Elements and Relations: Aspects of a Scientific Metaphysics

This book develops the core proposition that systems theory is an attempt to construct an “exact and scientific metaphysics,” a system of general ideas central to science that can be expressed mathematically. Collectively, these ideas would constitute a nonreductionist “theory of everything” unlike what is being sought in physics. Inherently transdisciplinary, systems theory offers ideas and methods that are relevant to all of the sciences and also to professional fields such as systems eng...