Bounding the Field
The Membrane and the Wall
A New Approach to Biological Systems
Usually a system or a subsystem is defined by means of a system boundary.
The process of analysis and the scientific practice of isolating and defining
prescribes such a device as a closed system.
The boundary defines the closure.
It may simply be stated: there are no closed systems.
All systems are open.
Then what is the alternative to the system boundary?
A cell may be regarded as a system.
This is not a handicap to understanding a system
or to benefiting from what is called System Analysis.
Analysis attempts to observe, measure and know by means of taking things apart.
If all of the connections, if all of the interactions and relationships are heeded,
such a procedure may yield useful data, useful information and useful knowledge.
Analysis usually indulges in simplification.
The simplifications are often not based upon the elegance
of a dynamic and intricate structure for understanding,
but the simplification is achieved by means of elimination.
The elimination may be arbitrary.
Masanobu Fukuoka addresses the problem in the statement:
“What he (Fukuoka) fears in modern applied science is : . . . its willingness
to reduce life to what is known about it and to act on the assumption
that what it does not know can safely be ignored.”
We share Fukuoka’s concern.
copyright 2011, 2013, ECOhealth / Eve Revere
