Boagie

It is very difficult to understand something in this way, for that which is self contained is thought to be a totality, a closed system, We have no closed systems in our general experience to act as model for the concept of totality. If we had such a model would it not still require of us to be thought of as existing within a context, even though it be closed to that context. A totality might be said to have nothing of itself outside itself, but if it is closed it is one entity, does it of necessity have no context? I am going back to my room now, that new medication is starting to work-------lol!!

Parametric, Actually I would say that your statement requires some clarification. Apparent reality, our experience of the physical world, can be thought of as a product of our biological existence, meaning that apparent reality is our response/reaction to ultimate reality. The world of our experience is precisely that which is call apparent reality---its an interpretation rather than a first order creation. Your saying that that which is self-contained is one thing or one entity, when in fact all living things are all open systems thus not qualifying for your defination of one thing or an entity. Even with the inanimate world there is no real example of a closed system, just systems in greater and greater degrees of isolation, never fully close to the effects of its environment. Even the earth is an open system, open to the cosmos, and just perhaps the cosmos is an open system. One thing is assured us, we are all a part of something larger than ourselves. You might say that reality is itself contained in a sense, for all meaning/s belong to the subject and never the object/physical world, and that meaning is the illusion of apparent reality. Accordding to modern science, ultimate reality is not a place of things..I have tried to come a little in your direct but realized that no, even reality cannot be said to be contained in the subject, for as Schopenhaure reminds us, "Subject and object stand or fall together", in essence, they can never be considered separately consider.

Ecology, is the study of the earth as a complex dynamic open system, the study of the interrelations and interdepences of earth as a system, as a system composed of open subsystems and their interrelations and interdependences. The evironment might be considered the sum total of these interrelations and interdependences of systems, as the health of the earth's condition to support life.