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PART I

THE ESSENCE OF SYSTEMOLOGY AND ITS CONCEPTS

1.1.PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF SYSTEMOLOGY [THE LOGIC OF SYSTEMS]

Let us start with primary concepts and propositions, and let us suggest as "elementary primary concepts" those which are guided by beliefs that arise with the individual's first experiences. He (the individual), we shall assume, interacts with the environment; his beliefs or thoughts are confirmed or otherwise and can he defined ever more precisely during the course of his life. It is inevitable that a person regularly repeats these acts (based on acquired beliefs) an unlimited number of times in order to satisfy his basic needs. An approach of this sort conforms to the traditions of Marxist dialectics, about which Lenin said that "first of all analysis should be made of the most simple, the most usual, the most basic, and the most important phenomena which may be encountered millions of times..."[2, vol.29, p.318].

Because of all this we shall start with the fact that a man has been provided by nature with sensors (eyes, ears, etc) and that in practice he is guided through them, even in his unconscious acts, in the sense that he believes the sensations registered are the results of certain properties (e.g. qualities) of whatever it is with which he is interacting.

Lenin said about this stage of cognition: "the very beginning, the origin of all life, is sensation, and within it there is inevitably quality..." [2, vol.29, p.301].

Owing to this innate ability to discover distinctions between properties (attributes), the subject can in most actual situations distinguish where the "I" finishes and the "non-I" begins, i.e. the external world and our impressions of it.

This still relatively low level of reflexion (behaviour) is nevertheless sufficient for a person (the subject) to be able to isolate objects in the external world by distinguishing their properties, to discover their boundaries and to contrast them with the environment as a whole.

This level of behaviour is apparently already possessed by objects which are usually thought of as difficult to relate, not only to a class of subjects but also to a class of substances. Let us take for example plants (in particular creepers and climbers), such as hops, vines, cucumbers, etc. They do not have a rigid stem and rise up only by clinging to sufficiently firm high objects (the stems of bushes and trees, etc). But in order to catch on to the plants first of all they send out special feelers to explore the environment. These feelers twist around in space like little probosces, gradually elongating themselves to survey an ever-increasing area of the environment until they stumble across an object in this environment to which the plant can cling.

But what is remarkable in this is not only the ability of the plant to distinguish the object from the environment. The feeler is constantly liable to find as an object the plant itself: its stem, a branch, a leaf, or another feeler. And here the mechanisms for distinguishing the "I" and the "non-I" work together: if the feeler stumbled on the "I" it spurns this "non-object" and continues the search for a "non-I" object.

Naturally, in animals having a nervous system and, even more so, in human beings (with very complex nervous systems), these innate faculties for distinguishing the "I" and the "non-I", the "environment", the "object", and the "boundary" are represented in much stronger form. We can, if you like, as human beings best of all distinguish the "subjective" from the "objective".

The ability to distinguish the subjective from the objective is also shown on the cellular level. It is precisely because of this ability that the organism can struggle with alien bodies, bacteria and other organs which encroach on it (for example, by transplantation).

Here, when we talk of man, we must not forget that we do not mean the "abandoned child" growing up on an uninhabited island; we are talking about the social person, raised within a human group and having a developed culture and technology.

Therefore the developing person in the external world comes to grips with human nature: objects contain a "concatenation" of the experience of their predecessors, the fixed result of the lengthy process of discovery of properties of nature, as they act in accord with human needs. And so the subjective consciousness of man, which has developed in the group, turns out, in spite of its subjectivity, to be to a large extent objective and social, reflecting societies through personal and collective experience of society.

First formulated by Hegel, this viewpoint (or set of propositions) was further developed in materialist dialect-tics. Even in his individuality man is deeply social, because "even objects of the simplest sensual "dependability' are given to him only through his social development, his industry and his trading relationships. [1, vol.3, p.42].

Gradually the developing subject becomes capable of making finer and finer distinctions between features of the external world, like the "same object", a "different object", a "similar object", or a "dissimilar object"; he also becomes aware of the circumstances where this distinction is essential. The contrast of objects with their environment, the "feeling" of objects' surfaces or boundaries, and the comparison of objects, refine the inborn ability to distinguish properties and to reveal among these properties two types which differ greatly; first, properties through which the presence of surfaces or boundaries is revealed; and, second, properties which only come to light when the surface themselves come to be "sensed" in detail. The first can become apparent without reference to the evidence of those sensory organs which allow spatial and temporal characteristics of the external world to be revealed; the second are, on the contrary, supported above all by the evidence of space-time sensors. They use the evidence of the other sense organs only to stay within the surface under investigation.

For the moment we can agree to call the first type of property qualitative and the second type physical, (or surface or boundary) bearing in mind that the second characterise, above all, space and time limits on certain qualitative properties; these are, far example, limits which give spatial form to the object.

As a rule these two types of properties can be distinguished quite clearly. For example, from childhood man is used to seeing a piece of ice retain its qualitative property (it remains just as cold) by changing its boundary properties (the spatial boundaries of the ice diminish right up to its disappearance in time), while a coin does not vary in its boundary properties, but is non-identical in quality (it warms up in the hand) to start with.

However there are properties which are connected. For example a qualitative property such as rigidity combined with a boundary property such as sharpness leads to an object property such as the capability of piercing or cutting the body of the subject.

The simplest types of physical (surface or boundary) properties of not just a single object, but a whole complex of objects, are, for example, the touching of a pair of objects (direct contact), the situation or state of an object between other objects or the presence of many objects between a pair of other objects (i.e. the sequential positioning or relation of objects in time or space), and also touching through an intermediary (indirect contact).

Obviously all these surface properties can be manifested in objects with various qualitative properties.

In the philosophical literature "qualitative properties" are analysed most often in terms of the differing views of Democritus and Locke concerning "secondary qualities".

 

FIG. 1

         

Then there is Aristotle's study of qualitative properties: here we can say that these are first of all "passive qualities"; and in Hegel's dialectic and the classics of Marxism-Leninism the category "quality" corresponds very closely to this concept. Where the context allows, (and for the sake of brevity) we shall also speak of the quality of objects instead of using the phrase "qualitative property".

"Surface properties" are very close to the "primary qualities" of Democritus and Locke (although they are not always identical to them the reader will recall Democritus' and Locke's interpretations of primary qualities were essentially different). "Surface properties" are comparable to Aristotle's "general qualities", and in Hegelian and Marxist dialectic they coincide with the categories of "quantity" and "form" in many respects. We must now therefore examine more closely the question: what is a property?

Moving from the environment to the object, a subject discovers the object as a "violation" of the qualitative property, as the rise of non-uniformity of the quality. In this case the boundary of the object is perceived as the inner boundary of the environment, as a surface in the environment. But after the object has been revealed, the subject moves from the object to the environment and then the surface is perceived as the external surface of the object, or the surface on the object.

Perception of objects which are in contrast to the environment and each other is a part of their recognition and assimilation, when they occur as Indivisible Integral wholes or as bearers of their properties present in an environment; the environment is here simply an opposite for all objects; it is therefore also indivisible and. As a particular integral whole, it possesses qualitative properties peculiar to it alone, as against the background of the objects situated within it. The next step in detailing our Interpretation of the world is, it would seem, to establish that the environment is not always one and the same thing, and that there exists the "same environment" and a "different environment", a "similar environment" and a "dissimilar environment". Changes and differences clearly occur.

Another concept now becomes apparent: the nation of the external boundary of the environment, where difference, similarity, and identity of environment can be both qualitative and quantitative, i.e. the environment can have various external boundaries when qualitative properties coincide, or, on the other hand, it can be perceived as a bearer of various qualitative properties in spite of the identity of external surfaces. Thus it can be established that not only in the one environment can there be various objects, but that any one object can move into a different environment.

All this implies the changing and "non-absolute" nature of the contrast of objects to the environment, and in certain situations the subject begins to see the integrally whole object in the environment also as an environment itself - but a different one. Then in this environment, i.e. within the boundaries of the integrally whole object, new objects, "objects within objects" can be discovered, differing in their qualities, and in which boundaries are also evident owing to their qualitative differences from each other.

Repeated observation of such "objects within objects" leads us to concepts concerning the relativity of the integral wholeness of objects. This means the breaking-down of the uniformity of qualities in an object, the existence of not only outer (external) but inner (integral) surfaces or boundaries of an object. The great need is to distinguish two such contrasting phenomena within a whole. We must recognise the part and the whole, and the possibility of detaching parts from the whole while not destroying its wholeness. To carry out this procedure we must understand and accept the fact that the parts of the whole not only have qualities and surfaces, but also links, i.e. a breach of boundaries. The "wholeness" of a whole proves to be (in the various circumstances where it is evident) a specific type of that whole which expresses the linkage of the parts to each other; and then the preservation of the boundaries of the whole can be regarded as a consequence of the breach or violation of the surfaces of the parts.

After finding ways of revealing wholes in the form of linkage, and the links providing the linkage, the subject begins to distinguish properties not only in the objects but in the links themselves. He learns whether he has before him the "same link", a "different link" a "similar link" or a dissimilar link". As a result the idea of qualitative and boundary properties spreads to cover the links themselves.

1.2. Precise Terminological Definitions and Complex Primary Concepts

we have established (though neither strictly nor formally) a choice of concepts of "prime necessity", or, in other words, elementary primary concepts. These concepts will be used in future not only per se, but also in certain combinations which are frequently encountered and which serve, just like the primary ones, as a means of clarifying other concepts. But before passing on to new concepts derived from these (i.e. derivative concepts), let us introduce some terminological conventions.

Objects which can be called "similar objects", and which are not a repeated observation of one and the same object, shall be named examples of objects (tokens) of the same type. Consequently if one object cannot be named "similar" in relation to another and can only be considered "different", then these objects are classified as various types of objects. Thus we can speak of examples and types of environment, links, and parts of an object.

If an object is seen as-a-whole, yet in this whole parts are distinguishable, let us call these parts the elements of the object.

Thus in fig.1 the parts A, B, C, D, E, of object M are its elements.

If there is no need to specify in detail whether, for example, it is a question of elements or the links between these elements, we shall use the term. an object's components. In fig.1 is shown the composition of components: A, B, C, D, E; ab, ac, cb, bd, ce, de.

If an object's elements are examined without any attention being paid as to how they are interlinked in the object in question - and therefore they are juxtaposed simply as independent integral wholes outside the whole, then we shall speak of the composition of the elements of a given object. The composition of an object's elements

FIG 2

FIG 3

FIG 4

can be characterised by adumbrating or enumerating the types of elements which are part of the given object or of the elements of each of the types, or of the elements irrespective of which type they are.

Thus we can avail ourselves of the following concepts: the composition of an object's links; the composition of the qualities; the composition of the boundary properties, etc.

The links or linkage of an object often have to be regarded not simply as. the sum of special components, but also in their direct role: as. linking components, specifically placed between the elements. In this case we shall not speak of the composition, but of the network of links of an object (providing of course the "linkage").

An environment which is perceived under investigation by the subject to be non-uniform, and in which because of this he discovers objects which are of interest to him, will be designated a zero-level environment, or a zero-tier environment. Objects which are dependent integral wholes in such a zero-tier environment will be presented as zero-tier objects.

If these zero-tier objects themselves become an environment for the subject, then this environment becomes a first-tier (deeper) environment. Objects evident in a first-tier environment are first-tier objects representing, in relation to zero-tier objects, first-tier (deeper) elements.

In both first-tier (deeper) elements and environments second-tier (deeper) objects can of course be found, etc.

Naturally the concept of the tier is applicable to any component of an object, i.e. not only to its elements, but also to its links.

And so, like the Greek Atomists who recognised the existence of "literal" atoms, (i.e. atoms not further divisible) which they denied had any properties apart from form, we shall start from the Leninist concept of the infinite number of levels of matter deep down, which leads for example to Lenin's statement that "the electron is just as inexhaustible as the atom" [2, vol.16, p.278]. 

The Structure and Function of an Object

The linkage of an object is expressed, as we have already noted, as a network of links. We shall call the scheme of the links network between the elements of an object the structure of this object. In fig.2 we have therefore the structure of the object M which we saw earlier.

If we take into account that between any pair of object; several different types of links can occur, then we must recognise that in one particular linked object several structures can be shown, depending on the type of links network under review.

The link itself is basically nothing more than a breach (or violation limit) of the boundaries between the parts of an object. Consequently the links network characterises the qualities of the boundary (surface) violations and the surface properties of these violations. The structure is the resulting surface property of the network of links between an object's parts, and, like any surface property, it can be taken separately from the qualitative properties of these surfaces. Consequently two objects have the same structure if their boundary (surface) properties are indistinguishable, such as the links scheme between the elements of the objects under comparison; all this is Irrespective of whether the elements of these objects and the links according to their qualities are of either one or various types.

We must now turn our attention to the existence of at least two types of structure expressing the network scheme of links between object elements. If all spatial and temporal boundary properties of the links are reflected and taken into account in the scheme we shall call it a full structure. A full structure indicates the full internal spatial and temporal characteristics of an object.

In such a scheme the outer object surface and all its internal surfaces, i.e. element surfaces, must be expressed For example in Fig.3 a more complex structure of object M is represented than was the case in Fig.1.

But a links network scheme can reflect moreover only the facts of link contact through the intermediary of the elements. In that case the boundaries of the whole will not be reflected and each element in the diagram will be seen as a point, usually representing a links group or Junction, in the structure. In future we shall keep this second type of structure particularly in mind. Let us call ¹^ a linkage structure. The structure of the object M in Fig.2 should be regarded as a linkage structure.

Until the parts of an object are isolated and consequently the network of links between them revealed, only the Presence of outer boundaries (determined on the basis of the establishment of the uniformity of the property) can be included among its properties characterising the integral whole. If the parts are isolated, then, apart from the outer boundary property, the inner boundaries and also the resulting derivative boundary property (the structure) appear.

But if the object is seen as an indivisible whole does it then have derivative boundary properties? Furthermore does an element of an object have derivative boundary properties, if it is seen as a deeper-tier irreducible Integral whole?

The most important of such properties is function. Let us therefore explain this concept starting with a mathematical definition of function.

If we use the ideas and terms of set theory we shall be justified, having isolated a certain element in the elements composition of a particular object, in seeing it as an Independent set (in the given case a single one), contrasted to the other elements of this composition as to a second independent set. As the elements of this composition are part of the object's links network which has a fully defined structure, we can establish in the case of any pair of object elements whether they are linked or not. Linked elements will be regarded as being placed in correspondence. Then we have the opportunity to determine what elements of the second set have been placed in correspondence with the first (single) set element, i.e. as the second set is mapped onto the first. As is well known, such a mapping of one set onto another is, by definition, a function. Consequently we are justified in seeing the link group of a linkage structure, which corresponds to the entry of any object element into an object links network, as a function of this element in the object. For example, junction B in the object linkage structure M (Fig.2) maps onto (reflects) the function of element B of this object (Figs.1 and 3).

Consequently, if the object linkage structure is shown, then ipso facto the functions of all its elements are established. However if only the function of an element is known we still know nothing about what quality of the links network this function corresponds to, and even what the boundary properties of the element are. This is so because in a linkage structure an element is represented as only a point in the centre of the scheme. Therefore when solving specific problems, knowledge of an element's function can prove to be insufficient even for showing certain boundary properties, let alone qualitative properties. But at the same time knowledge of the function is still nearly always essential.

Naturally the concept of function is applicable to elements on a tier of any depth. But it is less obvious that an object like a whole, or a zero-tier unit, can have its own function. 

Altitude, general and particular functions of an object.

Appreciation of the fact that environment can be both "the same" and "not the same", has allowed us to see the object 3s ran environment, though a different one from that in which the object itself is found, and also to show the

Footnote

Sometimes the word 'surface' seems appropriate and sometimes 'boundary', but they are more or less synonymous, as indeed are 'frontier' or 'border'.

elements, and their boundaries (surfaces), links, and functions. But a line of thought in the opposite direction, as it were, is no less well founded: can there not be an environment embracing a given object simply as a different object in the sense that this zero-tier object is a different environment when compared with the environment surrounding it. In other words, is it not possible for the environment surrounding the primary object to be an object also. but at a higher-tier than the primary one?

Apparently this is possible where there exists a higher' tier environment, where a higher-tier object "has its wholeness". But such an object cannot be reduced to a zero-tier object, because in that case the higher-tier environment would coincide with the environment of the zero-tier object, i.e. there would not be either a higher-tier environment or a higher-tier object. In such a way a higher-tier object, as long as at first it is taken as an environment, must include a zero-tier object, but at the same time it is not reduced to this single object. Consequently it must have as its parts several (at least two) zero-tier objects.

While this higher-tier object appears both integrally whole and consisting of its own parts, or zero-tier elements, it cannot help being linkable; it cannot help having a links network where, at its junctions, primary zero-tier elements are found.

It is natural to call such a higher-tier the first-tier and to speak of the first (higher) tier structure of an object in a first-tier (higher) environment, and so on.

As long as the primary zero-tier object is found at a links junction, as one of the parts of a higher-tier object, we are justified in speaking not only of the boundaries, links and functions of primary object elements, but of the boundaries, links and functions of the object itself within a higher-tier object. In such a way all the concepts so far introduced are acceptable in relation to tiers not only of any depth but also of any height.

In specific (concrete) tasks it is essential to see the phenomenon not "in general" but on a certain number of tiers. Therefore it is sometimes necessary to indicate what the total number of tiers under examination is, both higher and lower, in relation to the zero-tier. This numerical description of the total number of tiers we shall call the altitude.

The Latin word 'altitude' indicates the distance in a vertical direction from one point or extreme to another, irrespective of whether the heights or depths are measured. Therefore, if a certain object is subjected to examination, for example one reaching the third-tier in height and the second-tier in depth, then its altitude is equal to six tiers (Inclusive), just as if we were concerned with a Phenomenon from the zero-tier to the fifth in depth.

It is very often necessary to analyse phenomena keeping to an altitude of 3-tiers: a zero-tier plus one in height and plus one in depth. For example an object is regarded as a zero-tier unit in a network of links with other such units. This links-network relates to a first high-tier object. If we call it a meta-object, then the object under examination as-a-whole has its function in the network of links between the parts of the meta-object. But at the same time the elements of the object are representative of the first of the deep tiers and each of them has its function in the network of links with each other.

Let us agree to call the object function in the meta-object its general function, and the functions of each of the elements of this object the particular functions of the object.

Now a natural question arises; is there any difference of principle between the links which set the general function of the object and those which set its particular functions?

In order to answer this question we have to develop further our ideas as to the exact nature of links and properties. But for this purpose we shall have to make use of "reflex" methodology by introducing elementary concepts, not only as a means of determining which concepts can be considered primary, but also as a method of accurately defining concepts introduced at an earlier stage of reflexion. This is done through concepts introduced on the basis of the first ones. From the formal point of view, such a method is as completely unacceptable as it is to assume that the foundation stones of a building under construction, which are the support for the upper level masonry, are in the final analysis themselves supported by the upper masonry.

However it will be quickly noticed that the concepts we have introduced concerning higher levels have basically turned out to be not just combinations of primary concepts of lower levels as is the case in strict axiomatic theories Concepts which from the formal point of view support other concepts, serve largely as "priming" for the mobilisation of ideas which actually support new concepts. Consequently, information found in concepts of higher levels of reflection is not fully covered by information contained in those concepts which help to provide definitions and clarifications. New Information accumulated in this way also makes it possible to define precisely the basic process of "deducing" concepts from concepts which are assumed.

1.3. REFLEX DEVELOPMENT OF THESE CONCEPTS 

The "reflex" of the link as an exchange and the flow interpretation of linkage.

For a deeper understanding of the concept of the link let us consider the following question: when do we start to think in terms of two objects being linked together? Let us imagine initially that we are observing as objects three tribes of Aboriginees: A, B, and C. If we say that tribe A is closely linked with tribe B and is hardly linked at all with tribe C, then in fact we envisage A exchanging something with tribe B and practically nothing with tribe C.

For example, tribes A and B pass to each other their Production surplus; the girls of tribe A can became the wives of the youths of tribe B; in a case of need the warriors of the one tribe can be joined with those of the other and so on, whereas between tribe C and tribe A no such exchanges occur.

In other words all that we interpret in reality as the links between observed objects can he seen as an exchange by these objects of their deep-tier elements.

This is their obligatory or necessary movement, owing to which the elements leave the boundaries of one object and arrive at the boundaries of another. In this process the nature of the link as a boundary violation can be seen. Also the exchange can be seen as episodic, periodic or continuous, and unilaterial or mutual, but nevertheless it remains an exchange, a movement, a shift scross boundaries. What has just been said relates equally to biological, chemical and physical links because they too are based on an exchange of at least one photon - the minimum quantum of energy. This allows us to invoke the extremely feasible hypothesis, that any link between any object is a process; it shows movement as an exchange between these objects where the exchanged units are elements of certain deep-tiers of linked objects.

Such a proposition on the causes of links and the Interaction of phenomena is in fact supported in its turn by the hypothesis that all material bodies are "seekers" and "attracters" of deeper-tier bodies. This hypothesis corresponds directly with the ideas of Democritus and Epicurus concerning the ability of all objects to "flow out". But the ideas of the Greek atomists were not widely supported because the interaction of primary atoms in the primary void was represented as something mysterious. Epicurus's ideas on atoms' "spontaneous rejections" of the "straight line" did not save the situation, because they contradicted the initial thesis on the absence of any qualities in atoms (apart from weight in Epicurus' atoms). The recognition of the infinite number of tiers frees the idea of "outflow" from these discordant ideas. Here the Hegelian assertion on the "indivisibility" of the finite and infinite which V.I. Lenin explained as "in general the infiniteness of matter right into the depths", takes on real conviction [2, vol.29, p.100]

We also find the idea of "outflow" in Kant, when he "defines the force of attraction as a penetrating force through which one matter can directly affect the parts of another beyond the contact surface.." [43, vol.1, p.352] But as Hegel showed, Kant's ideas are inconsistent in that he shows "matter" and "force" as opposed to each other: forces are non-material and it is with their help that matter, "already prepared, is brought into movement" [43, vol.,  p.254]. In our scheme any outflow of material objects is indeed a flow of material objects, while movement (or displacement) turns out to be the basis for the stabilisation of links and for a change of objects' characteristics. This corresponds to the Marxist understanding of the category of movement as an integral attribute of matter.

Perceiving links as exchange processes allows us to accept that the concepts of the qualitative and the boundary properties of the link we have introduced above are not simply an external analogy of the concepts of the quality of an object and its boundary or surface properties. This is so because any element on a certain tier of examination is itself an object with its own qualities, and the basis of the link is that elements are being exchanged. The link must then depend upon the particular features of its elements and, consequently, on their qualities. As elements move or are transferred, or occupy on the way from one boundary to another completely defined areas of space in defined intervals of time, they exhibit the spatial temporal characteristics of a link, i.e. its boundary properties, and they can be given a clear ontological interpretation.

The link as a violation of a boundary can be characterised by the type of violation involved. If certain exchange currents flow from the object, passing more or less evenly across all boundary points of the object (or flow in at any part of the boundary), while for other types of exchange elements this boundary is impenetrable (which provides the basis for discovering the presence of object boundaries in time and space), then the boundary contours are simultaneously the contours of its violation. Consequently, the boundary properties of an object coincide with the boundary properties of the link. So the contrasting phenomena (the boundary and "non-boundary", i.e. its violation) turn out to exist in unity. In particular, this unity of division and link is evident when two objects are in contact and at the same time, owing to the diffusion of deep-tier elements, they are interlinked through exchange elements.

If a link is effected as a consequence not of diffuse but local boundary violations of objects, the boundary properties of an object and its links make contact at the points of transformation of the one into the other, but they do not coincide. It is in this case that we can speak of links contact through the elements of an object, and can examine the linkage structure of an object. (Figs 1 and 2).

But with a diffuse link and with the contact of an object's elements when the boundary properties of links coincide with boundary properties of linked object elements, the linkage structure is no longer distinguishable from the full structure, i.e. from the structure reflecting the object boundary properties as well. In such a scheme it is possible to show, for example, the way cells make contact in live tissue and methods of laying bricks when building walls and so on.

Let us call such links schemes between parts of an integrally whole object adjoining each other (as for example cells in a bees' honeycomb) 'cellular structures'.

To the boundary properties of links we must relate the various parameters of the link as a process of exchange: intensity, direction, reciprocity, speed, the law of change of intensity, the place of outflow of the object through elements being exchanged etc. In particular if, in a certain time-scale, for each measured Interval of time there pass between objects very many link elements, then it is more fitting to measure them not by the number of items but by a number of measures. This is in relation to the "volume"; a separate element of this can be seen to be of such small size that it can (almost) be disregarded; in this case we can call the link an exchange current.

With these ideas concerning exchange currents in mind let us return to the concept of linkage.

Obviously we can sense that an object is linked to another only when exchange currents forming a network of links between object elements possess (within the scale of time and space intervals under observation) "balanced" non-variable characteristics. Currents must also be Internally (tightly) closed and must form cycles. Such currents are abc, bcdg, bd, de in Fig.3. If any currents flow into an object and flow out of it, the general influx must be balanced by the outflow, as for example a and e in Fig.3.

The balance expressed here is not of closed but of through currents. Consequently in speaking of an element's function as a structural characteristic of a linked object, we are subconsciously supported by concepts of the balance Invariability of currents, and of the links network between the elements of this object.

It is virtually inconceivable that purely chance object links, representing influxes and outflows of corresponding exchange elements, should also prove to be balanced in the object by chance, and therefore stable. But then we are bound to assume that if such a balance occurs in spite of everything, it is a consequence of the closed nature of the currents arriving and leaving the object under examination. But this must mean that a higher-tier object exists, i.e. a meta-object, which being integrally whole, possesses linkage, and far just this reason the exchange link currents of its parts must also be balanced. At least some of the currents cannot help being closed; then the balance of the in and outflows of the Initial object, eg. a and e in Fig.3, is explained by the fact that the initial object M is included in the structure of closed cycles of exchange currents of the links of particular meta-object parts, and in this sense the object has its own general function, and in itself represents a part of an element of a meta-object. Otherwise the presence of the outer links of an object is still not its general function.

Current characteristics of object properties.

 If we conceive of an object which does not enter into any links with an external environment, or with a world which in relation to it is external, we would decide (ultimately) that it really does not exist. It is "linked with nobody" and "does not involve itself with anything", it does not reveal itself in any way at all and consequently cannot even be linked, even temporarily, with the sensors of the subject. As a result the subject does not suspect the existance of such a completely isolated object.

Correspondingly the opposite case holds: the more strongly an object shows itself to be linked in various forms with other objects (either interlinked or linked with the outer world), the greater the number of the subject's sensors it can link up with, and the more properties the subject discovers in this object.

All this makes us realise that when we strive to present as deeply as possible the distinctiveness of some property, and its difference from other properties of the object, we must sooner or later characterise this property as a certain type of link. In the simplest case we shall think of a link of a given object with other objects either being observed or having already been observed; in a more complex case we shall think about the way the link is realised: for example, we shall think about the type of flow of the exchange current and about the possible and impossible flow characteristics. In the most complex case, we try to conceive how an object might "behave" in certain situations, i.e. in the final analysis what link forms it would enter into. and which ones it would not enter into with "comrades" from the same situation; and also the appearance of which links between objects it could prevent. Marx says quite plainly that following on the fact that it is not possible to analyse the properties of a thing divorced from its role in effecting links, "the sum of its possible useful applications is contained in its being, as a thing with certain qualities [1, vol.13, p.13]. It can in other words only be seen in its total context.

But does it not follow from the above that the terms "link" and "property" (including the qualitative one) are in fact synonymous, and signify one and the same category?

The tendency to make such an Identification is often met in the philosophical literature. However, the lengthy analysis we have carried out into the nature of the property and the link excludes such an interpretation. It contradicts also the postulations of Marxist dialectics. Engels emphasises that "there exist not qualities but only things possessing qualities" [1, vol.20, p.547].

Indeed, if the link constitutes a violation of boundaries as a continually occurring displacement of elements which linked objects exchange (unilaterally or bilaterally) then even before the beginning of the exchange process prior to the appearance of conditions leading to the exchange of elements of a quite definite type (either a diffuse) exchange, or over the whole area of the boundary, or just over localised parts of the violated boundary) the object remains itself, the bearer of its own properties, although ones not shown through any links that have been realised. It is just as if the role of the object is expressed in such an "intervention" in the realisation of links between other objects which hinders the flow (or through-put) of exchange elements between these objects and, in particular, reflection of the current of exchange elements or a change of direction in their passage. Then the object has the ability to exert such an influence on the currents of exchange elements even before it interferes in the flow pattern of the exchange current.

Consequently, both qualitative properties which manifest themselves "positively" in links which have been effected, through providing support for exchange currents of a certain type, and boundary properties whose presence is revealed "negatively", through their hindering the passage of certain exchange currents in spatial and temporal co-ordinates are present in an object even when there are no favourable conditions for these properties to be revealed.

In such a way it is possible to define the property of an object as its inherent ability to support (in certain circumstances) some types of links and to hinder the realisation of other types of links.

Although an object's property is defined (by us) in terms of its types of links, these types of links depend both on the boundary properties of the links and on the qualitative properties of the elements. The exchange of these properties provides a basis for a link to be established; there is no tautology in such a definition. An object's properties are a phenomenon of a higher tier than are the properties of the links, and therefore we are justified in describing the properties of an object through the intuitively clear characteristics of deeper-tier units which were originally regarded as non-divisible.

With the discovery of the non-uniformity of an object's Properties the object is recognised as an indivisible integral whole, as a "thing-in-itself", and then it appears as an influence on the "life" of other objects. Such a conception of an object's properties does not, of course, contradict the definition of properties which Hegel offered. A "thing-in-itself" is the same as the "absolute", about which the only thing that is known is that everything "in it is one".

"All things are at first, as it were, "in-themselves", but the matter does not end there. The "thing" in general transgresses the limits of the "in-itself" alone, as an abstract reflex into itself. It changes over to then revealing itself also as a reflex into another, and thus it possesses properties." [43, vol., p.163].

The Correlation between quality, quantity, form, function and structure.

The qualitative properties or, more briefly, qualities, are interpreted in our system of primary concepts as above all a manifestation of the "outflow" characteristics of an object. This means as a manifestation of its activity to engage in links, i.e. in exchange currents, with other objects. Therefore, as already noted, qualities can be perceived or be evident as various, depending upon what the qualities of the elements are and what the exchange link currents consist of.

Moreover the elements of the same qualities can be the cause of various qualities of the object being revealed, if the rates of the exchange element currents differ markedly. This is especially true of qualities which are sensed. For example, feelings can differ very greatly when the intensity of the currents changes.

If it is a question of an integrally whole object, an analysis of its qualities is based above all else on the discovery of those currents in which it is included as an element of the meta-object, i.e. as a "passing through" element in a network of closed meta-object exchange currents.

It is natural that a description of these qualities will be simultaneously a fairly full characterisation of this object's function, and an "expression" of its wholeness, This is because in these qualitative characteristics a balance of in-flowing and out-flowing currents is bound to be evident.

Boundary properties of an object, which are perceived through the senses and which determine the spatial and temporal characteristics of an object's activity to be included in a certain type of link or which are inevitably going to hinder certain types of other objects' links, set the "qualitative boundary" of an object. And insofar as among all the qualities, in spite of their variety, we can manage to identify those which reflect the fact of the integral wholeness of the object, so among the great number of qualitative boundaries (in sufficiently "whole" objects) it will prove possible to establish those which indeed characterise it as definitely qualitative.

If we examine an integrally whole object purely as an indivisible whole, boundary properties in this case coincide with the usual idea of spatial forms and temporal boundaries of an object's manifestation. Thus the outer contour of the object It in Fig.1 and 3 is a spatial form.

If the level of examination is deeper and the elements in an object are isolated, the boundary properties will include also the forms of the elements. The forms of the elements are presented most fully in Fig.3 and least fully in Fig.1.

An even more detailed examination allows us to discover the object's links with the other objects of a meta-object and the inter-links of the elements. Consequently this will no longer be the same form, but a new class of object boundary properties: the general function of the object (for example the object M), its particular functions, the links network of object elements and the structure of this links network which we examined in Fig.2 and 3.

It is clear from the above that the term 'boundary property' is indeed close in meaning to the Hegelian term 'quantity' as an antonym of the term 'quality', but it allows us to make a more precise differentiation between spatial form, function, and structure.

As we shall show, the concept of quantity is included among the varieties of boundary properties.

It is important to emphasise in passing that with our view of the nature of links neither quantities nor boundary properties are, as it were, more "primary" or more "objective" in relation to each other. Boundary properties are established on the basis of quality differences. The boundaries' independence from quality and .hence the "primary nature" of boundary properties is apparent. We can speak of the identity of boundary properties "independently" of their quality, only if we pass over the fact that it is essential, for the objective existence of similar boundary properties of various qualities, that these qualities are seen as distinct from those environments where the identity of the boundary properties is established. Consequently, when boundary properties are being established the participation of sensory organs which pick up "secondary properties" is just as essential as that of the sensory organs picking up "primary" spatial and temporal characteristics of the object.

It is by no means easier to abstract from the quality when comparing boundary properties than to abstract from boundary properties when Identifying the facts surrounding the manifestation of the same quality. For example, we perceive "wetness" in the same way whether we have put our hand under a tap, or into a stream, or into an advancing wave at the coast.

When boundary properties appear "negative", i.e. when they are hindering the emergence of links of a certain type, it is through these properties that inner closed object currents, which provide a second side of its wholeness, are "positively" revealed. Consequently not only the qualities but the boundary properties too can reflect the fact of the object's integral wholeness.

When there is a contact link between an object's elements and a diffuse penetration of linking currents, some deep-tier exchange elements penetrate across closed boundary currents while others do not.

A combination of a link's contact and its localisation is sometimes possible. This happens when contact occurs not between full boundary objects (not like the cells of living tissue) but between partial ones based on the touching of separate points or small areas of the surface of objects (as for example, in Fig.4). If in this case, diffusion only goes across the place of contact we can speak, in spite of the absence of links as special "cross-pieces", of the linkage structure of the objects (coinciding in our example with the linkage structure of the object M; compare Fig.4 with Figs 1 and 2).

Linkage and Relationahips as Valencies 

Having shown the correlation between concepts of properties and concepts of linkage, we can characterise any property (qualitative and with boundaries) by indicating the nature of the link the object can enter into or which the object can impede. Therefore in many cases it will now be convenient for us to speak of an object's properties as its valencies, i.e. its capacities to participate in linking processes with other objects.

If we understand 'valency' in this way, those boundary properties which are supported by inner closed exchange currents of the object and therefore, it would seem, isolate the object from linking with other objects, i.e. they deprive the object of valency - such properties must ipso facto have to do with valency. The fact is that the "isolating", ("screening") object boundaries depict clearly its spatial forms and create conditions for the spatial contact of this object with other objects, i.e. they again characterise the object's properties in terms of its valency.

The total diversity of object properties can be described in terms of a comparatively small number of types of valency. Naturally such a description will sometimes obscure the picture, hut we can nevertheless, through such phrasing, spare ourselves a lot of superfluous detail which can also obscure the main matter.

While the object property remains just a disposition on which is not evident in a readily observable link, we shall call it a "free valency" as one of the varieties of potentials. If the property is effected in the form of a link of corresponding quality, we shall call it an extential or simply an engaged, or bound, valency; it represents one of the varieties of "reality", or a type of reality.

It is obvious that the presence of a particular engaged object valency is still not a full manifestation of a corresponding property. An engaged valency displays the link property towards which the object is predisposed and reflects one of the possible combinations of the link boundary properties of this quality. But what the limits of the boundary properties of the link which has been effected are, in which the object can support the given link, still does not emerge from the effected link. These limits are also characteristic of the object property under examination.

As already observed, the number of properties of any real, corporeal object is limitless. Nevertheless in the specific conditions of a certain tier the object not only has effectively a limited number of extential, engaged valencies (for example, the atom in a certain type of molecule) but also a selection of most easily discoverable free valencies (which consequently reflect the greatest predisposition for display). Therefore it is possible to divide valencies according to their "strength". With "engaged", as opposed to "free", valencies we can perceive their strength to be the durability of these links (we have yet to see what this durability depends upon), and by the strength of free valencies we understand the degree of their predisposition towards being evident, and consequently the possibility of heir being discovered. If we Introduce just three gradations of strength, we can speak of engaged, or bound, valencies as being strong, weak, or absent extentials; of free valencies as being strong, (intentlals), or weak (potentials); and finally of absent properties.

It is also possible to speak of properties which are evident, concealed or absent from the given object, and this division - though bounded by conditions - is used by everybody in practice. [1]. The sense of such a distinction between properties is explained below, The same type of link, identified for example on the basis of its being localised on an object boundary, or on the basis of exchange element qualities, can in many cases be variable. This is in the sense that, depending on certain conditions, it will be necessary to evaluate it first as an intential and then as a potential or extential. This means that reality can change into possibility, and possibility can change into reality. In the simplest cases when there are set means of revealing the valency of objects, it can be shown that the change of a specific given potential into an intential, or of an intential to an extential, or vice-versa, depends only on external conditions. It is not linked with the fate of all the remaining valencies of the object (whether they remain "free", or turn into bound valencies).

However in more complex cases and in ones more important for practical purposes, an object's properties are Influenced not only by external conditions, but also perhaps by the effect of some valencies on others. For example, a certain given valency changes from potential to intential when other fully defined valencies change from intential to extential, i.e. to an engaged, or bound, link.

1 After the concept of essence and utility have been defined more precisely, the division of properties into ones characteristic and uncharacteristic of a given object will cease to be conditional. Then we shall be able to introduce criteria for determining the importance of a property.

These cases serve as examples of the interaction of reality and possibility: reality is prepared for by poss-reaility, while possibility can change when there is a change of reality.

The factors for such a change within the boundaries of a given object must be related to the presence of a second object in the locality or neighbourhood of the first, under set external conditions. We shall call these factors the local conditions of an object. And then for any pair (or trio, etc.) of objects which have fully defined valencies, one can either experimentally (or theoretically) indicate those of their valencies they will possess if under set external conditions these objects (for example, a pair of objects) prove to be next to one another in set localities. These valencies will characterise each object's properties in correlation with those of another object, and if in fact valencies are not manifest but are evaluated only as being Possible under corresponding external and local conditions, such properties of the juxtaposed objects shall be called relationships. For example, a relationship can be formulated as follows: object A and object B, situated in local conditions C, under external conditions D, enters a link E and this will have the intential K and will lose the potential M.

Consequently, although relationships do not represent the valencies present, they are also described in terms of intential, extential, and potential.

If we examine an object's valency in relation to a particular locality among other objects, then we can also speak of the possible function of this object, i.e. of the function which it would have if it came into the sphere of these objects. But this will not be a function of actual, real valencies, nor a function of linked network, but a function of relationships: extential, intential and potential.

It is also possible to examine the relationship of certain local conditions to one or another object. This relationship will characterise those extentials, intentials and potentials of objects which set these local conditions, which occur if a given specific object comes into such localities.

Thus in objects an actual extential linkage set and an intential set of predispositions to other linkage can be regarded as dependent both on external, internal, and local conditions. This occurs where the internal conditions can themselves be the results of foregoing external, local and internal conditions.

In spite of the fact that with such an approach, properties are expressed in terms of linkage, it is not a question of identification of linkage and properties, since both extentials and also concealed valencies (intentials and potentials), i.e. valencies as abilities, as possibilities, and not just as certain evident linkage as are observed in reality, are taken into account.

Factors in property and relationship changes

Let us seek a' definition of any combination of properties of an object which are determined by the composition or grouping of bound and free object valencies. These valencies have specific boundary properties within particular limits of external and local conditions; we define it as the state of the object; and let us call the combination of states, possible in various conditions, the field of possible object states.

There are many other bases for differentiating the categories of linkage and relationship. See for example, N.F. Ovchinnikov's definitions [138, p.26/77].

We shall now try to analyse the question of change factors in the properties of objects in terms of states.

If the properties of an environment, i.e. the external and local conditions, are fixed, then naturally the number of possible object properties and their combinations is much less. These properties form a sub-field of the field of possible object states. In fact we may speak, in precise terms, of the sub-field of possible states, if engaged or (bound) valencies are fixed and only external conditions are changed.

Some of the sub-fields of these two types naturally intersect, i.e. the same composition of object properties, or the same state (sub-field of states) can be obtained in various ways. For example, properties can appear the same when the engaged valencies have composition A, while the environmental properties have composition B, or, on the, other hand the bound valencies are found in composition C, while the environmental properties are found in composition E.

The composition of properties can sometimes be seen in simplified manner just through the composition of those capacities for entering into linkage which are represented extentially; this is without taking into account those changes in properties which are expressed in the composition of concealed valencies (intentials and potentials). For example, if in a certain range of external and local conditions the extential linkage of two objects remains the same and unchanged, one can consider with this simplified approach that these objects' properties also remain unchanged. This is so even if in various parts of the range the objects' intentials are in fact varied, i.e. objects have various states in the field of their possible states.

Thus with the simplified approach the relationships of two objects towards a third can be considered the same, if only the possible extential links with this third object are taken into account, and the intential and potential ones are not evaluated.

Now let us turn to the case where an object's external conditions remain unchanged. We can ignore its external linkage with other objects, assuming that the localities are "absolutely void". Why in this case can the properties of objects, as particular Integral wholes, be varied?

Naturally they will be determined by the objects' ability to have some particular linkage power (potential, intential or extential) in relation to certain other objects, and this ability will itself reflect the possibility of unclosed flow-through currents linkage between objects' elements appearing when there are closed links. Putting it crudely, the properties of objects, like their valencies, under set external conditions, can alter as a result of a change of internal conditions alone, and this leads to the redistribution of internal, closed linkage currents and external currents.

It is absolutely clear that this correlation must depend on properties of an object's elements; and also on what mutual local conditions they create for each other. If this is so, it can easily be understood that in a number of cases just one variation in the relative local conditions, i.e. the coming-together of elements, their distancing themselves from one another and their arrest in time and space, can lead to a change of structure of the linkage network between them and, further, to a change either of quality, or of the object's boundary properties as a whole. Consequently in this case, the field of possible object states will change.

It is even more obvious that if the composition of objects' elements is simply changed (for example, if some of them are taken from the locality permitting Interaction) this can lead to a change of structure of internal currents and consequently the properties of the whole.

In other words, if an object's internal boundary properties, or the qualitative properties of its elements are changed, then the qualitative and boundary properties of the object as a whole will be changed. This will be shown in the variation of the composition, quality, and boundary properties of the object's valencies, i.e. in the variation of the field of its possible states [195; 198].

Me have thus come, although through a somewhat more detailed formulation, to the well-known dialectical law on the change of quantitative (for us, boundary) characteristics of the object into qualitative ones, or vice-versa. The detail is expressed in the following statement: first, we can indicate more specifically where quantitative changes appear, namely in the reconstruction of the full structure of an objects' linkage network, or only in a linkage structure or a "cellular structure"; second, a quality change in a whole can be characterised in terms of linkage or relationships as extentials, intentials, or potentials, by distinguishing between internal and external linkage currents.

In particular this provides an opportunity to compare what seem at first glance to be heterogeneous characteristics of objects, like functions and properties, linkage and relationships, and to evaluate the degree of their interrelationship. Through this we try in the end to determine what type of objects are most suitable to be ascribed to a class of systems.

Let us emphasise again that in closely defining the concepts of property and relationship, we do so through the concepts of currents and valencies. We then come once again to the notion of the category of property which supports materialist dialectic; "the properties of a given thing do not arise from its relationships to other things, but are only revealed in such a relationship.." [1, vol.23, p. 63].

 1.4. SYSTEMS AS ADAPTIVE OBJECTS

Adaptation and Adaptive Objects

Let us take the meta-object B, into whose elements the object A intrudes; object A is linked in the linkage network with a number of other objects which form the local conditions for object A. Correspondingly object A also enters the parameters of the local conditions of its local companions. The function of object A is one of the particular functions of meta-object B, and the combined sum of all the particular functions of the elements of object B ensures the fulfillment of its general function, and the balance of its internal and external linkage currents.

Carrying out a certain function, i.e. having for example a fully specific number of evident valencies changing within the limits where they can he Ignored as having no noticeable influence on the properties of meta-object B, the object A is situated in one of the sub-fields of its states which intrudes into the field of object A's possible or potential states.

The function of object A in the meta-object B can be expressed in a certain natural change of its state when there is a change, let us say, in the meta-object of object A's local conditions. Such a function will be in the field of possible states not only a point (more or less eroded within the permissible limits), but also a trajectory, most probably closed (and also more or less eroded). Consequently both with an "Invariable" field of object A, carrying out its function In meta-object B and with a naturally changing one, this function can be characterised by the field of object A's required functional states which is always included in the field of this object's possible states. Moreover the uncontrolled changes in the conditions must not take object A beyond the boundaries of permissible erosion of the functional states.

The limits of the changes in the conditions where object A remains within the permissible limits of its functional states can be called the boundaries (or limits) of the object's constant functioning.

We can understand that object A must be such that the limits of ordinary functioning do not exceed the limits of uncontrolled changes in the object's conditions.

Let us now imagine that object A, as one of the elements of the meta-object B, is torn out of the network of linkage with other (local) elements of the meta-object B and Is carried beyond the meta-object's locality.

Since the linkage is broken in the locality elements, the balance of all meta-object B's link currents is disturbed, the engaged valencies of the local objects change into free ones, extentials become intentials and at the corresponding junction of meta-object B's links network there appears a "hole", an unoccupied place, or, more precisely, a vacant junction or simply a vacancy, i.e. a field of required functional states for a new element capable of entering the object's junction.

Let us imagine that a vacancy which has occurred has been "made use of" by object C, whose field of possible states is not quite Identical to the field of possible states of the object A. This means that the field of possible states of object C does not fully correspond to the field of required functional states set by the meta-system.

This non-correspondence exists insofar as the function of object C's relationships with local or neighbouring objects at a vacant junction is different from the functions of object A's relationships towards these objects; moreover it occurs in such a way that the field of object C's possible states to some degree goes beyond the boundaries of the field of functional states which object A had and object C must have.

This may, in C's intentials remaining free when object C comes to the vacant place, which has became free after A practice, lead to some of the intentials of local objects not finding an exit to make a linkage with object C, and some of object, in the linkage structure junction of object a In such cases we shall say that the properties of object C are not in agreement with its function in the meta-object's structure.

Moreover we must remember that the properties of any object (i.e. the field of its possible states) can change, if the composition of its elements or linkage change, and if the structure of the element's linkage changes or of the functions of their linkage when the structure is invariable i.e. owing to a change in the object's internal conditions. If we remember all this, we can understand that, owing to all these internal changes, properties of both object C and object B, and also the potentials, intentials and extentials and the free and engaged valencies of object C or of the objects surrounding it can change, and this means that the degree of agreement of object C's properties with its function can start to decrease or Increase. In the latter case the field of the object's functional states at a given vacant junction will be included in the field of the object's possible states.

We shall call the process where agreement increases between object C's properties and a certain particular function at a linkage junction of a higher level object (object B) (occurring because of object C's property changes) adaptation of object C to its function in the vacant junction of object B.

Corresponding to the above, a process of increase in agreement between object C's properties and functions at a higher level object (object B, say) linkage junction, occurring because of object B's property changes, shall be called the adaptation of object B to the properties of its object C. In the adaptation process of the second kind, a linkage network between the elements is formed in object B in which the junction, including element C, provides for this element a particular function, i.e. a field of required functional states, which is in accordance with the element's properties. This corresponds to the extential function of object C's relationships with local objects. In other words the field of required functional states changes in order to "join" the field of object C's possible states.

If, though, object C adapts to meta-object B, the field of required functional states remains invariable, while the field of object C's possible states shifts and changes shape in the space of states until the field of required functional states comes to be included.

In principle a mutual timing is possible: C adapts to B and B to C.

If the meta-object has adapted to object C, the return of A into C's place will make a new adaptation essential (so that object A's properties agree with the field of required functional states) : either A to B or B to A.

If however object A returns to object C's place after C has adapted to meta-object B, object A's properties will be in agreement with the field of required functional states. Furthermore object A will be able to function normally at the corresponding junction of meta-object B's links network.

However this still does not affirm the full replaceability of object A by object C after its adaptation to B. We can regard object C as functionally equivalent to A only if the boundaries of steady, stable, constant functioning of the adapted object C will be neither wider nor narrower than the constant functioning boundaries of object A.

Proceeding from our propositions on the multi-tiered structure of objects, we are able to speak not only of an object's adaptation to a meta-object or of a meta-object, but also of an element's adaptation to an object or of an object to an element etc - at any level either upwards or downwards.

But if adaptation is possible owing to a re-structuring of both higher and lower levels (in relation to the vacant level), are there any ways of understanding in which of the two "vertical" directions the adaptation will proceed? To answer this question, let us examine first of all a particular case of adaptation, adaptation downwards. We shall attempt to explain for the moment what maintains the stability of the meta-object, and its ability to withstand "tuning" itself to its adapted object.

The Substance and Material of an Object with the Required Field of Functional states.

The problem of the agreement of an object's properties With a set field of required functional states in a certain vacancy becomes most obvious if we examine the replacement of object A, torn from a certain junction of a linkage net-work of objects in the balanced meta-object B, not by an available object C occupying a vacancy, but by object K which does not yet exist but must be created. It is clear that for it to be created it is necessary for its properties to provide a special function of its relationships to the vacancy: having turned into a linkage function, it must restore the balance of internal and external flows of the meta-object B, upset as a result of object A's disappearance.

What, then, exists before such a suitable object K is created, and what is required for it to be created?

Before the moment of object K's creation there is a vacancy which sets directly and materially the field of object K's required functional states, that is, the set of its valencies, and also its external flow-through currents, through the appearance of an intential of local objects, and through the upset balance of linkage currents moving into the place of the vacancy.

But since external currents are material and corporeal, they can only flow out of the corporeal elements of the object K, just as they can only flow into corporeal elements. And for elements to possess this ability there must form -and be supported - internal currents for supporting external functional ones.

Do vacant valencies set limits on the structure and elements of these internal currents?

They cannot directly do so, just as they cannot directly set the structure and elements of the external currents, because here it is a question of the "internal matter" of the object K which is taking shape; the properties of the supporting currents, their structure, their elements, and also the number of object K's levels can only be rendered concrete by conditions which do not depend on the meta-object and the vacancy freed within it. The internal properties of object K, when there are set functional properties, depend in the first place on the following: what the nature of those objects is from which various ones can be selected so that from them object K's elements can be formed. These are elements capable of maintaining - with the help of internal interlinkage - the ability of object K to fulfill its function at the vacant junction of the meta-object.

Obviously it is not possible to mix these primary objects with those elements of the created object K which ultimately form so that object K has the required functional properties. Therefore let us agree to name the primary "building" objects a material reserve for building object K. Let us call the elements of all its levels which are "under construction" and include the elements of exchange currents formed from those "building" objects (which are taken out to build object K from the material reserve) the substances of object K.

The concepts of material and substance are non-identical even in the extremely rare cases when all the material goes (leaving nothing behind) to the creation of object K, where the primary objects representing the material do not require any preliminary processing to function in the role of the elements of all the levels of the created object, i.e. in the role of its substance. The difference in this case, although minimal, is expressed in the incomplete identity of the primary objects, as the substance of object K, with these objects, while they remain a material reserve: as substance, these objects can have special properties absent in the material reserve. This is so if these properties are determined by the presence of exchange currents of the elements linkage within the boundaries of an integrally whole object. Or, in other words, they will have various states in spite of the common fields of their possible states.

This non-identity of material and substance is still more obvious if we imagine that object K, having been created, is for some reason broken down into its constituent parts. These constituent parts will change their state and will turn into reserve material (say of such an object K), and therefore will cease to be elements, i.e. the substance of the object K, The substance guarantees the presence of the required internal currents which support the functional currents, while the material is only more or less disposed towards this.

From the set material reserve various groups of primary objects can be drawn out. From these objects a certain diversity of more complex objects can be created and certain combinations of such objects are capable of linking and serving as the substance of higher level objects with certain fields of possible states. Consequently there corresponds to each material reserve, when there are set changes in conditions, its own combination (not always fully known to man) of fields of possible states; these characterise the properties of those objects where the material reserve is sufficient to form their substance [182].

We have examined so far the case where reserve material objects merely combine in higher-level units. If we allow a preliminary "splintering" of reserve material primary objects into their component parts, the number of types of substance that can be created from the given reserve will increase and consequently the combination of fields of possible states corresponding to this material reserve will also increase.

And so when it is a question of the conditions under which the creation of object K is possible with properties corresponding to the vacancy in meta-object B it is not just the presence of a material reserve that is required: the material must be such that the combined sum of the fields of its potential states includes the field of potential states of object K which is being created. This field in its own turn must Include the field of required functional states at a given vacant junction of object K. Moreover it is essential that a certain range of boundaries change in the external conditions of object K's functioning should lead only to an erosion of the required functional states' field which does not exceed the permitted limits. 

The optimally adapted (or perfected) object 

The material reserve with the combination of potential states' fields, satisfying the requirements enumerated above, can be used to create a large number of objects K, when there is a ready vacancy in meta-object B and when there are set boundaries for change in the conditions of object K's functioning. Is it possible to establish among these variations any scale of preference? For example, which should be preferred - object K₁ or object K₂, when both of them Include in their potential states' field the field of required functional states, though the potential states' field is more extensive with object k₁ than with object k₂? we must provide some answer to this question.

Under other equal conditions for the adapting meta-object B it is more advantageous to impose the vacant function on object k₂, because the wider range of properties which object k₁ possesses above the required functional properties i.e. its greater universality, cannot be obtained "without purpose": a greater amount of material is required for this universality, as well as a longer time for the forming of the object; and in that case, as for the functioning, when there is a set vacancy such universality will remain unrealised, for it goes beyond the boundaries of required functional states.

Next we must ask what happens if the variants k₁ and K₂ have a similar potential states' field, but are different in that the stable functioning boundaries, exceeding the limits of change in the functioning conditions, are more extensive with one of the variants (eg. K₁) than with the other.

In this case, too, variant K₂ is preferable for the meta-object B, because any excess reliability is less with it than with object k₁. Therefore the "cast" for creating object K₂ is less than for creating object k₁.

Hence it Is clear that among the large number of variants of object K having a "claim" to function as the vacant junction of meta-object B under set functioning conditions, we can consider the very best one to be the one whose potential states' field does not simply cover, but is as close as is possible to the required functional states' field at the meta-object's vacant junction. In such a way the object's stable functionings must not simply include the limits, of change in external functioning conditions, out where possible should coincide with them. This will result in an erosion of the object's functional states which will not exceed the acceptable limits, nor will be less than the accepted level.

We have established the characteristics of an object's "optimum state" with respect to the required field of functional states. This occurs when there is a set material reserve and functioning conditions. Let us investigate how the forming of object K can proceed with properties approximating to the optimal. Here it is of no consequence whether it is an artificial "manufactured" object created by an engineer, a social grouping Cat the head of which is an experienced organiser), a social system which is forming spontaneously or, finally, a set of biological objects which are taking shape in the process of natural selection.

In the simplest case when there are to be found among objects of an available material reserve ones which in their initial form can more or less fulfill particular functions of the object under formulation, K, then the creation of this object must begin with the selection of these most suitable Initial objects. The measure of their suitability must be expressed in the choice of the initial composition of objects with those potential states' fields for which one can find mutual local conditions which will provide for the development of a particular network of internal links between these objects. In this case the network structure must create in the object being formed Internal conditions for the presence of a field of potential states' which will cover the field of object K's required functional states at the vacant junction of meta-object B.

For this a large number of choices in the composition of the Initial objects from the material reserves must be tested; and for each composition a great number of variations in the linkage network structure between the initial objects which in this way change from the category of material to the category of substance of the object under formation (K), i.e. its elements at all levels, must also be tested.

The variant of object K which is closest to the optimum (although still far from being the optimum) in its properties can already start functioning at the meta-object's vacant junction.

A finer "tuning" of the properties of K, the object under formation, towards increasing its optimum state is possible after this only through a change of the properties of the elements of object K. Because of this both the qualitative and boundary properties of those currents can change. These determine the valency characteristics of the adapting object K, But this change of properties can only be realised through a change of the composition, the properties, and the linkage structure of the following, lower level element In such a way the elements of the adapting object K's elements will start to adapt in such a way that object K will be more and more inclined to "join", as a field of its potential states, the field of required functional states, and so that its constant functioning boundaries will draw together with the functioning conditions change boundaries.

Let us call such objects optimally adapted or, more briefly, perfected.

Depending on how many levels the adaptation process has managed to spread itself downwards, we can speak of the depth of adaptation as an Indicator of the degree of perfection of the object.

The deeper the adaptation, the deeper level on which each element in the network of linkage with other elements of its level is also the optimally adapted object. 

THE MEASURE AND DEGREE OF AN OBJECT'S SYSTEMISATION

If the degree of an adapted object's optimisation in set conditions (i.e. when there are available material reserves and functioning conditions change limits) is sufficiently great for the object's properties to remain in the field of the required functional states, this means that changes in external conditions lead to a restructuring of internal interactions between a perfected object's elements where any variation in external currents remains insignificant -within the limits of permissible erosions.

But if the external conditions, i.e. the external influences on the object, go beyond the boundaries of the usual range of changes, and the properties of the perfected object K have been formed without regard to the possibility of such strong influences and therefore do not have additional reserves of stability for such an extreme case, it is clear that the composition of the perfected object K's valancies can change sharply. This means that there will occur a leap in its qualitative properties, under the influence of the external influences, because of the restructuring of the boundary properties. An example is the internal linkage structure between the object's elements. But the loss of qualities characteristic of the object is in practice a change of the object into another object and consequently in such a leap we are concerned with the "unity (identity) of being and not being". [1, vol.26, p.256].

So we have come around again to the fact that the most Important change characteristics of an object's properties reflect the dialectic law of the interaction of the categories of "quality" and "quantity"; and so the adaptation of such interaction mechanisms on the basis of specifying which boundary properties influence qualitative ones enable us not only to simply assert that the continuous changes in one of the parameters of the external conditions can lead to a qualitative leap in the manifestation of an object's properties, i.e. one of the essential characteristics of an object is its measure. Having examined the adaptation process we can say with a greater degree of certainty that a clearly defined measure, and also clearly manifest "qualitative" leaps in the properties of an object are more peculiar to that object, the longer, finer, and more accurate its adaptation was to a particular functional junction in the meta-object. This is under set conditions which determine in particular the constant functioning boundaries. In other words, only the optimally adapted, i.e. only perfected objects, have a clearly expressed and non-arbitary measure, and only they manifest clearly the dialectic law of the change of quantity to quality.

It is just such objects, objects which have a clearly expressed measure optimally adapted (perfected), which we shall call systems.

And as the clarity of the measure boundaries depends on the degree of the object's adaptation and on how close the results of adaptation are to the optimum state or the perfection, of the object, we are justified in regarding any object as a system, if the degree of its systemisation has been specified.

We can measure this degree of systemisation not only by the depth of adaptation but also by its "place" on the scale of gradations from nought to a unit (an upper bound) where the size close to the unit is ascribed to the optimally adapted perfected system when there are imposed particular limitations on the functioning conditions, the material reserve and the adaptation time. But just as there cannot be an adaptation of limitless depth, so there cannot be absolute systemisation.

As far as the lower limit of systemisation is concerned, there also cannot in reality be "nil systemisation", or absolute non-systemisation, since if something exists it has an interval of measure, even though it be considerably eroded and in a narrow range of external conditions. It is something which does not exist and is incapable of existing that can be regarded as a pure non-systemisation, or absolute chaos.

This conclusion accords with materialist dialectic. "All that is real and present has some measure" claims Hegel [43, vol.1, p.425], and this measure, as distinct from a conditional measure, is chosen as "general not in itself, but only by agreement" [43, vol.1, p.426] and is "the natural scale" of the thing, one of the parameters of the boundary properties set like any boundary property, by the qualitative definiteness of the thing, that is, its qualitative Identity.

With measure, interpreted in this way and systemisation understood as an indicator of the preciseness of the boundaries of measure, they correspond clearly to the concept of an object's essence. Even this conclusion however, does not contradict the basic dialectical propositions. Hegel writes:

"In measure the idea of essence is already inferred, namely to be identical with itself in its direct definiteness" [43, vol.1, p.421].

It is also clear that while essence and measure are interconditional categories, they are not identical. The difference between them can be formulated in our systemic terms after we define certain correlations between the concepts of material, substance, and the system.

If we now examine objects and their inter-linkages in those cases when it is important to take into account their adaptedness (i.e. account of the degree of their systemisation), we are entitled to call objects of certain levels, systems; the objects of other, higher levels are meta-systems; and the objects of lower levels elements and components of systems. Consequently all the other characteristics of objects examined earlier can also be used to describe the particular features of systems under analysis. 

The system as a dialectically examined object

With a dialectical interpretation of the system it is seen as an object which has adapted and acquired its own measure, and nothing real can be both absolutely systemised and absolutely non-systemised, all objects of the external world are both self-sufficient systems and material reserve, i.e. initial or primary objects from which the substance of other systems can form. Any material reserve is consequently represented as objects which to a certain degree are systems with their measures, constancy limits, and well and clearly formed boundary conditions and qualitative properties. But there arises from this the well-known inevitability of there being in any object "Immanent" (existing in themselves and for themselves in its Isolated state) valency characteristics as primary predispositions towards entering certain types of linkage "outside themselves and for others" under some or other external and local conditions. In other words the presence of certain properties in objects must be seen as a result of their preceding adaptation, as a result of some particular level of their systemisation, and as a condition of a tendency towards, or an Intention of, reestablishing those types of links with other objects which are determined by the field of the given object's required functional states when it was formed as a system at the functional junction of a certain meta-system; that is to say, when its formation as a system has occured, i.e. as a whole with properties peculiar to it.

It is remarkable also that this idea of the correlation between material, its properties and the structure of the whole has now been arrived at by specialists studying the most complicated systems, especially biological ones. Thus Academician V.A. Engelhardt declares that those parts from which a whole is formed, have a certain amount of properties which provide an opportunity for the development of linkage [195, p.9]. Further on, Engelhardt raises the question: "But what are the consequences of linkages forming, which combine a multitude of elements into a unity?" This is the answer he gives:

"The part and the whole are indeed affected because the forming of new links entails certain changes of properties". [195, p.9]

These theoretical propositions are substantiated by the latest experimental data from the field of molecular biology. For example, it was shown recently that if a biological object (an integral whole) like ferment decomposes into its constituent parts, in corresponding conditions the separate parts which belong to various classes of chemical substances will gather again spontaneously, and absolutely precisely, into the initial structure [195, p.12].

The reader will understand that in our interpretation of the concept of the system - which is absolutely central for any idea of the systems approach - we are certainly not concerned with the abandonment of any theories or categories of materialist dialectics, and not even with simple additions to the number of its categories, but only with emphasing the fact that any object, any phenomenon, if approached dialectically, will reveal many features which will remain concealed if no reference is made to dialectical laws.

Naturally in a number of practical problems, especially those which are narrowly utilitarian, taking account of the dialectic nature of an object at each stage of decision is hardly necessary, and even undesirable (just as in practical measurements it is by no means always suitable to achieve the utmost accuracy). Therefore it is clearly essential to introduce the term "system" not simply as a stylistic synonym for the terms "object" or phenomenon", but to emphasise that this object or phenomenon should be examined, and is examined, within the framework of the problem being solved. This must take into account the laws of dialectics, and also the fact that it is not simply a ready whole resulting from preceding formation processes which are either unknown to us or do not interest us. [44, vol.4, p.2]

Such a definition of a system accords fully with Hegel's formula   

"...it is not the result which is the actual whole, but the result together with its foundation..." [44, vol.4, p.2]

At the same time this result together with its formation appears to be, at least from our point of view, an essential prerequisite for new formations and consequently it turns into the source of its internal development. This conclusion also does not contradict the tenets of dialectical materialism which develops this approach in philosophy; an approach which, as Engels says, "beginning with Spinoza and finishing with the great French materialists, tried persistently to explain the world from within Itself alone..."[1, vol.20, p.350]. If we define the properties of systems as causes for the existence of intentials and conditions allowing for the development of links between objects, we can see in such a definition a realisation of the concept of the self-generation of matter. This means we regard everything that really exists as a material reserve for supporting existence and for providing conditions for the creation of new objects and phenomena for which, in the words of V.I. Lenin, "spontaneous (independent) internally-essential movement" is necessary [2, vol.29, p.126].

However, self-generation in providing an active beginning Nature's "Subjectivsness", is not "absolute" when a system is being defined; because it is a result of a preceding "passive", subjected, adapted, "objective" state. But at the stage of the process where the object's function accords with its properties, 'that "passiveness" does not predominate over the activeness, because the accordance could not occur ' if the material of the system which is being formed did not have activeness or a predisposition to enter into links which are most favourable for the function of the whole -rather than just any links. This is precisely the "acknowledgement (or the discovery) of contradictory, mutually exclusive, contrasted tendencies" [2, vol.29, p.317] in a self-generating process.

It is important to emphasise once again that in our suggested interpretation of a system it is above all a corporeal object, and therefore the ideas of external reality which arise from our definitions of a system, substance, and material are fully in accord with this statement of Engels: "all nature which is accessible to us forms a certain system, a certain combination of links between bodies, where we understand by the word 'body' all material realities beginning, say, with a star and finishing with the atom or even a "particle of ether" - if the reality of the latter is accepted." [1, vol.20, p.392]

Otherwise the system is above all what L. Feuerbach named "actual, corporeal matter, i.e. the matter of organic chemistry, physiology, and anatomy". [179, vol.1, p.539] As we saw, the concept of the link and even that of property relate to corporeality, not to mention the scheme of interaction between systems and the elements of systems. But the question of whether objects and phenomena which are called ideal can be reduced to corporeal shapes and the Interactions between them has still to be examined in some detail.

1.5. THE ESSENCE OF THE SYSTEM, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF ITS DEVELOPMENT AND DETERMINANTS

The foundation, the essence, and the essential and "essence" properties of the system.

Adaptation is a process and like any other process it requires certain conditions to be met for it to occur.

For adaptation to take place there must be above all something to adapt to, i.e. there must exist a vacant place in the meta-system representing the local conditions for the system actually being farmed. These are set by the meta-system. It is these local conditions which decide what the field of required functional states must be for a system entitled to be included in the meta-system as one of its elements, or in other words as a meta-system substance component.

After what is required has been determined, it is necessary to correlate these requirements with the answers as to how best to satisfy them, and what the conditions are for realising the required system. These conditions are determined first, as we have already seen, by the available material reserve. Second, the meta-system (and consequently the system) are always found in specific external conditions which have their change boundaries, and which determine what the constant functioning boundaries of the system under formation should be; it also determines what its measure must be. These external conditions we previously named functioning conditions.

Consequently the field of required functional states should be effected with account taken of such conditions as the material reserve and the functioning conditions until in this adaptation process the new system has entered the required functional states boundaries; that is to say, until it has acquired the required functional properties, there must occur in it re-structurings and "tunings".

But in the system's adaptation process the functional properties, materialised as vacant local conditions, should remain quite invariable. For this to be so, it is necessary that the incompleteness of the system's adaptation should not become the cause of a change of regime in the meta-system's functioning.

The meta-system must consequently have need of an adapted system, but be capable of remaining sufficiently stable while the system is being adapted; it must also function in the meta-meta-system. This is so not only in order to exist but to keep the functional requirements stable at the corresponding junction of the linkage network between its parts. This would seem possible if, in spite of the appearance of a vacancy in which the new system begins to adapt, the meta-system does not go beyond the boundaries of its measure, and still remains itself - for example, through the mobilisation of temporary reserves for the period of the system's adaptation. Consequently only the deeply adapted meta-system, which has clearly measured boundaries, is capable of adapting the new system, with particular functional properties in the established measure boundaries, at its vacant junction.

The presence of a vacant junction in a deeply adapted meta-system, which continues to function when at this junction, as in set local conditions, a new system forms with a required field of functional states, must obviously be correlated with the dialectic concept of the presence of a foundation for the appearance of a new system.

In such a way the existence of a foundation and of certain conditions (like material reserve and "setness" of functional conditions) represents a series of factors leading to the rise and development of a system. But we have to consider the fixing of the results of formation, and the fixing of the functional properties of the system being formed.

A system with clear measure boundaries, in terms of the field of required functional states, does not have to have superfluous properties, but it does present the required properties in the set local conditions. Then, besides the functional properties which primarily characterise the currents on the basis of which interactions between the system under adaptation and local systems are effected which interactions are important for the meta-system, there must be properties, as we have already noted, which are not directly functional, but which do have, however, a direct relation to those that are functional; these properties should serve as a means of Internal support and stabilisation of the functional properties until the external conditions go beyond or exceed the measure boundaries. These internal supporting properties (or properties supporting these supporting properties) can be maintained, as we understand it, by the establishment of internal currents and also of the conditions necessary for these currents; these in their turn condition and modify the existence of the functional currents, set by the basis or foundation. Presented corporsally, these must be "canals" for supporting and functional currents to pass down, channels and sources of the substance of currents, springs, reservoirs, and transformers of this substance.

To whatever extent all these fixed internal conditions for internal and external currents form, the system fixes its functional properties so that even being excluded from the functional junction it can still remain for a long time capable of once again engaging in corresponding linkage. It has a specific and clearly expressed spectrum of intentials, it preserves its individuality as a result of being adapted to certain local conditions and within certain functioning conditions. But this means that the degree of adaptation, the degree of systemisation, and the degree of constancy are characteristics of the one order. Constancy is achieved through the presence of closed currents which maintain its ability to join through-flow functional currents. By the same token this guarantees the closed state of the meta-system's supporting currents. Thus the degree of systemisation is simultaneously an indicator of the degree of integral wholeness of the object.

But Insofar as the closed supporting link currents assist the formation, during the adaptation process, of canals, springs, reservoirs and substance transformers both as functional currents and as currents supporting them, then these canals, reservoirs etc change, according to the extent of the adaptation, more and more from being the results of functioning requirements from being a reaction to the presence of a set foundation, into an internal cause of the system's qualitative and boundary properties. This whole combination of forming, internal causes of a system's properties must, apparently, be seen as a realisation of the dialectic category of essence [192].

If essence is the corporeal spring of those object properties which are revealed through corporeal Interaction, it would seem we have to define any of these manifestations, whether they appear regularly or sporadically, or as a direct or repeatedly indirect consequence of a given essence, as the occurrence of a given essence, because "phenomenon is the manifestation of essence" [1, vol.29, p.154].

In such an interpretation we should define the phenomena of a given essence, for the sake of whose presence or support of their presence the given essence has formed during the adaptation process, as essential properties. Functional properties will obviously come to be included among the material ones. But if it is necessary to demonstrate the essence of a system, it is preferable to do this by taking into account the maximum number of its external manifestations. Consequently not only essential but any other properties of the system in their various manifestations must be taken into account.

But when there is a possibility of penetrating directly into an adapted system and of studying the corporeal basis of its essential properties, i.e. of examining the components of essence as corporeal units of the object's corresponding levels, it is better to call the properties of these units not essential but "essence", using the word as on adjective.

For example, a chromosome structure relates to the essence of a living cell, and a cell's capacity for assimilation dissimilation, and propagation relates to the number of its essential properties, but the study of the chromosomes themselves, and of their chemical composition and physical characteristics, must straightaway show the cell's essence properties.

The direct study of essence through revealing essence properties is naturally by no means a typical situation for researchers, although it is certainly desirable. But the constructor, or the creator, can embody a system in a material substance only after he has technically realised the system's essence through the essence properties.

It should also be noted again that the degree to which a system is "well-formed" is an Indicator of the object's systemisation, of its integral wholeness, of its constancy within the boundaries of measure and also of the clarity of the boundaries of measure.

And, finally, it is clear that, while not losing sight of the dynamism of essence and the possibility of follow-its formation, we nevertheless, at each concrete phase of system's development, speak of essence as an "aspect" of the system, and we even speak of a "moment" of such an aspect, while the foundation at all moments of essence formation can be invariable.

Necessity and chance in the interaction of systems 

The deeper the level of an object's adaptation, i.e. the closer the object is to optimal adaptation, or to a perfected state on a given basis, the more it is a system, the fuller its essence is formed, and the more definite is the spectrum of its properties, the field of its possible states, its specialisation, its intentials, and its "attachments" and "antipathies" to other objects.

And this means that such an object's field of measure is clearly limited while its predisposition towards, and the inevitability of, it entering into some links and the guarantee of it not entering into others (in each specific combination of external and local conditions) is large. And if these conditions are established and supported as such, and not others, we can speak of there being a necessity for the development of an object's corresponding links; also we can speak of the development of corresponding properties; or of the onset of inevitable happenings. But for the conditions to be sufficiently reliably maintained all the co-participants in the interaction which established these conditions also represent the components of a deeply adapted system, and the properties of these components are in accordance with the structure of these interactions.

Thus, the dialectic category of necessity appears to be linked with the junction concept of the systems approach, i.e. with the system. Necessity represents a characteristic of the interaction of systems which is proportional above all to the degree of systemisation of the least perfected of the interacting systems (including the environment as a system).

On the other hand, since, according to our definition, the degree of systemisation cannot be a maximum, equal to a unit, because an object's adaptation cannot be infinitely deep, and the conditions in which a system is placed are also not completely stable (if this were not so they would have to have an infinite adaptation upwards), there always exist, apart from necessity, chance factors, where types of Interaction and processes do not seemingly result from the predispositions of objects to Interactions determined by the essence of objects, and their essence is contradicted.

Consequently the category of chance is also linked with the concept of the system; it also characterises the interaction of a system and can be regarded as proportional in the first place to the degree of "undersystemisation" (i.e. the degree of difference from the perfected state) of the least adapted of the Interacting systems (including the environment), i.e. again of the least perfected of the systems.

Contradiction, and foundation as a condition for its solution

The appearance of foundations is an essential pre-requisite for the start of a formation process of a system with properties corresponding to the required function of this system at a given vacant juntion; this means that in the given local conditions of a meta-system, it does not necessarily have to be a consequence of the system having been withdrawn for some reason from a meta-system previously situated at a given vacant junction. The opposite is correspondingly true: the disappearance, or the exclusion, of any system does not necessarily lead to the rise of a vacancy.

To give these statements some substance, let us turn our attention to the following circumstances.

If a meta-system has a high level of systemization, and functions in a meta-meta-system at the corresponding functional junction, then the external and internal currents of the meta-system are in accord and in this sense there is no contradiction between them. It is important that this contradiction is not formal but ontological, and corporeal, like the essence. A meta-system's essence serves as an internal cause of those of its properties which accord exactly with the foundation, and which form an area of required functional states, set the measure boundaries and guarantee the presence of supporting currents.

But nothing remains absolutely invariable. In particular the requirement for the boundaries of the area of the meta-system's required functional states can change on the part of the meta-system, in such a way that for the new function to be carried out it will be necessary to simplify the exchange currents network in the meta-system, i.e. the structure of the interactions which form its systems. Consequently a contradiction will develop between the currents present and the required currents. One of the natural ways of simplifying the structure is to decrease the number of junctions intersected by interaction currents. Consequently the need for a system as a special element situated at the corresponding junction of the meta-system's structure can simply die away, i.e. the field of this system's required functional states can be compressed to nil, and for the meta-system to function it will have to avoid the system which has carried out this vanished function. The system which does not have a basis in a given meta-system is deprived of a function and is excluded from the meta-system. It is clear that in this case the exclusion of the system from the meta-system does not lead to the formation of a vacancy. Exactly the opposite is the case: the presence of a system which has lost its function because of the disappearance of its basis is a contradiction, and the exclusion of such a system from the meta-system is its solution.

But then the reverse is true: if the functional requirement for the meta-system has changed so that for the presence of properties responding to a new field of required functional states it is necessary to make the interactions between the meta-system's components more complex, then an increase in the density of the exchange currents network makes a "weeding-out" essential because of the appearance of new junctions and, consequently, of new elements fulfilling the role of "re-distributors", "commutators" and controllers of exchange elements' currents in order to "remove" the contradictions between them. Consequently, in that area of the meta-system where the greatest complexity of the structure has developed, there arises a foundation, a requirement for a new system, capable by its presence of removing this contradiction, which represents a structural. over-complexity of the meta-system. This remains until a system corresponds to the required function which has arisen - a system with properties which make it capable of carrying out this particular function.

Here we seem to meet with another form of Interaction of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of developing and functioning objects and with another type of optimisation of qualitative and boundary system properties. The complexity of a structure in our definition can be correlated with quantitative growth because it reflects the growth of the role of the object's internal boundary properties. An increase in the number of an object's elements corresponds to the growth of the specific weight of the Internal qualitative beginning, because the composition of the elements as a basis for the substance of the whole is above all characterised by the qualitative properties of the elements. Then the development in the meta-system of a basis as a need for a new element linked with the change of demand for its functional properties is a manifestation of an internal qualitative leap, resulting from the growth of the main internal qualitative parameter: the structure of the meta-system.

But this leap has one remarkable property. First of all it is presented only as a fact of contradiction, expressed corporeally as a greater complexity of the currents network, or as an overcomplexity in the currents' intersections scheme, and not as a freeing but as the birth of vacancies for a new element, which must do away with this overcomplexity, when it forms.

Such a concept of relationship and contradiction cannot be regarded as non-dialectical. As Rozental writes in the foreword to Hegel's "The Science of Logic" [43, vol.2, p.35] "contradiction according to Hegel is solved at the foundation". It is also clear that having solved a contradiction which has arisen, the foundation "is......like a new contradiction" [43, vol.1, p.208]. Indeed, from the moment of the appearance of a foundation demands appear for the functional Properties of a new system together with its essence, but the absence of such a system as a new contradiction in the meta-system is felt the more sharply. By the moment a foundation has appeared, a new system has been predetermined "it is there before it exists" [43, vol.2, p.108], and in this sense it already is, but it still has not begun to appear, or to form, and in this sense it still does not exist.

We have an analogous contradiction but with the "opposite sign" when a contradiction in the meta-meta system has led to the disappearance of a vacant junction. In this case a system with a fully formed essence is still in the local conditions under observation, but it no longer exists because the system's properties are no longer functional with the local systems have become impossible, and therefore the system is not an element of a given meta-system. A "nil foundation" has led to a "requirement" for a "nil essence". There is no system "before it stopped existing", as it were.

Thus a foundation which solves a contradiction is itself contradictory; this acts as a motive power for solving a new contradiction.

THE CATEGORY OF CONDITION AND THE SYSTEM AS THE CRUX OF THE MATTER.

Foundation as something external in relation to a required system determines that system's functional properties. But for functional properties to be consolidated, the foundation must, as we have already seen, lead to the appearance of an ''internal foundation ''for this system - that is, the appearance of its corporeal essence. And for this, as the reader ha already seen when the concept of adaptation was introduced, certain conditions which lead to the presence of a material reserve and the "setness" of functioning conditions are necessary.

Consequently the essence of a forming system obtains its final definitions only when conditions for the creation and functioning of a system are realised after the development of a foundation. It is clear that the presence and absence of conditions do not in themselves depend on the presence and absence of a foundation although the acceptability or non-acceptability of conditions is set by the foundation, and the acceptability of a foundation is set by the conditions. Hegel characterises the relationships between these two "beginnings" of any thing or any whole as follows:

"Something is - not through its condition; its condition is not its foundation. Apart from its condition it has also a foundation" [43,  vol.2, p.101].

Both these "sides of whole - condition and foundation - are indistinguishable for each other and are not conditioned by each other..." [43, vol.2, p.102].

To the extent that at a vacant junction of a meta-system forms with the necessary functional properties from available material in specific functioning conditions, so the discord between structure and substance disappears; the corporeal contradiction which has arisen after appearance of a foundation similarly disappears; the vacancy turns into a junction of agreement and the functional "demand" for a system with a corporeal materialised essence is removed.

But this is not removed because there is no more requirement for a system, but because as the system adapts the requirement is more and more fully and continuously satisfied.

So we can see, having determined the ontological nature of the concept of foundation and condition, that our definition of the concept of a system is not analogous to the concept of a thing, a fact, an event or of an object as a direct reality observed only through those properties which lie on the surface, i.e. which only represent the fact of a certain essence concealed from us. For us a system is both the condition and the foundation of an object or an event, the formation process of its essence, its "emergence" into a corporeal embodiment, and the tendencies for its future changes.

Consequently, the system, as far as our understanding of it gees, is the external, material, corporeal "original" of what the concept of "the crux of the matter" corresponds to in dialectics.

The importance of this concept, which corresponds to the Hegelian term "Sache" has been emphasised by V.I. Lenin: "with this introduction there came about not things but the Sache, the concept of things, not things, but the laws of their movement, materially" [2, vol.29, p.86].

Thus in the concept of the systems approach described above the system is an ontological, corporeal analogue not of things but of the concept, with its completely contradictory aspects as a basis for development. And on the other hand the "crux of the matter" as a dialectical category is a concept not of a thing but of a system.

But if the system in the systemological conception being examined is not an abstract concept and is not even just a corporeal thing, but in fact the "crux of the matter", it is obvious that a study of systems' properties, and the distinction and identification of systems cannot only rely on those methods which are devised to compare and identify things as phenomena present in a certain synchronic plane. Additional, and specific, methods of work with objects as systems (i.e. such as the crux of the matter) are necessary. The most important of such methods is the comparison of systems on the basis of a comparison of their determinants. 

THE PRINCIPLES OF COMPARISON AND THE DETERMINANTS OF SYSTEMS

In order to establish principles for comparing systems with one other, it is necessary to introduce a number of new concepts - although ones which are all fairly obvious in the light of what has been said so far.

Let us start with the concept of the development trajectory of a system in which a continuous sequence of all steps, all "moments", all phases of development, all stages of a system's adaptation, from the moment of the development of a foundation until the time when the system becomes perfected in practice (i.e. when it reaches a set threshold of optimal adaptation). Then two systems with the same foundations and conditions can be compared according to the phase on the development trajectory, when it will be determined which of the two systems is closer to a state of perfection, is more deeply adapted, has clearer measure boundaries and a more clearly manifest essence than the other. If this Phase is measured in a section of the development trajectory, the degree of systemisation of the two systems can be com-pared even when they have different formations - for example when they are adapted at various functional junctions of the meta-system.

But two systems can be different from each other also when their foundations are identical as well as their phases of development, but their conditions do not coincide.

In these cases the systems can have various maximally perfected states and consequently properties and essence peculiarities on the whole development trajectory. This indicates in fact that development trajectories, in space, of the properties of adapting systems will be varied, and so, naturally, will be the end points of these trajectories Only the initial point will appear to be common, because it is set as the identical foundation.

It is also easy to establish the causes of these differences: when there is an Identity of basis the essences of forming systems cannot however be identical if either the material reserve or the functioning conditions of these systems are different. Here the functional properties of such systems must coincide, and consequently the difference in essence is revealed only when those specific methods by which the internal properties of systems support their functional properties do not coincide.

The distinctiveness of the conditions where the individuality of two systems with the same bases is formed becomes the determining parameter for comparing these systems. Therefore this distinctiveness of conditions can be called the determinant (determining characteristic) of a system. So they may be different only in that their development phases do not coincide. If such phases also coincide with these systems we are justified in regarding them as examples of one and the same system.

Distinguishing determinants as conditions leads us on to the distinction of essences and consequently to the distinction of material properties which result from these essences to the extent that the essence does not just depend on the foundation.

In a system with a deep degree of adaptation, and consequently with clear measure boundaries, all non-functional properties are subjected to supporting functional ones. The value of the foundation and the essential property resulting from the external determinant enables us to understand the internal logic of both the state and development of the system, even in those cases where a formulation of the external determinant has still not been found. Thus the specific essential property, a direct result of the determinant, can also be a characteristic of the specific nature of a system, and in this sense the determinant as well, though an internal one.

When developing the concept of the systems approach we did not immediately use the term "determinant". First of all it was a question of the system's "determining parameter" the "leading tendency", or of the system's "dominance". Moreover the distinction between the determinant as a condition and the determinant as a specific essential indicator resulting from this condition, was also not drawn immediately. Finally it should be noted that the systems were compared almost exclusively on the basis of the environmental differences of the determinants revealed. However all the limitations enumerated have not prevented us from establishing the basic principles of our concept of the systems approach as applied dialectics [87-97].

1.6. The Comparability, Functionality, Essentiality and Use of Systems

Functionality, Essentiality and Use. 

Since a system's essence, to our understanding, is formed to answer functional requirements of the meta-system at its particular vacant junction, essence is revealed to its fullest extent through those basic system properties which are functional.

Other essential properties of a system, as noted, are formed in it during the process of its adaption, solely for the purpose of supporting functional properties when there is a given material reserve and given functioning conditions.

If an object does not achieve absolute systemisation it can also manifest, apart from essential properties, non-material properties. But they are no longer functional. Consequently, while an object functions in the vacant junction (and the object's essence was formed in accordance with the needs of the junction), we can say that in practice its essentiality is a result of its functionality.

However if we approach it more widely it is impossible to Identify these characteristics of the system. So if an object is removed for some reason from a functional junction. the set of its properties, and the set of its valences continues to be determined above all by the object's essence, or by its experience, but if the object does not function then it simply has no functional properties at that time, while its essential ones have remained.

If, though, this object is drawn into the functional junction of any new meta-system because certain of its properties correspond to a vacancy demand which has formed, those properties which were functional when the essence of this object was forming in a preceding meta-system need not necessarily prove to be functional. In the new meta-system properties which have been preserved in it in spite of the essence which has formed, can also be important. Consequently non-essential properties of systems are also functional.

Let us agree to call the properties of a system, which is under examination only from the point of view of its suitability to occupy a particular vacant functional junction in the meta-system, utilitarian. Then we can say that while the system adapts within the meta-system, and while the system's essence formation process occurs and it approaches a perfected state, essential properties, since they are also functional, are less and less distinguishable from utilitarian ones.

But if this system should fall into another functional junction, then, even if its properties allow it to function at this junction, the functional properties, being utilitarian, can be significantly different from the essential ones. And only if the process of the system's adaptation to a new vacant junction should begin will the object's essence be modified so that the essential properties again become both functional and utilitarian.

Therefore the process itself of the object's adaptation to a certain functional junction of the meta-system, can not be characterized from a new angle: as a process of removing contradictions between the utility and importance of the object's functional properties, and manufacturing new essential properties which are both functional and utilitarian.

Differentiation of this sort between functionality, utility and essentiality and a definition of the mechanisms of their inter-action in the process of a system's adaptation to a meta-system, allows us to avoid the extremely widespread, but ambiguous, use of the phrase "essential property".

While a meta-system has Its essence and Is well adapted to a meta-meta-system, its functional properties are both essential and utilitarian in relation to the meta-meta-system.

If, though, a vacant junction has formed for some reason in the meta-system, in order to preserve all of its essential properties, and consequently its functional properties, a new system must occupy the vacancy which has developed in the meta-system, a new system capable of carrying out the required function: i.e. having (in the composition of its properties) properties which are essential for the vacant functional junction.

Without the presence of these properties in the system, the meta-system can lose its essential properties, because a violation of the regime of link exchange currents in the vacant junction can affect the preservation of the meta-system's essence adversely. Consequently a system's required properties bear a relation to the meta-system's essence. It is, though, impossible to call them "essential", because they are not the consequence of an essence present, but are only the required conditions for its preservation. As far as the actual bearer of these properties is concerned, i.e. the actual system included in the vacant junction, the properties which are functional for this Junction can, in relation to the system, prove to be non-essential for the system. Therefore they can also be called utilitarian, "of consumer value", not absolutely essential for the system, and probably non-essential for the meta-system.

It is only in the adaptation process which is functional and utilitarian for the meta-system that these properties are bound to become essential for the system under adaptation as well.

It can further be said that the foundation as the demand for a certain field of functional states at the meta-system's vacant junction is the reverse side of the utilitarian properties of the system under adaptation at the junction, and when the foundation stops being "something different from that which has a foundation", i.e. from the system which has farmed, then this signifies exactly, that the system's functional properties are at the same time both utilitarian and essential.

Thus in a deeply adapted system we encounter yet another example of the unity of opposites; a system is maximally individual and independent and has a clearly expressed essence and clear boundaries of measure, because it Is maximally subjected to the meta-system, it is an integral part of it, it provides support for the meta-system's essence, and an Independence within its boundaries of measure.

And at the same time the meta-system is independent and has a firm and constant essence only to the extent that it is subject to the systems which are bringing about formation, at each of whose junctions the functional requirements do not contradict the essence of the systems Included in these junctions.

Everything stated above brings us to the conclusion that in deeply adapted objects find a solution and polar opposites are "removed" and acquire directness and a moment of "being". But on the other hand since maximum adaptation is impossible, their full "removal" is also unachievable and as a consequence the system's internal sources of development never fully "run ry"; the dialectical "truth and essence of all things" revealed by Hegel remains apposite regarding systems; "all things are contradictory in themselves" [44, vol.5, p.509], which according to Lenin is the "kernel of dialectics" [2, vol.29, p.203].

Let us note in conclusion that we have brought the concept of adaptation (in accordance with tendency discern-able over recent years) up to the level of "general scientific concepts" [47, p.81, 49, 61, 123]. In addition adaptation is discussed in any given case not only from the point of view of "the adaptation of live beings to environmental conditions" and therefore it is not only presented as "one of the cardinal problems of biology" [160, p.39].Adaptation can be correlated, it turns out, with the philosophical category of development in both living and non-living systems, as a realisation of this concept, and as an attempt to lend additional confirmation to Lenin's thesis that "at the basis of all being is substance and matter, which is formed in a process of continuous development" [180, p.530] and adaptation in the narrowly biological sense is only a particular case resulting from the "depth properties" of self-generating matter.

If such an explanation, and definition, of the concept of adaptation is confirmed with the passing of time, the probability will be increased that both the semiotic and linguistic concepts which are expounded in the following chapters will prove productive.

Comparison of the examined categories of the systemic approach with the categories of Aristotle. 

The interpretation of essence as that characteristic of an object which is inherent in the object physically and corporeally and is not only the fruit of our cognitive or thought activity, not just a concept, accords with the basic propositions of the classics of materialist dialectics and with the category of essence in Hegel's philosophy, and, finally, is particular to materialist teachings in general from earliest times. Thus Aristotle, resisting the primacy of Plato's ideas, asserts in the "Primary Philosophy" that essence is Inseparable from the existence of a thing, and therefore one must first of all assure oneself of the physical existence of the things under investigation, and only then should one look for their essence. But Aristotle recognised at the same time that only those properties are conditioned by essence which are important and therefore not individual but general and typical for any individual of a given type.

As we see it each individual object has an essence, and the more deeply adapted it is to carry out its function, the higher is the degree of formedness and development of its essence. But through the concept of the unity of basis and the unity of determinant of various objects we have established the possibility of the essences of independent objects which are thus changing into examples of one and the same type being identical to the maximum degree; and it is only to the extent that there cannot be absolute identity in an object's adaptation process or in the formation process of its essence that essences will have for all their proximity certain individual distinctions, even with examples of objects of one and the same type, i.e. with two similar objects.

There is consequently no need to deny the presence of an essence with separate objects, but if these objects are examples of the one type then we are entitled to speak of what is general in each separate essence of representatives of this type; that is to say, in each individual example of the essence. Aristotle was thinking thus when he spoke of an essence as something belonging to each individual object and also as a characteristic of the type, enabling the object to belong to a particular type and objects in general to be classified - first of an individual essence and then only of the general (though this dominated over the individual features of any individual essence) which is inherent in the essence of each representative of a given type- this ambiguity - albeit a fine one - in the aristotelian term "essence" is one of the reasons for successive efforts to define the categories of essence more accurately.

But this is not the only reason. We have to remember in this connection that Aristotle, when introducing the category of form as one of the antipodes of the category of matter, distinguished between two varieties of form. One of them is spatial form, which is close to our concept of boundary properties in general and proper form in particular. The other is functional form, i.e. that aspect of the particular features of an object which is caused or conditioned by its function or purpose. It is these features of the object which Aristotle saw as the vitally important properties of an object, and ipso facto the category of functional form ceased to be clearly distinguishable from the category of essence.

It is easy to determine in terms of our own conception the content of this aristotelian category as well - that is, the category of functional form. A form which is indeed functional was very necessary for Aristotle, not purely to duplicate the category of essence: he tried to contrast the category of essence as a main characteristic of the set object to the category of form as the main starting point of the formation of the object, i.e. to the categories of basis and conditions, which as we have already said, fully determine and fix the way the formation will occur and what the essence of the thing will be like at the highest level of its development. Consequently if we have before us the representatives of one type of object, then by characterising their essence, we characterise their basis and the conditions of their initial development, while by characterising the basis and the conditions of the initial development of a given type of object we determine their essence. In this sense Aristotle does not make a mistake in reducing essence (in fact only the essence of a type) to functional form, i.e. to basis and conditions whose identity in the object examples sets a certain function and provides for the rise and formation of representatives of the one type. But the higher the level of formation of their essences, the greater the extent to which the function of objects of this type is reflected both in the particular features of that part of the essence which is according to type, and in the stable external manifestations of the essence including its form. Hence the objective possibility arises that types can be classified if necessary from their stable properties and that the general and functionally created (or conditioned) features of the external form of objects of one type can be used as bases for classification and that the category of essence type can be drawn together with the category not only of functional form as a formative starting-point but also of simply observable form as a result of formation. Therefore it is not by chance that "form" was selected by Aristotle, though qualified by the attributes "functional" and "spatial", as a name for that which can be correlated with the categories of basis and essence, vitally important properties, and the material's boundary properties before the start of the formation of the new essence in it.

Aristotle's position on the inseparability and the non-absolute nature of the contrast between form and matter which after acquiring form changes into an individual thing or substance is very Important. Form can be evident only in concrete matter and therefore does not exist outside matter; matter, however, insofar as form is not separable from it, is always evident in some particular form or other, and in this sense no new substance which would fulfill a new function can arise without using as its substratum some particular substance bearing the traces of previous functionings.

Obviously the categories of the systemic approach we have examined above such as function, substance and material accord fully with the categories of function substance and matter in Aristotle's teachings. 

FOOTNOTE

I) Of course Aristotle himself used Greek terms and it was only in the middle ages that Latin equivalents were found for them which are more convenient and acceptable in modern philosophical literature. 

The presence of form in the sense of a material's essence is, as we have seen, an Inevitable and also essential condition for turning it into the substance of a farming system, whose function is set by basis, and this demonstrates the mechanism for the change of form into matter and of matter into form.

However, as we know, Aristotle was not a consistent materialist or dialectician. He recognised in particular that somewhere in the higher echelons of the interchanges of matter and form there exists a "higher form" which merely forms the matter of lower levels, but is not itself determined by any of the matter's properties. It was by means of this category of "higher form" that Foma Akvinsky was able to adduce an "ontologlcal proof of the being of God" from Aristotle's philosophy [25].

Within the framework of the concept of the systemic approach which defines adaptation as a process capable of gradually taking in an ever increasing number of tiers of functioning objects, recognition of the infinite nature of the levels of matter which was foretold by Anaxagor as which serves as a basis for the philosophy of dialectical materialism enables the following particular mechanism to be partially revealed-that is the mechanism of the material's capability of not only acquiring form dictated by the basis and of being active even in acts of external deformation, but also on its side to impose a certain links form on the substance of developing objects and in this sense, according to the degree of activeness of exchanging roles with the form. In this respect the systemic approach needs no category of "higher form" nor, consequently, the category of prime creator or Aristotle's "prime motivator".

However, through adaptation mechanisms conceived of as corporeal, material processes occuring at many tiers or levels we can interpret in materialist manner what with Aristotle ends up in the theological category of "higher form" as the "prime essence" of all that remains. As we have already seen, a high degree of adaptedness of the meta-meta-system is a reason for the stability of bases at its deep tiers or levels. Therefore systems whose essence is formed when there are given bases come to be simultaneously both subject to, or subordinate to, properties which are external for them, including the structures of the interaction flows present in higher-tier units, and complete in the sense that their properties accord with functions, and also they come to subject the higher tiers, being active factors in maintaining completedness at these tiers, insofar as adapted systems themselves support those functional flows which contribute to the fixing of "higher essence" -which has formed their meta-meta-systems.

And so Aristotle's thesis concerning the presence of an internal unconscious expediency of nature, the movement of things to their completed state or to their "natural" place in the meta-meta-system, acquires a basis, but now this internal expediency is not a result of divine predetermination but is explained by material causes: and when it is seen as a manifestation of foregoing adaptations of materials as an "experience of nature", and when it is a matter of the selective fixing or consolidation of only certain aspects of this "experience", namely those which accord with functional needs established by the developed basis which is supported or maintained by the presence of the meta-meta-system's stable essence. Only an exaggeration of the external character of these consolidating factors and an inability to see the flow of material processes behind them leads philosophers to invent concepts, such as Aristotle's "higher form" or Plato's "ideas" which can detach themselves from matter. At the same time the evolutionary and dialectical approach, given substance by the concept of the adaptive system, does not deny the relative "perfectedness" both of those properties which the meta-meta-system, (i.e. its forthcoming perfectedness) imposes on the system, and those which are evident in the "experience" present, the predispositions, or the potentials and intentials of the material (these are the effects of the existence of preceding complete systems). Here the need does not even arise - not even a formalo-logical need as with Foma Akvinsky, for example - for the existence of a "higher perfection", i.e. God, to be recognised.

Thus Aristotle's "four reasons" - matter as the potential for formation; form as the reality of what in matter is given only as potential; the starting point of movement and finally the goal - are not denied, but they take on an "adaptational" interpretation, which removes from them certain elements of mysticism. Matter, in relation to that substance which must be created as a component of a forming and developing meta-meta-system, adapting at the functional junction, is passive not in general, as with Aristotle, but only in the sense that it is capable of experiencing certain of the forming influences; but it is active, in its ability first to preserve its potentials, and second, to increase certain of these , as a result of which there develop intentials. Consequently although both potentials and intentials can be included in the category of possibility (or potential), this is in fact "polarised" possibility: the greater the extent to which the potential changes into intential, the greater the extent to which it is transformed into materialised elementary need, and the inevitability of the onset of interactions with the external object or environment, while the interaction that has been realised, i.e. the extential, can justifiably be regarded as an act, as a transfer of this type of elementary possibility or potential to the level of need for reality.

At the same time basis appears before us as such a junction of interactions, and as such it is a form no longer of an elementary reality but of a complex one, which also sets the "starting-point of the movement" realised as a large number of acts of change of potentials into intentials and of intentials into extentials, which leads in the end to the rise and formation of an adaptive system, to a new reality. With regard to the system that has arisen the basis itself is the highest phase of possibility need; while the perfected state, before its onset, is also transformed into need and inevitability which can be compared to Aristotle's category of "goal", - but it no longer requires a foregoing divine predestination.

Finally let us emphasise once again that following Aristotle and in accordance with the propositions of materialist dialectics a distinction is drawn in the systemic approach between the two types of "universals": namely the "direct" ones which exist materially and independently of the existence or the non-existence of the thinking subject in the external world, and the "universal ones, abstracted from the substance" - that is ideas and concepts concerning "direct universals" which have formed in the subject's consciousness. The categories and general properties which have been examined are regarded in our conception as "direct" ontological "universals", and not as abstractions or concepts. As far as gnoseology is concerned, and not ontology, i.e. concepts concerning categories and not the categories themselves, we shall be touching on the problems of their formation mechanisms, and on the ways of evaluating how accurately they correspond to ontological categories in the next chapter, when we shall be examining reflection processes and defining more accurately gnoseological concepts in terms of the described systemic approach.

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