Contemporary Systems and Cybernetics

Abstract

An essential feature article “Introduction: The Nature of Living Systems”, published by James Grier Miller and Jessie L. Miller in Behavioral Science, Vol. 35 No. 3, 1990, pp. 157–63, was the first joint publication of the authors in 1990, the 60th year of their writing collaboration. In it they introduce living systems theory (LST) and say that it is concerned with eight levels of living systems, each of which is composed of 20 critical subsystems that carry out essential life processes. They believe that, as a result of a continuous biosocial evolution involving progressive fray‐out of components, the more recently developed levels in this hierarchy have become very complex. They provide a brief summary of LST in their article, and follow it with a detailed analysis of current knowledge about the timer, which they have recently included in their list of subsystems. Jessie L. Miller describes “The Timer” in a separate following article (pp. 164–96) in which she reviews:

Citation

(1991), "Contemporary Systems and Cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 4-10. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb005870