活系统

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Living systems are open self-organizing life forms that interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flowing information, energy and matter.


活系统是一种开放的、自我组织的生命形式，它们与环境相互作用。这些活系统通过信息、能量和物质的流动来维持。


Some scientists have proposed in the last few decades that a general living systems theory is required to explain the nature of life.[1] Such a general theory, arising out of the ecological and biological sciences, attempts 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.[2]

在最近几十年的时间里，一些科学家认为，解释生命的本质离不开活系统相关理论。活系统理论涌现于生态学与生物科学中，它会通过一些基本的原理去解读生命系统运作的机制。相对于过往的还原论，活系统理论能诠释有机体间与环境的互动关系。

Introduction of Living Systems Theory 活系统理论概要

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. According to Miller's original conception as spelled out in his magnum opus Living Systems, a "living system" must contain each of twenty "critical subsystems", which are defined by their functions and visible in numerous systems, from simple cells to organisms, countries, and societies. In Living Systems Miller provides a detailed look at a number of systems in order of increasing size and identifies his subsystems in each.

活系统理论是解释所有生命系统的存在、结构、相互作用、行为和发展的一般理论。该理论的创始人为詹姆斯 · 格里尔 · 米勒，它尝试将生命的概念形式化。Miller 在他的巨著《活系统》中阐述了不少原始概念，包括一个“活系统”必须包含二十个“关键子系统”中的每一个，这些子系统由它们的功能定义，并可见于许多系统中，从简单的细胞到有机体、国家和社会均存在这些子系统。在《活系统》一书中，米勒详细介绍了许多系统，并指出了每个系统中的子系统。

Miller considers living systems as a subset of all systems. 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.[3]

米勒认为生命系统是所有系统的一个子集。在生命系统的层次之下，他定义了空间和时间、物质和能量、信息和熵、组织的层次、物理和概念因素，在生命系统之上是生态系统，行星间系统，太阳系，银河系等。


Living systems according to Parent (1996) are by definition "open self-organizing systems that have the special characteristics of life and interact with their environment. This takes place by means of information and material-energy exchanges. Living systems can be as simple as a single cell or as complex as a supranational organization such as the European Union. Regardless of their complexity, they each depend upon the same essential twenty subsystems (or processes) in order to survive and to continue the propagation of their species or types beyond a single generation".[4]


根据 Parent (1996)的定义，活系统是“具有生命特征并与其环境相互作用的开放的自组织系统。它们是通过信息和物质能量交换来实现自组织的。活系统既可以像单个细胞一样简单，又可以像欧洲联盟这样的超国家组织一样复杂。不管它们的复杂性如何，它们都依赖于相同的二十个基本子系统(或过程) ，以生存下去，并在一代之后继续繁衍它们的生命体或它们本身”。


Miller said that systems exist at eight "nested" hierarchical levels: cell, organ, organism, group, organization, community, society, and supranational system. At each level, a system invariably comprises twenty critical subsystems, which process matter–energy or information except for the first two, which process both matter–energy and information: reproducer and boundary.

米勒说，系统存在于八个“嵌套”等级水平: 细胞，器官，有机体，群体，组织，社区，社会和超国家系统。在每个层次上，一个系统总是由二十个关键的子系统组成，它们处理物质-能量或信息，但前两个子系统除外，后两个子系统处理物质-能量和信息: 再生者和边界。


其中，物质-能量的处理器是:

The processors of matter–energy are:

  • ingestor, distributor, converter, producer, storage, extruder, motor, supporter

信息的处理者是:

The processors of information are:

  • input transducer, internal transducer, channel and net, timer (added later), decoder, associator, memory, decider, encoder, output transducer.


Miller's living systems theory 米勒的活系统理论

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.

詹姆斯 · 格里尔 · 米勒在1978年写了一本1102页的书来介绍他的活系统理论。他以具体的系统为重点，构建了活系统的一般理论ーー在物理空间中，物质能量的非随机积累被组织成相互作用的、相互关联的子系统或组件。十几年后，他略微修改了这个原始模型，把活系统区分出了八个“嵌套”层次结构。每个级别都是“嵌套”的，即每个较高的级别以嵌套的方式包含下一个较低的级别。


His central thesis is that the systems in existence at all eight levels are open systems composed of twenty 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 ten process information only.

他的中心论点是，存在于所有8个层次的大系统都是由二十个关键子系统组成的开放系统，这些子系统处理各种形式的物质，能量和信息的输入、吞吐量和输出。其中两个子系统——再生子系统和边界子系统——同时处理物质能和信息。其中八个只处理物质与能量。另外10个只处理信息。

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.[5]

所有的自然都是一个连续体。生命无穷无尽的复杂性被组织成各种模式，在系统的每个层次上重复自己的主题和变化。这些相似性和差异性是科学应该关注的问题。从原生质的不断流动到超国家系统的许多向量活动，都离不开生命系统的连续流动，因此它们保持着高度有组织的稳定状态。

Seppänen (1998)说，一般系统理论被米勒广泛用于描述生命系统的所有方面。

Seppänen (1998) says that Miller applied general systems theory on a broad scale to describe all aspects of living systems.[6]


Extensions of living systems theory 活系统理论的延伸

Miller's theory posits that the mutual interrelationship of the components of a system extends across the hierarchical levels. Examples: Cells and organs of a living system thrive on the food the organism obtains from its suprasystem; the member countries of a supranational system reap the benefits accrued from the communal activities to which each one contributes. Miller says that his eclectic theory "ties together past discoveries from many disciplines and provides an outline into which new findings can be fitted".[7]

米勒的理论假定，系统内部的相互作用时系统能在跨层次的水平延伸。例如: 一个生命系统的细胞和器官依靠生物体获得的食物而茁壮成长; 一个超国家系统的成员国从每个成员国贡献的共同活动中获得利益。米勒表示，他的折衷理论“将许多学科过去的发现联系在一起，形成一个全新的体系去接纳更多的新发型”。



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. 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.

米勒说，空间、时间、物质、能量和信息的概念对他的理论至关重要，因为生命系统存在于空间中，由信息组织起来的物质和能量构成。米勒的生命系统理论使用了两种空间: 物理或地理空间，以及概念或抽象的空间。时间是物理时空连续体/螺旋体的基本“第四维度”。物质是任何具有质量并占据物理空间的东西。质量和能量是等效的，因为一个可以转换成另一个。信息是指在给定的情况下，在要传输的信号、符号、信息或模式中进行选择的自由度。



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.

其他与活系统相关的概念包括系统、结构、过程、类型、级别、梯队、超级系统、子系统、传动系统和稳态。一个系统可以是概念的，具体的，或抽象的。系统的结构是子系统及其组成部分在任何时间点的三维空间。过程，可以是可逆的或不可逆的，它是指随着时间的推移，物质，能量，信息在一个系统中的变化。是类型这一概念令具有类似特征的生命系统有所区分。级别是系统层次结构中的位置。许多复杂的生命系统，在不同的层次，被分为更多的级别。任何生命系统的超系统都是下一个更高层的系统，它也是一个子系统或组成部分。一个系统中执行特定过程的所有结构的总和也是更高层级中的一个子系统。流转是具体系统的输入和输出的过程。由于生命系统是开放的系统，物质-能量和信息的流量不断变化，因此它们的许多均衡是动态的ーー如稳态，或流量均衡。


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 am levels of living systems as subsystems and components".[8] 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.

米勒确定了可比较的物质-能量和信息处理的关键子系统。他详细阐述了八个等级层次，将构成第七个等级的社会定义为“一个大型的、有生命的、具体的系统，其中包括(社区)和低层次的生命系统，作为子系统和组成部分”。社会可能包括小的、原始的、多潜力的社区; 古代的城邦和王国; 以及不是超国家体系的现代民族国家和帝国。Miller 提供了适合所有八个级别的每个子系统的一般描述。


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".[9] However, he contends that no supranational system with all its twenty 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, because in its subsystem, there is few components besides the decoder. These systems do little matter-energy processing. The power of component societies or nations today is almost always greater than the power of supranational deciders. Traditionally, theory at this level has been based upon intuition and study of history rather than data collection. Some quantitative research is now being done, and construction of global-system models and simulations is currently burgeoning.[10]

在米勒看来，一个超国家体系“由两个或两个以上的社会组成，其中一些或全部的过程受到一个决策者的控制，这个决策者直到升级到他们的最高级别”。然而，他认为，今天不存在任何一个超国家的系统，且其二十个子系统都在其决策者的控制之下。没有一个超国家的决策者，就无法存在一个具体的超国家体系。米勒说，研究一个超国家系统是有问题的，因为它的子系统中，除了解码器之外，通常只有很少的部件组成。这些系统几乎不进行物质能量处理。今天，组成社会或国家的力量几乎总是大于超国家决策者的力量。过往在这一层次的理论研究是基于直觉的，及回顾历史，而不是数据收集。目前，对于超国家系统，一些定量研究正在进行中，全球系统模型的构建也颇有进展。


At the supranational system level, Miller's emphasis is on international organizations, associations, and groups comprising representatives of societies.Miller identifies the subsystems.

在超国家系统层面，米勒的重点是国际组织，协会和团体的代表组成的社会。米勒强调了这个层次的子系统。

Strengths of Miller's theory

Bailey[11] has pointed out:

贝利指出:

  • The specification of the twenty critical subsystems in any living system.
  • The specification of the eight hierarchical levels of living systems.
  • The emphasis on cross-level analysis and the production of numerous cross-level hypotheses.
  • Cross-subsystem research (e.g., formulation and testing of hypotheses in two or more subsystems at a time).
  • Cross-level, cross-subsystem research.


Bailey says that LST, perhaps the "most integrative" social systems theory, has made many more contributions that may be easily overlooked, such as: providing a detailed analysis of types of systems; making a distinction between concrete and abstracted systems; discussion of physical space and time; placing emphasis on information processing; providing an analysis of entropy; recognition of totipotential systems, and partipotential systems; providing an innovative approach to the structure–process issue; and introducing the concept of joint subsystem—a subsystem that belongs to two systems simultaneously; of dispersal—lateral, outward, upward, and downward; of inclusion—inclusion of something from the environment that is not part of the system; of artifact—an animal-made or human-made inclusion; of adjustment process, which combats stress in a system; and of critical subsystems, which carry out processes that all living systems need to survive.

贝利表示，LST 或许是“最具整合性”的社会系统理论，它做出了更多可能容易被忽视的贡献，例如: 提供了对系统类型的详细分析; 区分了具体的和抽象的系统; 讨论了物理空间和时间; 强调了信息处理; 提供了对熵的分析;认识到多潜在系统和部分潜在系统; 提供一种解决结构-过程问题的创新方法; 引入联合子系统的概念ーー一个同时属于两个系统的子系统; 分散ーー横向、向外、向上和向下; 包含ーー包含来自不属于系统的环境的东西;人造物品ーー动物或人造物品的包含; 调整过程，用来对抗系统中的压力; 以及关键的子系统，用来执行所有生命系统赖以生存的过程。



LST's analysis of the twenty interacting subsystems, Bailey adds, clearly distinguishing between matter–energy-processing and information-processing. And LST's analysis of the eight interrelated system levels, enables us to understand how social systems are linked to biological systems. LST also 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.[12]

贝利补充说，LST 对二十个相互作用的子系统的分析，清晰地区分了物质-能量处理和信息处理。LST 对8个相互关联的系统层次的分析，使我们能够理解社会系统是如何与生物系统相联系的。LST 还分析系统运行的不规则或“组织病理学”(例如，系统压力和应变，反馈不规则，信息输入过载)。它阐明了熵在社会研究中的作用，同时又把熵等同于信息和秩序。它强调结构和过程，以及它们之间的相互关系。



Limitations 局限

It omits the analysis of subjective phenomena, and it overemphasizes concrete Q-analysis (correlation of objects) to the virtual exclusion of R-analysis (correlation of variables). By asserting that societies (ranging from totipotential communities to nation-states and non-supranational systems) have greater control over their subsystem components than supranational systems have, it dodges the issue of transnational power over the contemporary social systems. Miller's supranational system bears no resemblance to the modern world-system that Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) described, although both of them were looking at the same living (dissipative) structure.

它省略了对主观现象的分析，过分强调具体的 q 分析(客体的相关性) ，而实际上排除了 r 分析(变量的相关性)。通过声称社会(从多潜在社区到民族国家和非超国家系统)对其子系统组成部分的控制比超国家系统的控制更大，但它回避了对当代社会系统的跨国权力问题。米勒的超国家系统与伊曼纽·华勒斯坦(1974)所描述的现代世界系统没有相似之处，尽管他们看到的是同一个生命(耗散)结构。



References

  1. ↑ Woodruff, T. Sullivan; John Baross (October 8, 2007). Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology. Cambridge University Press.  Some scientists have proposed in the last few decades that a general living systems theory is required to explain the nature of life. Such a general theory, arising out of the ecological and biological sciences, attempts 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. 在过去的几十年里，一些科学家提出，需要一个普遍的生命系统理论来解释生命的本质。这样一个一般性的理论产生于生态学和生物科学，试图绘制所有生命系统如何工作的一般原则。一般的生命系统理论不是通过试图将事物分解为组成部分来研究现象，而是根据生物体与其环境之间的动态关系模式来研究现象。 Cleland and Chyba wrote a chapter in Planets and Life: "In the absence of such a theory, we are in a position analogous to that of a 16th-century investigator trying to define 'water' in the absence of molecular theory." [...] "Without access to living things having a different historical origin, it is difficult and perhaps ultimately impossible to formulate an adequately general theory of the nature of living systems".
  2. ↑ Brown, Molly Young (2002). "Patterns, Flows, and Interrelationship". Archived from the original on January 8, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
  3. ↑ Seppänen, 1998, p. 198
  4. ↑ Elaine Parent, The Living Systems Theory of James Grier Miller, Primer project ISSS, 1996.
  5. ↑ (Miller, 1978, p. 1025)
  6. ↑ Seppänen 1998, pp. 197–198.
  7. ↑ (Miller, 1978, p. 1025)
  8. ↑ Miller 1978, p. 747.
  9. ↑ Miller 1978, p. 903
  10. ↑ Miller, 1978, p. 1043.
  11. ↑ Kenneth D. Bailey, (2006)
  12. ↑ Kenneth D. bailey, 1994, pp. 209–210.


Further reading

  • Kenneth D. Bailey (2006). Living systems theory and social entropy theory. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 22, 291–300.
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