but by observing who interacts with whom
-
intensity of interaction
-
in most biological and physical systems relatively intense interaction implies relative spatial propinquity
-
To the extent that interactions are channeled through specialized communications and transportation systems, spatial propinquity becomes less determinative of structure.
-
-
This is the case of SENSORICA, built on web-based communication and coordination tools.
-
-
PARSONS
-
the unit of a partial social system is a role and not the individual.
-
culture
-
cumulative body of knowledge of the past, contained in memories and assumptions of people who express this knowledge in definite ways
-
The social system is the actual habitual network of communication between people.
-
RUESCH
-
A social system is a behavioral system
-
It is an organized set of behaviors of persons interacting with each other: a pattern of roles.
-
The roles are the units of a social system
-
-
-
On the other hand, the society is an aggregate of social subsystems, and as a limiting case it is that social system which comprises all the roles of all the individuals who participate.
-
What Ruesch calls the social system is something concrete in space-time, observable and presumably measurable by techniques like those of natural science
-
To Parsons the system is abstracted from this, being the set of relationships which are the form of organization. To him the important units are classes of input-output relationships of subsystems rather than the subsystems themselves
-
system is a system of relationship in action, it is neither a physical organism nor an object of physical perception
-
evolution
-
differentiation
-
growth
-
from earlier and simpler forms and functions
-
capacities for specializations and gradients
-
[action] is not concerned with the internal structure of processes of the organism, but is concerned with the organism as a unit in a set of relationships and the other terms of that relationship, which he calls situation
-
Abstracted versus concrete systems
-
One fundamental distinction between abstracted and concrete systems is that the boundaries of abstracted systems may at times be conceptually established at regions which cut through the units and relationships in the physical space occupied by concrete systems, but the boundaries of these latter systems are always set at regions which include within them all the units and internal relationships of each system
-
A science of abstracted systems certainly is possible and under some conditions may be useful.
-
If the diverse fields of science are to be unified, it would be helpful if all disciplines were oriented either to concrete or to abstracted systems.
-
It is of paramount importance for scientists to distinguish clearly between them
