[In the Facebook group ISA RC51 on Sociocybernetics, John A Challoner writes:]

Philosophical Foundations of General Systems Theory

I’m pleased to share a new paper:“Philosophical Foundations of General Systems Theory” (EFGST 01)

This paper sets out the philosophical basis for the Extended Framework for General Systems Theory (EFGST), integrating two complementary perspectives:

 Cognitive Physicalism – everything that exists is physical and located in space–time, including cognition itself

 Critical Realism – reality exists independently of our knowledge, but our understanding of it is always mediated

Together, these provide a realist yet epistemically modest foundation for systems science.

The paper explores several key implications, including:

 systems as real, structured physical entities

 knowledge as model-based and necessarily partial

 the distinction between observable events and underlying causal structures and

 the idea that the future is constrained but not predetermined, unfolding through branching possibilities shaped by interaction and agency.

One theme that runs throughout is that we never act directly on reality itself, but on representations of it; representations that are sufficient for action, but never complete.

To illustrate this, I’ve included a banner image accompanying the paper. You might like to take a careful look at it…

 Download the paper (PDF): https://rational-understanding.com/EFGST#01

 Also available on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/165229843/Philosophical_Foundations_of_General_Systems_Theory

This paper forms the first in a series developing a unified systems framework spanning physical, biological, and social domains.

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