The Organization of Life

THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE JAMES G. MILLER, M.D., Ph.D.* Evenwhen inthe laboratory, Ralph Gerardhas always been able to view the teeming endeavor ofscience from the mountain top. There the air is clear and the view is expansive. In 1952 he described the sequential development ofscientific specialties, noting that most ofthem pass from observation to description to classification to concern with structure to concern with dynamics to recognition ofthe intricate interaction ofthe total system . And at that stage "the units in their variable relations are returned to the whole, the Gestalt is recognized, the planet or organism returns to the center offocus" [1]. The present article has such an emphasis. It is in the mode ofthe thought ofGerard. It emphasizes the unity ofeach living system and the unity of life. The term "system" is applied to cells as well as to international alliances . Have these anything in common? Can such a wide range ofentities all be fitted into one conceptual framework? Can this framework provide for an integrative theory ofthe life sciences? A first approximation in this direction is general systems behavior theory, which I shall outline here. It is an approach directed toward the formulation ofa set ofprinciples to integrate our knowledge about a wide range of living and nonliving systems. I. Three Sorts ofSystems A system is a specific set ofelements with regular relationships one to another. Three uses of the word "system" must be distinguished—conceptual , concrete, and abstracted systems. a. conceptual systems Conceptual systems are formal systems—verbal, mathematical, or logical formulations, or computer simulations. These may be made to repre- * Director, Mental Health Research Institute, The University ofMichigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. IO7 sent either abstracted or real systems, or they may be "pure" logical or mathematical structures, having no empirical relevance or none that has been intended or detected. They exist as concepts in the minds ofscientists. In their most rigorous form, their components are logical or mathematical terms. The relationships among them (e.g., inclusion, exclusion, identity, implication, equivalence, and a great many others) also are, in their most rigorous form, logical or mathematical operations. B. concrete systems Concrete, "real," or veridical systems, living or nonliving, are continuous bounded regions in physical space-time containing a nonrandom accumulation ofmatter and energy organized into a set ofinterrelated subsystems . Both their elements and their relationships are concrete, in physical space-time, and are empirically discovered by operations available to the general scientific community, rather than set conceptually by a single scientist. Such systems maintain multiple variables within a stability range. This steady state is maintained despite wide environmental fluctuations by negative feedback processes. A concrete system may be either local or dispersed. It is local when all its subsystems are contiguous within its spatial boundaries. It is dispersed when its subsystems are so separated that one or more are located within the boundaries ofother concrete systems, maintaining in four-dimensional space a sufficient degree ofcommunication so they continue to co-act. At times a subsystem may be simultaneously a part of more than one local concrete system ifthese overlap—as, for example, when one person plays the fourth hand at two bridge tables, or when a yeast cell is budding into two. In such cases ajoint subsystem usually co-acts with only one system at a given level at any one moment, though its relationships may fluctuate rapidly. A concrete system may be either open or closed. Ifit has impermeable boundaries through which no transmissions ofany sort can occur, it is a closed system. A concrete system with boundaries which are at least partially permeable, permitting sizable magnitudes ofat least certain sorts of transmissions, is an open system. All living systems are open systems. A concrete system having structures capable ofcarrying out all functions necessary for life is totipotential. Otherwise it is partipotential. The latter sort ofsystem must be associated with another system which can carry out 108 fames G. Miller · The Organization ofLife Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1963 the other essential functions or it will not survive. This is the nature of parasitism or, ifeach system trades a necessary function with the other, of symbiosis. A concrete system is functioning fully when...