Living systems are life forms (or, more colloquially known as living things) treated as a system. They are said to be open self-organizing and said to interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy and matter. Multiple theories of living systems have been proposed. Such theories attempt to map general principles for how all living systems work.
Context
Some scientists have proposed in the last few decades that a general theory of living systems is required to explain the nature of life.
Such a general theory would arise out of the
ecology and
Biology and attempt to map general principles for how all living systems work. Instead of examining phenomena by attempting to break things down into components, a general living systems theory explores phenomena in terms of dynamic patterns of the relationships of organisms with their environment.
Theories
Miller's open systems
James Grier Miller's living systems theory is a general theory about the existence of all living systems, their
structure, interaction,
behavior and development, intended to formalize the concept of life. According to Miller's 1978 book
Living Systems, such a system must contain each of twenty "critical subsystems" defined by their functions. Miller considers living systems as a type of
system. Below the level of living systems, he defines
space and
time,
matter and
energy,
information and
entropy, levels of
organization, and physical and conceptual factors, and above living systems ecological, planetary and solar systems, galaxies, etc.
Miller's central thesis is that the multiple levels of living systems (cells, organs, organisms, groups, organizations, societies, supranational systems) are open systems composed of critical and mutually-dependent subsystems that process inputs, throughputs, and outputs of energy and information.
[(Miller, 1978, p. 1025)] Seppänen (1998) says that Miller applied general systems theory on a broad scale to describe all aspects of living systems.
[Seppänen 1998, pp. 197–198.] Bailey states that Miller's theory is perhaps the "most integrative" social systems theory,
[Kenneth D. Bailey 2006, pp.292–296.] clearly distinguishing between matter–energy-processing and information-processing, showing how social systems are linked to biological systems. LST analyzes the irregularities or "organizational pathologies" of systems functioning (e.g., system stress and strain, feedback irregularities, information–input overload). It explicates the role of entropy in social research while it equates
negentropy with information and order. It emphasizes both structure and process, as well as their interrelations.
[Kenneth D. Bailey, 1994, pp. 209–210.]
Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis
The idea that Earth is alive is found in philosophy and religion, but the first scientific discussion of it was by the Scottish geologist
James Hutton. In 1785, he stated that Earth was a superorganism and that its proper study should be
physiology.
The Gaia hypothesis, proposed in the 1960s by
James Lovelock, suggests that life on Earth functions as a single organism that defines and maintains environmental conditions necessary for its survival.
Morowitz's property of ecosystems
A systems view of life treats environmental
and biological fluxes together as a "reciprocity of influence,"
and a reciprocal relation with environment is arguably as important for understanding life as it is for understanding ecosystems. As Harold J. Morowitz (1992) explains it, life is a property of an
ecosystem rather than a single organism or species.
He argues that an ecosystemic definition of life is preferable to a strictly
biochemical or physical one.
Robert Ulanowicz (2009) highlights mutualism as the key to understand the systemic, order-generating behaviour of life and ecosystems.
Rosen's complex systems biology
Robert Rosen devoted a large part of his career, from 1958
onwards, to developing a comprehensive theory of life as a self-organizing complex system, "closed to efficient causation". He defined a system component as "a unit of organization; a part with a function, i.e., a definite relation between part and whole." He identified the "nonfractionability of components in an organism" as the fundamental difference between living systems and "biological machines." He summarised his views in his book
Life Itself.
Complex systems biology is a field of science that studies the emergence of complexity in functional organisms from the viewpoint of dynamic systems theory.[* ][* ] Related approaches focus on the interdependence of constraints, where constraints can be either molecular, such as enzymes, or macroscopic, such as the geometry of a bone or of the vascular system.
Bernstein, Byerly and Hopf's Darwinian dynamic
Harris Bernstein and colleagues argued in 1983 that the evolution of order in living systems and certain physical systems obeys a common fundamental principle termed the Darwinian dynamic. This was formulated by first considering how macroscopic order is generated in a simple non-biological system far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and then extending consideration to short, replicating
RNA molecules. The underlying order-generating process was concluded to be basically similar for both types of systems.
Gerard Jagers' operator theory
Gerard Jagers' operator theory proposes that life is a general term for the presence of the typical closures found in organisms; the typical closures are a membrane and an autocatalytic set in the cell
and that an organism is any system with an organisation that complies with an operator type that is at least as complex as the cell.
Life can be modelled as a network of inferior negative feedbacks of regulatory mechanisms subordinated to a superior positive feedback formed by the potential of expansion and reproduction.
Kauffman's multi-agent system
Stuart Kauffman defines a living system as an
autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle.
This definition is extended by the evolution of novel functions over time.
Budisa, Kubyshkin and Schmidt's four pillars
Nediljko Budisa, Kubyshkin and Schmidt defined
cellular life as an organizational unit resting on four pillars/cornerstones: (i) energy, (ii)
metabolism, (iii)
information and (iv)
body plan. This system is able to regulate and control metabolism and energy supply and contains at least one subsystem that functions as an information carrier (genetic information). Cells as self-sustaining units are parts of different
that are involved in the unidirectional and irreversible open-ended process known as
evolution.
See also
Further reading
-
Kenneth D. Bailey, (1994). Sociology and the new systems theory: Toward a theoretical synthesis. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
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Kenneth D. Bailey (2006). Living systems theory and social entropy theory. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 22, 291–300.
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Maria Garcia, (2025). The World as a Living System: Reclaiming Complexity, Wholeness, and Meaning in a Time of Breakdown.
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James Grier Miller, (1978). Living systems. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Miller, J.L., & Miller, J.G. (1992). Greater than the sum of its parts: Subsystems which process both matter-energy and information. Behavioral Science, 37, 1–38.
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Humberto Maturana (1978), " Biology of language: The epistemology of reality," in Miller, George A., and Elizabeth Lenneberg (eds.), Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought: Essays in Honor of Eric Lenneberg. Academic Press: 27-63.
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Jouko Seppänen, (1998). Systems ideology in human and social sciences. In G. Altmann & W.A. Koch (Eds.), Systems: New paradigms for the human sciences (pp. 180–302). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
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James R. Simms (1999). Principles of Quantitative Living Systems Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
External links
