IGNOU FST CHAPTER 12 Q1

Q)Discuss the systems view of life.

Ans)The characteristics which we recognize as life, are in fact an expression of the coordinated working of various parts in an organism. Various  parts in an organism, whether plant or animal are not haphazardly put together but are organized into systems. A system is a set of some specific inter-related parts which are organized as one unit for some purpose. The parts work together and the entire combination forms one unit. A car producing company, which is organized to produce tronaport vehicles can be viewed as a system too. For the effective functioning of the company all of its parts, such as the department that purchases raw materials, the factory , the management and the sales department must work in a unison. An animal or a plant is also made up of numerous parts which define a well defined system. For example in an animal body, the parts concerned with the intake of food and digesting it, the bones are arranges as a skeleton to support the body, the heart circulating blood to different parts of the body through arteries and veins and the brain receiving signals and giving orders of various kinds together compose the system. The assemblage of all plants and animals and in and environment provided by each other as well as by the land, air and water works collectively. The way these diverse forms of life depend on each other makes one imagine this planet as a huge system. Looking at it in another way, the life and environment of the earth are a well coordinated system, within which there are subsystems like individual organisms. And within each of these sub systems , a single plant or animal, one would find a complex multicellular system. Similarly, industrial, agricultural or educational systems can be visualized as the sub-systems in the society. Organic systems maintain themselves in a given composite form and function. For example a cat remains a cat, it prowls for food, it may lat kittens, but its internal system matches on the basis of physical principles with stability. How is this stability maintained by a system? Let us take a specific example; how does a man or a woman maintain this internal stability while the environment around them changes. For instance how do they maintain a fixed temperature of thirty seven degrees, or the composition of their blood or blood pressure? It has been found that all organisms possess a kind of information and control network which directs them to adjust to various kinds of situations of survival. E.g. of you touch a snail, it withdraws into its shell. This is a kind of information and control device for protecting its life. If you sit in the sun and you feel hot, a signal which is internally generated causes perspiration and produces cooling by evaporation of sweat. This is another example of information  and control for maintain a fixed body temperature.