artificial/mental/conceptual/natural/living Tao

A classification of systems is needed in relation to their reference context.

The Artificial systems are generally those designed and built by man, and have the physical level 0.

Natural systems are those occurring in nature regardless of human presence.

The Conceptual systems are designed and built by man but without a physical level. They are the so-called systems of thinking or ideas, the same systemic theory is a conceptual model. A further distinction between these systems are formalized systems, such as mathematics, or non-formalized, such philosophical systems. This is a longtime debate between the so-called hard sciences and soft sciences, and in Italy, the endless and exhausting conflict between Humanism and Science.

Mental systems are generally those produced by the brain, but in general were observed characteristics of mental processes in both artificial engineered systems, particularly there is a discipline devoted to this, Artificial Intelligence, and both in natural and living systems, and of corse in conceptual systems.

Living systems are those which exhibit the characteristics of life, and in this sense are disjoint from those artificial, with a few special achievements so far.

Particularly interesting are overlapping areas between the various classifications, for example between mental and conceptual systems and natural and living.

melting fingers into Tao

the Life in Tao

Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken called Hieronymus Bosch

the Master of Hertogenbosch

Garden of Earthly Delights, central panel

(ap. 1450–1516)

Prado Museum, Madrid

towards Tao

In a long Western tradition drawn from the writings of Aristotle, through Kant and the Romantic movement, it was necessary to wait the 1930 to 1940 years for a first complete formulation of a systems theory in biology by Ludwig von Bertalanffy:

with his idea of open system (bertalanffy box):

where for the first time the internal processes of system are connected with the external processes of the environment, as is always the case in biological systems. The whole process is commonly called metabolism. Still lacks the basic concept of feedback that will be born only from years 1940-50.

«Thinking in terms of systems plays a dominant role in a wide range of sectors

ranging from industrial companies and the arms up

to the most mysterious topics of pure science ..."

the Hell of Tao

Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken called Hieronymus Bosch

the Master of Hertogenbosch

Hell - Garden of Earthly Delights, detail

(ap. 1450–1516)

Prado Museum, Madrid

Tao Hierarchical levels

Systems, intended as analysis or synthesis of congruent elements and relationships/processes between them, are to be considered as classes/logical sets of the elements.

A key feature of any non-trivial system is the description of levels of analysis/description or synthesis/design of the system:

In this vision the system is seen as the set of classes of elements more general self-contained.
A classic description of levels of the system of life on our planet is, for example:

In real systems, existing into physical matter, level 0 is always the physical, and contains several sublevels based on the models of elementary particles and atoms.
The upper level 1 is that concerning the chemical molecular aggregates of atoms.
Level 2 is composed of aggregates of molecules to cells and cell aggregates to compose tissues and organs.
Level 3 is a set of interacting bodies and related physiologically to produce multicellular living organisms.
Once living organisms are produced there will be an interaction between them, which is the level 4, the social.

Finally, the highest level is represented by all living organisms with their environment, and that is the one of ecosystem.
In the case of artificial systems the classical example is the one of two-level physical/hardware and application/software, in turn containing many sublevels each.

A more complete representation of the various physical systems and their representational systems is:

Hierarchy of Some Systems and Domains of Knowledge
Graphics created by Marshall Clemens, NECSI

circular recursive Tao

Drawing Hands, 1948

lithograph cm 28,2x33,3

Hand with Reflecting Sphere, also known as Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror 
lithograph, 1935

Wijkamplaan, Baarn, The Netherlands