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My analysis of living systems uses concepts of thermodynamics, information theory, cybernetics, and systems engineering, as well as the classical concepts appropriate to each level. The purpose is to produce a description of living structure and process in terms of input and output, flows through systems, steady states, and feedbacks, which will clarify and unify the facts of life.

— James Grier Miller Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969)

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In the most general mathematical sense, a space is a set of elements which conform to certain postulates.

Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969)

More concrete, physical space is the extension surrounding a point. It may be thought of as either the compass of the entire universe or some region of such a universe.

Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969)

Scientific observers often view living systems as existing in spaces which they conceptualize or abstract from the phenomena with which they deal. Examples of such spaces are

Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969)

The most general form of systems theory is a set of logical or mathematical statements about all conceptual systems. A subset of this concerns all concrete systems. A subsubset concerns the very special and very important living systems, i.e., general living systems theory.

Ontology recapitulates philology.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Grier Miller (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.