V. Dontsov - General system theory of aging. Special role of the immune system

Thus, consideration of the system analysis requirements for the aging phenomenon makes it possible to see the fundamentally important points of the problem analysis.

The most important is the ability to solve a number of central problems in gerontology in general, which allows to determine the common cause of aging systems and biological systems in particular, the main mechanisms for the manifestation of the common cause of aging, as well as the ways of manifestation of these common mechanisms of aging.

It is possible to identify the main properties of the biological system, which lead directly to its aging, to evaluate ways of influencing the aging of the organism and individual organs, systems, tissues and cells, as well as to clearly understand the prospects for such effects, their points of application and possible efficiency, as well as the fundamental The limited nature of these or other effects, the limits of their application and the ability to influence the aging of the whole organism.

The use of systems analysis puts gerontology as a science of aging on a clear methodological basis, leads it away from many circulating myths that are now replacing the general picture of aging and clear scientific views on it in gerontology.

System analysis in the first place allows you to move from the infinite consideration of particular views and mechanisms of aging to the consideration of the laws and principles that act during the aging of living systems, which just determines both the fundamentally possible main mechanisms of aging and the possible effects on it as well as the ultimate perspectives of such opportunities.

Thus, the use of the provisions of system analysis allows us to understand much in the problem of aging already at the level of abstract analysis.

The creation of theoretical models of the process under study is the most important element of knowledge, therefore this issue is given central attention in any modern field of science.

Gerontology in this regard is experiencing a crisis related to the fact that the old principles of creating conceptual models of aging, essentially reducing to the absolutization of certain observable phenomena and particular mechanisms of aging, have collapsed. All the so-called theories of aging, which now number hundreds already, have proved to be untenable in explaining the fundamental basis of aging and in many respects are only of historical interest.

On the other hand, a number of purely mathematical approaches to the modeling of aging does not meet with interest and recognition among biologists, since even with the most superficial study one can see biologically unjustified and in fact incorrect initial prerequisites of the models.

So, for example, fashionable environmental and evolutionary mathematical theories of aging, based on the idea of “expediency of aging” as a mechanism for the accelerated renewal of the species, ignore the obvious fact of high natural mortality in the wild when old animals are virtually absent in the population and almost all animals die young.

At the same time, there is an urgent need for a clear general view of the phenomenon of aging in general, using models that allow one to quantitatively and meaningfully interpret the aging of organisms. At present, one of the most important tasks of gerontology is the rather detailed development of essential models of aging, reflecting the very essence of this common to all living phenomenon and being biologically based and biologically meaningful.

Essential models must meet the following requirements:

– a clear understanding of the biological content of each element being modeled;

– a clear understanding of the biological significance of the results obtained in the simulation;

– a clear idea of the place of the model in the system hierarchy of aging processes (which part of the more general process is described);

– consideration of external factors that fundamentally affect the process being modeled.

The essenceof anything in philosophy is interpreted as the principleof structure. Thus, the essence or the essential, the main reason for aging can be expressed only in the language of high-level abstraction as an objective pattern of life, General Being, as a principle, but not at all as a process, much less as a specific special mechanism in the body. Such an essential definition of a global phenomenon, Aging has been known since antiquity – as a reduction in vitality with age. The current general definition of aging as a reduction in overall vitality with age actually does not differ from this in any way.

This definition is necessary and sufficient for a quantitative description of aging and clarification of the causes and main mechanisms of the aging process of organisms and its systems.

In its most general form, viability is the maintenance of structure and function – that is, the preservation of the identity (information) of a complex system (organism) over time.

The spontaneous direction of information change with time is closely connected in the global sense with the most general law of Being – the law of increasing entropy. Entropy and information are related, as is well known, by the following formula (1):

E = A * LnW + B, (1)

where E is entropy , W is the probability of an event, A and B are coefficients.

That is, the “natural” probability of the direction of (bio) chemical (and any!) events in time leads to the achievement of chaos as the most probable event (no longer changing), which is known as the 2-nd law of thermodynamics. The mechanism of such a path (the global mechanism of entropy) is a random process.

It is known that resist chaos can only be an external flow of energy. This flow of energy is a metabolism that forms the very basis of life as a biological form of existence of matter.

Entropy and external energy are two opposing forces, responsible both for destruction and for self-organization and change of separate, both simple and most complex systems, including organisms. Most fully these processes are considered in this section of science, as thermodynamics. Its application is possible in the study of idealized equilibrium systems, as well as in the study of real quasi-isolated or quasi-closed systems and quasi-equilibrium processes. In addition, it may be applicable when studying the processes occurring in complex open systems. It is important to understand that in reality, in any system, all possible processes actually take place, which are real and should be considered when it comes to very long periods of time and very complex systems. System analysis, as a modern scientific methodology, is precisely capable of doing this.

The processes of chaos, together with the arrival of external energy, form the whole multitude of nonlinear, developing, dynamic self-organizing systems of the most diverse nature – physical, chemical, and biological. Even B. Gomperts (1825) noted the similarity of the curves of changes in mortality and entropy. It has long been clear that the inability to resist destruction has the same nature as energy dissipation (that is, aging is equivalent to an increase in entropy, which serves as a measure of the disorder of any system), and the well-known biologist of aging A. Comfort directly writes that “Entelechy” and “vitality” are information contained in a cell, which is “biological energy”.