Their Relation to Formal Logical Descriptions

In the theory of living systems, any description of self-organizing processes is confronted by the central problem of self-generated system/environment boundaries. This contrasts with non-living systems where the boundary is always generated by an observer. A formal representation of the simultaneous existence of the inside and the outside of the system is required, i.e. the distinctions which the system itself makes (in order to generate its own boundary) and the distinctions which the observer makes must be incorporated together without contradiction. In contrast, if a theory of self-organization is restricted to changes within a system (for example, physical systems, which may be defined by some physical state variables), the question of the boundary is eliminated and the distinction between a system and its environment (its inside and its outside) is generally interpreted as an information transfer between both. This assumption, however, contradicts the 'closure thesis' postulated for cognitive and living system by modern biology, in particular the theory of autopoietic systems, which requires self-generated boundaries. 1 . B a s i c S i t u a t i o n The attempt to develop a scientific description of living systems in the sense of a 'holistic', i.e. nonreductionist "theory of life" in the 1970s led to a fundamental change in the scientific paradigm of strict separation of observer from observed. Instead the observer became part of the system to be described [von Foerster, 1985]: "A living organism is an independent autonomous organizationally closed being,