Organismic sets: Outline of a general theory of biological and social organisms

The discussion as to whether societies are organisms andvice versa has been going on for a long time. The question is meaningless unless a clear definition of the term “organism” is made. Once such a definition is made, the question may be answered by studying whether there exists any relational isomorphism between what the biologist calls an organism and what the sociologist calls society. Such a study should also include animal societies studied by ecologists. Both human and animal societies are sets of individuals together with certain other objects which are the products of their activities. A multicellular organism is a set of cells together with some products of their activities. A cell itself may be regarded as a set of genes together with the products of their activities because every component of the cell is either directly or indirectly the result of the activities of the genes. Thus it is natural to define both biological and social organisms as special kinds of sets. A number of definitions are given in this paper which define what we call here organismic sets. Postulates are introduced which characterize such sets, and a number of conclusions are drawn. It is shown that an organismic set, as defined here, does represent some basic relational aspects of both biological organisms and societies. In particular a clarification and a sharpening of the Postulate of Relational Forces given previously (Bull. Math. Biophysics,28, 283–308, 1966) is presented. It is shown that from the basic definitions and postulates of the theory of organismic sets, it folows that only such elements of those sets will aggregate spontaneously, which are not completely “specialized” in the performance of only one activity. It is further shown that such “non-specialized” elements undergo a process of specialization, and as a result of it their spontaneous aggregation into organismic sets becomes impossible. This throws light on the problem of the origin of life on Earth and the present absence of the appearance of life by spontaneous generation. Some applications to problems of ontogenesis and philogenesis are made. Finally the relation between physics, biology, and sociology is discussed in the light of the theory of organismic sets.