Types/Taxonomies

Recognition of presence or absence of certain ISPs, such as open vs. closed systems, has played a role in the past in identifying different types of systems. Another instructive example would be equilibrium vs. non-equilibrium tending systems. So a TYPE of system may be due to its possessing one or another of the ISPs.

SPT recognizes as many as 30 different types of systems to date with many overlapping taxonomies. No one taxonomic strategy dominates because workers use different individual or clusters of ISPs to define different frameworks for different uses. It would be a leap forward for someone to discover a strict taxonomy that encompassed all of the types of systems or organized them in one logical schema.

For example, SPT recognizes alternating cycles, attracting cycles, limit cycles, adaptive, work cycles, self-sustaining cycles, hypercycles, lifecycles at different scalar levels, and marginally oscillatory cycles as different types of cycles and cycling. There are many influences that effect the observer so it is difficult to argue for just one favorite taxonomy. SPT favors a multi-perspective view (or in the words of Albert G. Wilson, “facetism”) to allow and encourage different frameworks for different uses. Similarly there are different logical frameworks for organizing the types of systems into internally consistent taxonomies.