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On the decomposition of a dynamical system into non-interacting subsystems

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Abstract

It is shown that, under rather general conditions, it is possible to formally decompose the dynamics of ann-dimensional dynamical system into a number of non-interacting subsystems. It is shown that these decompositions are in general not simply related to the kinds of observational procedures in terms of which the original state variables of the system are defined. Some consequences of this construction for reductionism in biology are discussed.

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Literature

  • Rosen, R. 1968a. “Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity”.J. Theor. Biology,18, 380–386.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Theoretical Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, USA

    Robert Rosen

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  1. Robert Rosen
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Rosen, R. On the decomposition of a dynamical system into non-interacting subsystems. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 34, 337–341 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02476446

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02476446

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