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Clinical Medicine Insights 
 

DOI:https://doi.org/10.52845/CMI/2023-4-2-2 

    CMI 04 (02), 387-392 (2023)                                                                                                                                                   
ISSN (O) 2694-4626

 

RESEARCH ARTICLE                                                                                                    

The Biophysical Modelling of the System Theory 

Janos Vincze, Gabriella Vincze-Tiszay 

Health Human International Environment Foundation, Budapest, Hungary 

*Corresponding Author: Janos Vincze 

  

Introduction

Biophysics is a border science which deals with 

physical processes taking place in the living 

organisms and systems as well as with tools and 

methods used of their study. Biophysics strikes for 

the revelation and recognition of physical 

phenomena, processes, laws etc. implied in 

biological problems. The biophysicist pursues 

studies with the methods of physics without 

leaving the soil of biology. For this very reason, a 

synthesis of the mentioned disciplines’ way of 

thinking, imaginations, concepts and working 

methods can be met in the biophysics. 

One may safely say today that living material is 

composed of exactly the same constituents and the 

interactions between the constituent particles are 

of the same nature as we see them in the lifeless 

world. Life is not the consequence of non specific 

atomic characteristics but a concomitant of – by 

overall natural laws – highly organized, atoms 

otherwise occurring in the nature. 1 

In the course of biological investigations, the 

tendency can be observed that for the better 

understanding of phenomena one makes use of the 

results of sciences governed by more and more 

general laws. Biology starts with the observation, 

classification of living creatures but the study of 

life phenomena needs already explanation, 

generalization. Advance has been meant by 

applying chemistry as biochemistry. Although 

biochemistry can register immense results its 

scope remains limited. It has been found e.g. that 

proteins as enzymes perform various tasks in the 

living cells, it was also stated that DNA carries the 

information responsible for the inheritance but a 

Abstract 

Modelling in this case should just complicate the situation. In this sense there are explicitly good models 

but it’s well known that there are also wrong things which, by modification, may work well. In this case 

model has given even more than it was originally for seen. In this respect, it’s without doubt that the 

biological modelling is a useful way of collaboration between the biologist and physicist. The system is a 

fundamental concept which is not defined. The biophysical approximation of the life processes leads 

always to the application of some kind of physical model. This definition has three essential factors. In the 

first place, it should need an object to be realized by the system. Secondly, it is necessary for the 

components a well-defined settlement to be arranged. At last the information about the distribution of 

energy and matter according to the programme. The hierarchy of the systems will be built up according to 

a spiral line expanding in breadth and depth towards the infinity. One important mode to construct general 

systems is if we recognize the common phenomena occurring in the different specialized sciences and 

construct the systems applicable for such phenomena. Let’s sketch out the hierarchy of the systems 

according to Boulding. 

Key words: biophysical modelling, system, hierarchy of the systems 

Copyright : © 2021 The Authors. Published by Medical Editor and Educational Research Publishers Ltd. 

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nc-nd/4.0/). 

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deeper comprehension has been achieved by the 

help of physics. By studying the X-ray diffraction 

image of the DNA-molecules, the double helix 

structure has been discovered and found 

explanatory for the hereditary mechanism. The X-

ray diffraction study has brought about the 

recognition that protein molecules fulfill their 

tasks on the basis of their well-defined 

configuration. One hasn’t found so far another 

physical modality which could have implied any 

more unequivocal, decisive brakethrough. 2 

Modelling 

A biological model is called that partial set to be 

studied which has been selected from the set of 

our available knowledge, assumptions as well as 

from the results of the already completed 

biological experiments and investigations. Hence 

the starting point of every modelling is some sort 

of an observable phenomenon. Modelling in 

simplest formulation can be conceived as a sharp 

polarized inquiry of the respective phenomenon. 

There exist systems where the simplest model is 

the system itself. Modelling in this case should 

just complicate the situation. In this sense there 

are explicitly good models but it’s well known 

that there are also wrong things which, by 

modification, may work well. Model is evidently a 

model and not the reality but the abstracted copy 

of it from which we try to conclude to the reality 

and in the case of any mismatch we have to 

change the model. 3 

The biologist has to abstract parts of the biological 

process substantial from the point of view of the 

model and has to select those essential points the 

physicist willingly accepts and in which he will be 

ready to collaborate. Hereupon as a rule, the 

physicist used to suggest an already existing 

model of the wide arsenal of the physics applied 

for the description of natural phenomena. If there 

is a physical model disposable for the biological 

phenomenon then it will bring up a lot of 

possibilities offered by the physics to the biology 

which, of course, must be subjected to biological-

logical judgement. From many of them turns out 

that it’s worth dealing with and being subjected to 

biological experimentation. If our supposition has 

been justified by the biological experiment then 

we have got new knowledge in the long run. In 

this case model has given even more than it was 

originally for seen. In this respect, it’s without 

doubt that the biological modelling is a useful way 

of collaboration between the biologist and 

physicist. 4 

We should steadily see also the strict limitations 

of the modelling. Part of these limits is intensive 

and is best perceptible with the comparison that if 

we have a closer, focused look at an object it will 

necessarily get blurred or even disappear all 

beyond the scope of our observation. The other 

part of the limitations is extensive, the majority of 

the today’s models cannot take into consideration 

more but some distincted features. The mesh of 

the extensive and intensive limits, the complexity, 

underlines even more the necessity of modelling 

but it assures the conditions of the controllable 

advancement in a complicated spiritual 

(intellectual, mental) medium. 

Forming a biophysical model is not the task of the 

biologist or physicist alone, a good model can 

successfully constructed only by common, 

collective-work. This is typically the task of the 

biophysicist and a problem which falls within the 

competence of this discipline. Model is always an 

approximation, the user of the model has to take 

into consideration that he can approach only the 

absolute truth just through the endless series of 

relative truths. For this reason, he performs certain 

neglects in advance, he disregards certain things. 

The model is nothing but an abstracted 

phenomenon, a momentarily stopped biological 

system. 5 As soon as it has got a model it ceased 

to be alive but this should not exclude a model be 

built and the results of the biophysics be applied. 

The biophysical approximation of the life 

processes leads always to the application of some 

kind of physical model. This model usually carries 

just some features of the process but complies the 

requirement of the accuracy. Accuracy is nothing 

else but to search for axiom for a complicated life 

process and it‘s usually a great deal of work. 

Exactly from these difficulties germinates 

biophysics. The development of the biophysical 

science can be appraised on that we succeed in the 

investigation of ever complicated processes. 

Accordingly, in the research one must declare the 

axiom of the deductive theories achieved by the 

study of the processes. You should clearly start 

with very simple examples. Again, the more 



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complicated life processes we tackle, the higher 

we raise the scientific level of the biophysics. 

 

 

The system 

The expression „system” has been used for a wide 

range of phenomena. Thus we speak of numerical 

systems, planetary systems, communication 

systems, regulatory systems, biological systems, 

teaching systems, political systems etc. Part of 

these are conceptual constructions, the other part 

comprises physical entities. 6 The system itself 

is a fundamental conception of which we don’t 

give any definition, instead it will be 

circumscribed. Temporarily, the following wide 

and broad circumscription could have been done 

for the system: any conceptual or physical entity 

made up of parts depending on each other. 

According to Bertalanffy: systems are collectives 

of such interacting elements for which certain 

system laws can be applied. This characterization 

would not work as a kind of circulus vitiosus if an 

independent definition of the system laws were 

available but there was not. 

The system is a fundamental concept which is not 

defined. The behaviour of the system is consisted 

of the complexity of processes mutually connected 

with each other and characterized by function ties. 

Generally spoken a function link between 

processes there exists only if each of them is 

needed to accomplish the desired output and if 

these all depend on each other. The nature of this 

mutual dependence can be exactly defined. Both 

the output and the processes taking part in the 

function link can be defined by a set of certain 

characteristics regarded as variables. From the 

point of view of the output, processes will be 

regarded mutually consistent if the alteration of 

any variable describing one of the processes will 

influence the modification rate of any output-

variable and it also depends on every other 

substantial process variables. If, therefore, all 

variables are expressed by continuous quantities 

then any process-variable’s derivative of an output 

variable will be the function of all other process 

variables. 7 

As to the systems, the Heisenberg’s indefiniteness 

relation is of great significance because if the 

information expected by the researcher from the 

system is of the same order of magnitude as the 

system itself then the information cannot be 

applied for the system and cannot be even 

achieved without changing the system. This 

principle has been verified first in the physics but 

its significance is ever growing as we proceed 

through the biology towards the social sciences. 

The order in the stochastic systems is of non-

deterministic nature but events occur – 

subsequently from the essential kind of the system 

itself – with a probability less than one and may 

perform chaotic behaviour. The former method of 

demonstrating suppose also fails simply because 

the hypothesis pertains not on the certainty but on 

the probability of the event. As a result, the 

successfulness of those methods dealing with the 

special systems and with the empirical 

investigations in the physics may be regarded as a 

fortunate accident owing really to the fact that the 

systems studied were large enough (not as those of 

Heisenberg where the information is of the same 

order of magnitude than the system and the 

observation is part of the system) having a very 

insignificant probability character. 8 

For practical reasons, let’s circumscribe the 

concept of the system more exactly as such an 

arrangement of the constituents which serves to 

reach the concrete purpose according to a certain 

programme. This definition has three essential 

factors. In the first place, it should need an object 

to be realized by the system. Secondly, it is 

necessary for the components a well-defined 

settlement to be arranged. At last the information 

about the distribution of energy and matter 

according to the programme. Thus any physical 

entity can be considered as a system if the output 

(outcome) of its behaviour will be conceived as 

the result of the interaction between the parts. 

Many entities, therefore, can be treated both as 

elements and as systems depending on the 

decision of the investigator. 

The biological system can be described at least to 

some extent as a self-regulatory system. Its four 

essential characteristics are as follows: 

1. Its elements have the disposal of life as an 

attribute. 



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2. There is structural link between its components. 

Thus for example, the nutrition is connected with 

the circulation and respiration and with the 

excretion as well. 

3. The subgroups of different function are aware 

of each other’s behaviour through communication. 

This is mainly realized by the nervous and the 

endocrine system. 

4. The living system has certain liberty of 

selection in respect to the ways of action and also 

to the goals (the result expected). In the interest of 

its self-preservation, it can select between foods, 

choose living space in the environment and a mate 

for the race- preservation. 

Shortly speaking the four essential feature of the 

living systems is the sum of the content 

components, the structural construction, the 

communication and the ambiguous but interval 

parameters realizing the functions. 

It must be stressed by all means that the system is 

always just an approximate modelling but it 

enables us the better recognition of our 

environment and ourselves as well. 

The Hierarchy of the Systems 

The approximations of the investigations between 

the branches of science by interdisciplinary 

attitude clearly show the increasing interest for 

joining the knowledge into systems of wide 

spectra. If we don’t want the research between the 

branches of science to lead into limitlessness then 

we have to elaborate systems for the integration of 

the independent branches within which they can 

still maintain their distinctive character. 9 

The hierarchy of the systems will be built up 

according to a spiral line expanding in breadth and 

depth towards the infinity. Although the idea of 

the system and the necessity of building-up 

systems is not new-fangled (updated), systems 

were not enough stressed in the sciences for a long 

time. Though as a result of the significant 

discoveries at the beginning of our century, a 

break-through has been achieved both in the field 

of physics and of mathematics, yet these were the 

last decades when the interdisciplinary attitude 

came across also in the biology. 10 But in 

addition there was a considerable contribution by 

the rapid development of other sciences like 

mathematics, physics, chemistry, technical 

sciences because their discoveries, methodologies 

and tools gave way for the biologists to probe 

deeply enough into the recognition of the living 

material. 11 At the same time, the results of the 

sciences penetrated stimulating and inspiring the 

biology in the form of analogy and terminology. 

One important mode to construct general systems 

is if we recognize the common phenomena 

occurring in the different specialized sciences and 

construct the systems applicable for such 

phenomena. The second construction mode would 

be to arrange the systems in a hierarchic system. 

12 This in the same time would result in fixing 

the abstraction levels corresponding to the 

different degrees. This cannot be realized 

unequivocally. The second construction mode, the 

hierarchy of the levels will be investigated in 

details.  

Generally speaking the different levels cannot be 

delimited unambiguously and it is the investigator 

to separate them artificially due to methodological 

reasons. Systems are not divided into sub-, super- 

and co-ordinated relations, respectively, in a well 

determined manner but they appear intermixed in 

the structural hierarchy. Let’s sketch out the 

hierarchy of the systems according to Boulding 

13 as follows: 

1.) The first level is that of the static structure. It 

could be called the level of the shells (skeletons). 

It is really the geography and anatomy of the 

universe: the localization scheme of the electrons 

around the nucleus, the scheme of the atoms in a 

molecular formula, the settlement of the atoms in 

a crystal, the anatomy of the gene, the cell, the 

plant, the animal, the map of the Earth, the solar 

system, the stellar world. The organized 

theoretical knowledge starts with the exact 

description of these shells on almost every 

territory because no functional or dynamic theory 

can exist without this accurate description of the 

static conditions. 

2.) On the second level you can see the simple 

dynamic system with its predetermined, necessary 

movements. It could have been called the level of 

the clockworks. From the human point of view, of 

course, it is the solar system as the great clock of 

the universe and the imposingly accurate 

predictions of the astronomers to bear witness to 



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the excellent quality of the clockwork applied. 

Mechanical powers can be usually interpreted on 

this level, like the lever and the pulley but also 

more complicated machines like the steam-engine 

and the dynamo (generator). To the same level 

belongs the physics, chemistry and even the major 

part of the theoretical constructions of the 

economy, too. 

3.) The next level is the steering mechanism or 

cybernetic system which could be otherwise called 

the thermostat level. This differs from the simple 

stationary equilibrium system in that its 

substantial part is the transmission and processing 

of the information. The equilibrium, therefore, 

will not be simply determined by the equations of 

the system but the system itself seeks to maintain 

– within limits – a certain equilibrium. The greatly 

important homeostatic model in the physiology is 

only one example for the cybernetic mechanism 

but the whole world investigated by the biologist 

and sociologist is full of such mechanisms. 

4.) The fourth level is the „open system” or the 

self-sustaining structure. On this level the living 

begins to separate from that which is not living: 

this could be called the level of the cell. If we fall 

in with systems being able to reproduce and 

sustain themselves during matter- and energy-

perfusion then we have to deal with something of 

the kind which we hardly can deny the name 

„life”. 

5.) The fifth is the level of the genetic society the 

typical form of it rules over the flora and the 

empirical world of the botany. The major 

characteristics of this system are first the cell 

population formed by division of labour between 

the cells with its differentiated and mutually 

interrelated parts (roots, leaves, seeds etc.), 

secondly a sharp separation between genotype and 

phenotype which is related to the one-aimed or 

programmed growth. 

 6.) Going upwards from the flora to the fauna 

gradually we reach the „animal” level which is 

characterized by motility, specific behaviour and 

by self-identification. Here special information-

receivers are developing (like eye, ear, etc.) and as 

a result, the information-uptake grows 

enormously. In addition, the nervous system 

increasingly develops, after all the brain as the 

organ which organizes the information into 

structural knowledge or „image”. Going upwards 

on the scale of the animal life, the behaviour 

becomes not only a reaction to any concrete 

stimulus in an ever raising degree but an answer to 

an „image” or structured knowledge or attitude 

formed from the environment as a whole. This 

image will lastly be determined, of course, by the 

information taken up by the organism, however, 

the relation between information-uptake and 

imaging (the construction of a picture) is 

extremely complicated. The process is not simply 

the accumulation of the accepted information – 

although it is often the case – but it will be 

structured in a manner which essentially differs 

from the information itself. Once the image-

structure has been definitely formed the new 

information will hardly change on the picture: it 

quasi passes the loose structure without 

„colliding” with whatever. The image sometimes 

„catches” the information incorporating it, 

sometimes the information comes into collision 

with any core, „nucleus” of the image so that its 

whole will be transformed in a way that a 

seemingly inconsiderable stimulus will provoke a 

highly significant reaction, that is to say, the 

behaviour will change considerably and radically. 

Thus the determination of the future behaviour of 

such systems will be aggravated, namely by the 

picture intercalated between the stimulus and the 

answer. 

7.) Follows the „human” level, that is the 

individual human being comprehended as a 

system. Man is probably the only organism which 

knows that he will die, which takes into account – 

by forming his behaviour – his full lifespan and 

even more of it. Man exists not only in a given 

time and space but in history, too, and his 

behaviour will be deeply influenced how he sees 

the course of time he lives in. 

8.) The social level. The fundamental level of such 

systems is not even the individual – the human 

being as such – but the „role” that is those 

circumstances of the personality which are in 

relation with the organism or situation in question. 

What should be investigated on this level? The 

content and meaning of the informations, the 

nature and dimensions of the systems/scales of 

values, the transcription of images into history, the 

embarrassing and delicate symbolize of the fine 

arts, music, poetry. 



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9.) In order to complete the hierarchy of the 

systems still we have to include the level of the 

psychical systems, too. There are also other 

aspects to classify our environmental world. 

Below, you will find some other hierarchies of the 

systems. Such kind of representation of this 

hierarchy has, among others, the advantage that it 

offers some idea about the shortcomings of our 

present – theoretical as well as practical – 

knowledge. 

Matter is known to exist of two fundamental kind: 

that of discrete nature, of corpuscular structure 

and those physical domains/fields displaying 

steady feature and transmitting interactions 

between material parts. 14 The particles of 

corpuscular character and the physical domains 

can not be sharply separated from each other, 

there is no impassable barrier between the two 

outward forms of the matter, they can transform in 

each other. 15 Under certain circumstances, 

these outward forms of the matter posses similar 

features, corpuscular generate spaces of different 

type, display continuous wave character, on the 

other hand, domains may have manifestations 

characteristic of particles. 

The material systems are in steady movement, 

motion is inseparable from the matter.  

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1.  Vincze, J.: Biophysics 7. NDP P., Bp., 1998.  

2. Vincze, J.: Biophysics 15. NDP P., Bp., 2000.  

3. Vincze, J.: Biophysics 36. NDP P., Bp., 2009.  

4. Ackerman, E.: Biophysical Science. Prentice 

Hall, Bglewood, N. Y., 1962.  

5. Vincze, J., Vincze-Tiszay, G. (2020) The 

Biophysical Modeling of the different 

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7. Grémy, P., Pagés, J. C.: Eléments de 

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