Relational Systems Ecology: Holistic Ecology and Causal Closure

This chapter examines the history of holistic research in ecology and presents a relational framework for holistic analysis and modeling based on that history and a relatively new approach to cyclical (loop) causality. The framework comprises four fundamental causal archetypes that have been known since ancient times, reinterpreted to allow their integration into mathematical sciences. While three of the causes are already represented in the philosophy of science, ‘final cause’ has been misrepresented and thus excluded. A limited natural form of final cause, defined as “exemplification,” is sufficiently generic to complete system closure in nature, and it can be modeled by various means. When this natural interpretation of final cause is adopted, our view of natural causality shifts from a causal hierarchy, as understood in modern dualistic science since Greek times, to a cycle of creation and knowledge as understood, for example, in ancient Vedic cultures and here formalized in category theory as a “holon.” This new view of nature in terms of ontological causal loops expands science to deeper understanding of the causes of complexity and the organization of natural systems. Consequences include the ability to define life and sustainability in causal terms and so to advance theoretical ecology as a far more fundamental science than has previously been appreciated. Sustainability (as with life itself) is defined in terms of closed causal/inferential loops (holons) that are either self-supporting from internal sub-systems or supported from external relations with other systems. This theory deals with fundamental issues in science and offers a foundation for conceptualizing wholeness in nature, setting the stage for a second part of this discussion (separate chapter in this section by the same authors), discussing how adaptive and anticipatory ecological niche modeling can represent the final cause quadrant of the holon, and thereby “close the loop” in a complex model coupling framework as required today for coupled human and natural system (CHANS) modeling.