Basic Concepts

1. Nature is best imagined in terms of interconnected and holarchical relationships between explicit and implicit forms.

2. The explicit form is an observable (measurable or classifiable) material existence that might otherwise be described in terms of energy and matter (but not equivalent to those concepts).

3. The implicit form is the reflection or specification of an explicit form. The implicit form (analogous to a 'formal system' in mathematics) may be thought to exist in directly or contextually related systems (i.e., in "the organization" of a system).

4. The relationship between explicit and implicit forms is a "modeling relation" as described by Robert Rosen. This relation defines natural complexity. The explicit and implicit forms, when recognized in this relation, account for all that we can know or infer symbolically of the natural world.

5. Modeling relations can thus be taken as the fundamental theoretical units of analysis of nature at all scales and all systems.

6. Modeling relations are information relations in the sense that each related system 'encodes' to or 'decodes' from one system's organization to the other's. In this precise weay, systems can be said to 'interact' (i.e., to act together and between each other). In the general case, such encodings and decodings are not exact, being necessarily comprised of abstracted patterns (of observation or interaction) that are determined by the nature of their interaction. It is logically impossible for two different systems to interact in all ways they are capable of, that necessarily implying an infinite number of abstractions. Abstraction is thus, by its nature, a feature of the explicit (material) world It is a unique measurement of a unique state in existence at the time (or as a result of measurement) in a given space-time reference.

7. The classical world of mechanisms is a special case of general relational complexity. It is the case where explicit and implicit forms are equivalent; where any system and its implicit 'model' (which may exist in any related system, including self), contain the same organization, pattern, or specification; where causality in the explicit material world can be said to correspond with implication in the implicit world. In this highly reduced reality, without any isolated causal sub-systems, a set of precise general physical laws can explain behavior.

8. Given (7), the case of mechanism is, therefore, an ideal case that can only be approximated in explicit nature. The scientific description of a mechanism thus describes an abstracted aspect of nature; one that the behavior of the natural system may come very close to, but will never correspond to completely at all scales and conditions. Though not detectable under observed conditions where a classical mechanism may seem quite predictable, natural complexity — natural relationship — remains nevertheless latent. There are no true realizations of a mechanism in the explicit world.

9. Organisms represent a different case of general relational complexity. It is the case where five functional mappings combine to produce a self-entailed organization (isolated causal system) that performs the functions of metabolism and repair (including reproduction). Two unentailed mappings of these relations, one each from its metabolism and repair components, connect the organism with its environment. Reproduction and repair entail the organism structurally with its environment as a defined material system (defined by its genetic code, its pattern of material organization). Metabolism entails the organism with its environment through the natural selection of its function in the environment (its behavior). The organism thus participates functionally and structurally in its outer surroundings. Ref: Kineman dissertation

10. The obvious presence and predictable persistence of a general mechanical (classical) world of observable states, arises from the collective effect of multiple (complex) modeling relations, to the extend that their interactions are un-isolated from the general system of interactions.

11. The obvious elaboration or enhancement of complexity in organisms, especially more intricately evolved organisms, (i.e., those that incorporate a greater number of functions) is made possible by their causal isolation from the general reality (10). The causally closed organization of M-R systems (9), isolates the internal causalities, producing internally closed modeling relations that are therefore not strictly predictable from knowledge of the general external causal laws and entailments. Organisms thus invent their own laws in an isolated internal reality. Such internal systems thus may comprise sophisticated models that, through the organism's relationships with environment (9) can adapt to persistent conditions in anticipatory ways and thus to cause the lineage of organisms (physogeny) to evolve. Such evolution can therefore be driven by environmental conditions and unique patterns generated by the independent behavior of internal models. To the extent that such models may be said to involve, produce, or correspond with psychological phenomena (obviously of similar type to implicit realities), consciousness and choice may then be said to affect evolution in combination with the effects of environmental selection. Conscious evolution of humans is thus a logical reality, and this capacity must be considered to exist on a continuum from non-organism to highly developed organism.

12. Modeling relations, as the presumed 'reality' of nature and appropriate method for analyzing its complexity are thus to be considered ontological entities. They are assumed components of living nature in that they comprise a fundamental way of thinking about nature. As such, this view of nature is more general than the mechanistic view, underlying classical, complex, and living systems; but not more general in the case of living systems than needed to capture true complexity. As ontological models they are capable of representing the origin of natural systems and their laws: they provide a conceptual bridge across traditional duality, without compromising known science on the one hand (e.g., of mechanisms) and obvious unexplained phenomena on the other (e.g., of living nature). Unlike mechanistic theory, relational theory is capable of dealing with origins, and thus systems that originate themselves to whatever degree (adaptive and evolutionary systems). This ontology extends directly to epistemological and empirical elements, which are the modeling relation's 'encodings' and 'decodings'; corresponding respectively to 'structure' and 'function.'