Mas material para la reunión? :-)
Ale.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Imre v. Soos" <imre.soos@...>
To: "Bertalanffy-list" <bertalanffy@...>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 1:48 PM
Subject: [Bertalanffy] posting


Greetings All. I was delighted to hear that the Bertalanffy Discussion Forum
was finally revived by Tom Mandel (hi Tom, it is nice to know that you are
around), and that with a vital and fundamental question. After reading
through all the correspondences, I am once more delighted to say that, this
time, I am very much in agreement with him. Here are my thoughts on the
subject:



"The comments so far are very interesting - as Tom wrote - but hardly form a
consensus", because everybody appears to have a different concept behind the
label. The reason for this are the various synonyms the word "system" has,
like: scheme, organisation, arrangement, classification, structure,
co-ordination, organism, method, technique, procedure, and even orderliness
and logic. If all and everything these labels cover are being stuck under
the label "system", than the answer is that all and everything is a system,
and Tom wouldn't have popped the question.



The right approach would rest in Tom's further clarification: "What I had in
mind when I asked the question was the integrative system, the kind where
the elements work together and form from that a new whole. The question is
important when we talk about integrative systems because the new whole is
actually the emergent property of the relationships." Just as right is James
Rose by stating that "GST addresses deeper principles and ideas - it
challenges the methods of analysis themselves and how people think and
assess what they encounter." - I will follow these lines of thoughts,
because they coincide with my ideas.



Ever since the proton, neutron and electron - the three stable fundamental
particles of all material manifestation - ceased to be "hard little balls"
and became swirling energy-bundles of ordered processes in interwoven and
interdependent harmonic system-relationships of energy-quantums; and the
various intertwining and spinning processes of their harmonious interactions
are forming the hundred or so stable elements; which, in turn, can
constitute, according to their valency, innumerable chemical substances,
stable molecules, "things" also ceased to be "things", and became
harmonious, rational and productive "processes": dynamic systems of various
orders of complexity.



The above chain of systems continues, in growing order of complexity,
through macromolecules of aminoacids, organelles, cells, tissues, organs,
germinal-organ-systems, organisms, ecological communities, planetary
life-complex. Above the two directional linear interaction of the members of
this chain, there exists also the perpendicular interaction of each member
with those on its own level, rendering the planetary life-system to be a
spatial concept.



I must stress the attribute "harmonious", because harmony is a fundamental
factor in all constructive manifestation (as is "cacophony", its
antagonistic opposite, a destructive, degenerative one); and is thus a
foundation principle of the Universe. It produces monistic relationship - or
inversely, monistic relationship represents harmony.

I must also stress the attribute "rational", because ad-hoc events cannot
enter into and be parts of a harmonious relationship and cooperation.

And I must also stress "productive", as the necessary attribute of both the
individual constituents, and of the new system of higher complexity they
constitute.



Consequently, the concept 'system' - within the limits of the General System
Research and Theory - should represent the harmonious, rational and
productive interaction of constituting elements, forming, through these
properties, a complete unit, that becomes thus more than the sum of its
constituting elements, and that cannot be reduced to, or derived at through
the analysis of any of its constituents.



The reducibility principle comes from what I must call a belief, that a
system originates through the interaction of two or more material elements,
and is the derivative of the qualities inherent in these constituting
material elements, which themselves cause the interaction; and that, through
their analysis, the whole system can be known and synthesised. In turn, this
principle is based on the belief that the new system becomes, through the
original interaction, just another "thing" but of higher complexity than are
its constituting "things".



The "interaction" of the constituting elements does not represent the
triggering off the "being" of a new system of higher complexity, but is a
sine qua non constituent of the new system in form of its incessant process
of "becoming", the cessation of which process would result in the immediate
disintegration of the system into its constituting elements. Thus, the
"interaction" itself is as much a constituting element of the derivative
system, as are all the "material" ones, even if it is of non-material
nature.



That the "interaction" itself is not of material nature, and that neither is
it inherent in any of the constituting elements, I will illustrate with the
simple example of water:

If a container is filled with a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, the oxygen,
being the heavier, will settle in the lower part, and the two gases will
stay in that state side by side till doomsday, without ever changing their
identity. Never will they turn themselves into water, or into
hydrogen-hyperoxide, through an inherent, self-induced process. By
introducing a spark or high pressure into this mixture, the consequent
explosion will end up by joining two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms, to be
held together by relatively strong (valence) forces, which compound, in
consequence, will act as water molecules with completely different physical
and chemical identity and distinctively new character, without any reference
to that of any of its parts, which become unrecognisable in the new complex.
This new "identity" manifests the underlying "mind-stuff", that transcends
the constituting elements and is inherent in the derivative system.



At the first stratum of the Natural Order, where materialisations happen,
where elementary matter (proton, neutron and electron) appear, formed out of
electromagnetic energy-quantums by their particular ordering principles (the
inferred, but unexplained 'virtual particles' of nuclear physics) into
swirling energy-bundles of ordered processes (and where they can also
disintegrate, leaving behind electromagnetic radiation), there exist only
two constituents "interacting" to form the systems of elementary particles:
free energy-quantums and their ordering principles that are not of material
nature.



The further consideration that these ordered processes, consisting of energy
and mind-stuff, are constituting the atoms of all the elements according to
their particular ordering principles of the second order; and that a same
kind of systematic procedure continues towards ever increasing complexities,
brings to the conclusion, that free energy and differentiated underlying
principle are the two common denominators of all the material
manifestations; and that matter, in all its forms, is a structured process
complex of by the mind ordered energy-fields at all levels of its
manifestation, and that the Universe - as any part of it - is formed by
order imposed over a primordial energy-soup by the Ordering Principle which
pervades it. This idea, or rather knowledge, is expressed concisely by the
Nobel laureate biologist George Wald of Harvard: "The stuff of the universe
is mind stuff."



The planetary life-complex includes each and all of its constituents in
systemic co-existence, from the elementary particles upwards. It is
self-configuring and self-sustaining, being dependent only on the
energy-source of the Sun.



For a system to function harmoniously, rationally and productively, its
underlying principle, that animates the constituent parts into a system of
higher complexity, must possess these qualities. I would go even further to
state that a functional, natural system is alive at its own level of
existence, due to its underlying mind-stuff being alive, conscious and
intelligent at the level of its manifestation.



I suggest that from a universal point of view, an entity is alive if it
partakes - at the level of its own being - as a subject, instrument and
originator in the universal life-processes. Von Bertalanffy's and
Woltereck's anamorphosis, i.e., tendency to create new forms of life;
Schrödinger's feeding on negative entropy; Herrick's spontaneously
developing states of greater heterogeneity and complexity; and
Szent-Györgyi's syntropy, that is, innate drive in living matter to perfect
itself, are clear manifestations of the will to live and the will to evolve.



Considering that, summarised: each system represents more than the sum of
its parts; each system is constituted of systems of a lower order and its
ordering principle; each system is an integral constituent of a system of a
higher order; and that none of the systems can be reduced to any of its
constituent parts; - a "system" is, in fact a holistic order, where the
label "system" can be exchange with the label "holon" without altering
anything on the general concept.



The Universe itself is a self-configuring system, where macrocosmic and
microcosmic self-configurations are co-emergent and interdependent, and
represent thus one self-evolving and self-maintaining system. While the
evolution starts on the one extreme with the formation of elementary
particles out of electromagnetic energy, the macrocosmic starts with the
spatial distribution and ordering of these same elementary particles,
developing the double helix by starting simultaneously from both extremes.



Thought, logic and creativity are as intrinsic in the microcosmic existence
as in the macrocosmic one. Microcosmic logic and creativity is producing and
is constantly juggling and reshuffling all the fundamental and ephemeral
subatomic particles, without ever leaving any of it to chance, providing
dependable building blocks, basic rules and ordered energy supplies for a
universe with infinite varieties of form and action. Macrocosmic logic and
creativity maintains and recreates space-time - the thought-form defining
inertial behaviour of matter -, every instant altering its curvature
according to the momentary state of distribution of matter in the universe;
and keeps on manifesting itself in solar and galactic development, dynamic
equilibrium and self-generated and self-sustained metabolic processes, as
those of the whole universe. Within all the ordered turbulence, energy,
coalesces into forms of inorganic and organic matter, composing the
biological structure of living organisms able to support various levels of
higher intelligences, and constituting the crystalline structure of their
underlying ground. This particular reference frame is at the level of the
greatest complexity and diversity within a universal system. It is the
centre of the evolutionary double helix spiralling from the two infinite
extremes: the point towards which syntropy, complexity, diversity increase,
and where local universal evolution culminates: the planetary life-complex.
It is also the centre of the two velocity spirals, from where particular
velocity ranges increase in both directions.



All of it is in harmony with the fundamental chord of the universe.
Everything that we call "nature", and consider as if it would be something
external, something unrelated to us, something that is there for us,
superior human beings, to use and exploit, is existing within this
fundamental harmony. Until all the "real human beings" realise, as their
tribal ancestors did, that all their social, political and economic systems
and all their secular and religious philosophies must be in tune with that
fundamental harmony, there will be "system designers" flourishing on
thinking up exploitive systems and their impressive system models and
mathematical formulas, the social, political and economic disasters and
widespread nihilism will continue within all the existing human cacophony.



I very much realise that the above presented ideas will please extremely few
people, because the materialist credos do not allow "underlying principles"
or "mind-stuff", replacing it with verbs manipulated into acting subjects
(about which I can supply a host of examples both in cosmological and in
evolutionary theories); and the religious credos accept only their
particular dogmas about extrinsic anthropomorph god-images approachable
through the theocratic hierarchy and knee-bent image-supplication or
cross-legged navel-watching. I would be, however, very glad to receive some
rational and constructive arguments.



Imre
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://lists.icts.sbg.ac.at/pipermail/bertalanffy/attachments/20090109/2048e5e1/\
attachment.html
_______________________________________________
Bertalanffy mailing list
Bertalanffy@...
http://lists.icts.sbg.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/bertalanffy