*I like weird comprehensive ultra-theories, but there's something especially interesting about weird comprehensive old-fashioned ultra-theories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_systems_theory
"Living systems theory is a general theory about the existence of all living systems, their structure, interaction, behavior and development. This work is created by James Grier Miller, which was intended to formalize the concept of life...."
... "James Grier Miller in 1978 wrote a 1,102-page volume to present his living systems theory. He constructed a general theory of living systems by focusing on concrete systems—nonrandom accumulations of matter-energy in physical space-time organized into interacting, interrelated subsystems or components.
"Slightly revising the original model a dozen years later, he distinguished eight “nested” hierarchical levels in such complex structures. Each level is “nested” in the sense that each higher level contains the next lower level in a nested fashion.
"His central thesis is that the systems in existence at all eight levels are open systems composed of 20 critical subsystems that process inputs, throughputs, and outputs of various forms of matter/energy and information. Two of these subsystems—reproducer and boundary—process both matter/energy and information. Eight of them process only matter/energy. The other 10 process information only.
"All nature is a continuum. The endless complexity of life is organized into patterns which repeat themselves—theme and variations—at each level of system. These similarities and differences are proper concerns for science. From the ceaseless streaming of protoplasm to the many-vectored activities of supranational systems, there are continuous flows through living systems as they maintain their highly organized steady states.
(...)
"Miller says the concepts of space, time, matter, energy, and information are essential to his theory because the living systems exist in space and are made of matter and energy organized by information. (((I don't know about you, but this gives me a warm, snug feeling.)))
"Miller’s theory of living systems employs two sorts of spaces: physical or geographical space, and conceptual or abstracted spaces.
"Time is the fundamental “fourth dimension” of the physical space-time continuum/spiral.
"Matter is anything that has mass and occupies physical space.
"Mass and energy are equivalent as one can be converted into the other.
"Information refers to the degrees of freedom that exist in a given situation to choose among signals, symbols, messages, or patterns to be transmitted. (((Uh-oh.)))
"Other relevant concepts are system, structure, process, type, level, echelon, suprasystem, subsystem, transmissions, and steady state.
"A system can be conceptual, concrete or abstracted. The structure of a system is the arrangement of the subsystems and their components in three-dimensional space at any point of time.
"Process, which can be reversible or irreversible, refers to change over time of matter/energy or information in a system.
"Type defines living systems with similar characteristics.
"Level is the position in a hierarchy of systems. Many complex living systems, at various levels, are organized into two or more echelons.
"The suprasystem of any living system is the next higher system in which it is a subsystem or component.
"The totality of all the structures in a system which carry out a particular process is a subsystem. Transmissions are inputs and outputs in concrete systems. Because living systems are open systems, with continually altering fluxes of matter/energy and information, many of their equilibria are dynamic—situations identified as steady states or flux equilibria.
"Miller identifies the comparable matter-energy and information processing critical subsystems. Elaborating on the eight hierarchical levels, he defines society, which constitutes the seventh hierarchy, as “a large, living, concrete system with [community] and lower levels of living systems as subsystems and components”.
"Society may include small, primitive, totipotential communities; ancient city-states, and kingdoms; as well as modern nation-states and empires that are not supranational systems. Miller provides general descriptions of each of the subsystems that fit all eight levels.
"A supranational system, in Miller’s view, “is composed of two or more societies, some or all of whose processes are under the control of a decider that is superordinate to their highest echelons”. However, he contends that no supranational system with all its 20 subsystems under control of its decider exists today. The absence of a supranational decider precludes the existence of a concrete supranational system. Miller says that studying a supranational system is problematical ...
(((See also: "Spome." First time I've ever heard of "spome." You'd wonder why, because the world "spome" was made up by a science-fiction writer.)))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spome
"A spome is any hypothetical system closed with respect to matter and open with respect to energy capable of sustaining human life indefinitely. The term was coined in 1966 by Isaac Asimov in a paper entitled, “There’s No Place Like Spome” in Atmosphere in Space Cabins and Closed Environments [1], originally presented as a paper to the American Chemical Society on September 13, 1965."
(((Whether you could have a "spome" full of "spimes" – or, indeed, whether any "spome" could survive without "spimes" – is left as an exercise for the reader.)))
(((More: when inventing weird comprehensive ultra-theories, semantic neologism problems inevitably show up.)))
http://www.panarchy.org/miller/livingsystems.html
*James Grier Miller:
"In order to make it easier to recognize similarities that exist in systems of different types and levels, it is helpful to use general systems terms. These words are carefully selected according to the following criteria:
"(a) They should be as acceptable as possible when applied at all levels and to all types of living systems. For example, "sense organ" is one word for the subsystem that brings information into the system at the level of organisms, but "input transducer" is also satisfactory, and it is a more acceptable term for that subsystem at the society level (e.g., a diplomat, foreign correspondent, or spy) or in an electronic system. Consequently I use it.
"I select terms which refer to a commonality of structure or process across systems. Such a usage may irritate some specialists used to the traditional terminology of their fields. ((You bet they do – in fact, they're something like pepper-gas.)))
"After all, one of the techniques we all use to discover whether a person is competently informed in a certain field is to determine through questioning whether he can use its specialized terminology correctly. A language which intentionally uses words that are acceptable in other fields is, of necessity, not the jargon of the specialty. Therefore whoever uses it may be suspected of not being informed about the specialty.
"The specialist languages, however, limit the horizons of thought to the borders of the discipline. (((That's not a bug – that's a feature.))) They mask important intertype and interlevel generalities which exist and make general theory as difficult as it is to think about snow in a language that has no word for it.
"Since no single term can be entirely appropriate to represent a structure or process at every level, readers of general systems literature must be flexible, willing to accept a word to which they are not accustomed, so long as it is precise and accurate, if the term is useful in revealing cross-type and cross-level generalities.
"I do not wish to create a new vocabulary (((unlike, uhm, some of us))) but to select, from one level, words which are broadly applicable, and to use them in a general sense at all levels. This is done recognizing that these terms have synonyms or near synonyms which are more commonly employed at certain levels. Actually, with the current usages of scientific language, it is impossible always to use general systems words rather than type-specific and level-specific words because the discussion would appear meaningless to experts in the field. In this book I use the general systems words as much as seems practicable.
"(b) The terms should be as neutral as possible. Preferably they should not be associated exclusively with any type or level of system, with biological or social science, with any discipline, or with any particular school or theoretical point of view.
"What are some examples of the sort of general systems terms I shall use? For a structure, "ingestor." This is the equivalent of a number of different words used at the various levels, for example: cell-aperture in the cell membrane; organ-hilum; organism-mouth; group-the family shopper; organization-the receiving department; society-the dock workers of a country; supranational system-those dock workers of nations in an alliance who are under unified command. (((Got that? Your mouth is an "ingestor," and so is the Amazon "buy" page.)))
"For a process, "moving." This is a close equivalent of: cell-contraction; organ-peristalsis; organism-walking; group-hiking; organization-moving a factory; society-nomadic wandering; supranational system-migration (but it is questionable whether any supranational system has ever done this)..."
