The Conditions of System Existence
An Admissibility Theory of Systemhood
Authors: Jordan Vallejo and the Transformation Management Institute™ Research Group
Status: Foundational Paper | January 2026
Abstract
The term system is widely used across science, engineering, and organizational analysis, yet systemhood is often treated as an assumed starting point rather than an admissibility question. This paper specifies the conditions under which system is an admissible unit of analysis at a stated boundary. It formalizes a governing law, a minimum requirement, a minimal admissibility procedure (SAP-1), and a failure taxonomy that classifies when system claims become ill posed because the proposed unit cannot be individuated as a persistent system–environment partition under the declared interaction regime.
1. Introduction
Across disciplines, analysis frequently begins by naming a system, selecting a boundary, and then modeling behavior, regulation, control, adaptation, or performance. In many contexts this practice is appropriate. In others, it produces a recurrent class of error.
The error is not that a model is incomplete, the error is that the proposed unit is not admissible as a system at the stated boundary. When systemhood is not admissible, claims about system behavior and system function are not merely incorrect, they are ill posed because no stable unit of analysis is available to bear those claims.
System Existence Theory addresses this prior question. It specifies the conditions under which a candidate unit can coherently be treated as a system at a stated boundary at all. The aim is not to replace downstream system frameworks. The aim is to constrain their use by identifying when the category system is admissible, and when it is not.
2. Scope and Non-Scope
2.1 What this paper governs
This paper governs systemhood admissibility at a stated boundary. It specifies conditions for:
a non-trivial system–environment distinction
boundary maintenance under the declared interaction regime
attribution of boundary maintenance to the candidate unit at the stated boundary
continuity and unit identity across time and across interaction-relevant perturbations
2.2 What this paper does not govern
This paper does not govern:
behavior, performance, or outcomes
function, purpose, or optimization
mechanisms of control-theoretic regulation, feedback design, or stability engineering
adaptation, learning, or emergent dynamics
meaning, interpretation, credibility, or decision procedures
System Existence Theory is an admissibility boundary for the category system. It is not a mechanism model and it is not an intervention framework.
3. Restricted Definitions
The terms below are used in a restricted sense in this paper. They constrain usage. They do not specify mechanisms. These definitions are local to System Existence Theory and should not be imported into other research programs without explicit qualification.
3.1 System
A system is a candidate unit proposed for analysis as an individuated whole relative to an environment at a specified boundary.
3.2 Environment
The environment is everything outside the specified boundary of the candidate unit, including all sources of interaction relevant to the stated analysis.
3.3 Boundary
A boundary is a proposed system–environment partition that specifies what is inside the candidate unit and what is outside it.
3.4 Distinction
A distinction is the inside–outside difference induced by the boundary. A distinction is non-trivial only when it supports individuation of a unit across interaction, not merely a snapshot description.
3.5 Boundary maintenance
A boundary is maintained when the system–environment distinction remains enforceable under the declared interaction regime rather than existing only as a descriptive partition at a single time.
3.6 Attribution
Attribution is the assignment of boundary maintenance to processes located inside the stated boundary of the candidate unit, rather than to an external scaffold that imposes the boundary from outside.
3.7 Interaction regime
An interaction regime is the declared class of interactions and perturbations the unit must remain individuated under, over a declared time window, given the coupling assumptions implied by the analysis.
3.8 Continuity
Continuity is the persistence of the system–environment distinction across the declared time window and across the perturbations included in the interaction regime.
3.9 Unit identity
Unit identity is the trackability of the same bounded unit across the declared time window and interaction regime, as distinct from recurrence of a label, pattern, or description.
3.10 Systemhood
Systemhood is the admissibility status of the category system for a candidate unit at a stated boundary, given the conditions of this paper.
3.11 System existence
System existence is the satisfaction of the conditions that make systemhood admissible for a candidate unit at a stated boundary.
4. Law of Systemic Separability
4.1 Statement of the law
Law of Systemic Separability. System claims about a candidate unit are admissible at a stated boundary only insofar as the candidate unit maintains a system–environment distinction that (a) remains enforceable under the declared interaction regime and (b) preserves continuity and unit identity across the declared time window.
4.2 Clarifications
The law is boundary relative. A unit may be admissible as a system at one boundary and not admissible at another.
The law is pre-intentional. It applies whether or not any agent intends boundary maintenance.
The law is scale general. It constrains admissibility for any candidate unit regardless of scale.
The law is not a behavioral claim. It does not predict what a system will do. It specifies when system claims are well formed.
4.3 Why this is a constraint, not a definition
The law is not introduced to restate an intuitive idea that systems have boundaries. It is introduced to constrain common analytic practice in cases where system language is used without an admissible unit.
Systemhood is frequently treated as a label that can be applied because it is convenient for explanation, responsibility assignment, or intervention. System Existence Theory restricts that move. If a proposed boundary does not yield an individuated unit that persists under the declared regime, then downstream claims are not improved by adding more variables, more mechanisms, or more detail. The unit of analysis is not available at that boundary.
This matters because boundary selection can change attribution, accountability, and intervention targets. For example:
A deployed “AI system” may be discussed as a single unit, yet the maintained boundary may depend on external hosting, monitoring, data pipelines, tool integrations, and operator procedures that are not inside the proposed boundary. At that boundary, attribution fails.
A “digital identity” may be discussed as a stable unit, yet persistence may be enforced primarily by institutional issuance, platform policy, device binding, and shared recognition outside the proposed boundary. At that boundary, continuity and attribution fail.
An “organization” may be discussed as a coherent system, yet the separability that maintains its boundary may depend on legal enforcement, financial infrastructure, and contractual constraint located outside the proposed boundary. At that boundary, systemhood may be inadmissible unless the boundary is revised to include the scaffolds that maintain separability.
The law therefore functions as an admissibility constraint on system claims, not as a descriptive definition of ordinary language.
4.4 Consequence of violation
Violation of systemic separability entails loss of individuation of the proposed system at the stated boundary. Under loss of systemic separability, claims about system behavior, function, control, or responsibility become ill posed because the system is not an admissible unit of analysis at that boundary.
5. Minimum Requirement for System Existence
Systemhood is admissible only when:
a non-trivial system–environment partition can be specified at the stated boundary,
the partition is maintainable under the declared interaction regime,
boundary maintenance is attributable to processes located inside the stated boundary,
the distinction persists across the declared time window and interaction-relevant perturbations,
the same bounded unit remains trackable as the unit of analysis.
This requirement is minimal. It does not require any specific mechanism, architecture, substrate, or purpose. It requires only that the unit can be individuated as a bounded system across interaction and time at the stated boundary.
6. Systemhood Admissibility Procedure (SAP-1)
SAP-1 supports minimal application of System Existence Theory. It is not a mechanism model. It is an admissibility check.
6.1 Outputs
SAP-1 yields one of the following outputs for a candidate unit at a stated boundary:
Admissible: the boundary yields an individuated unit that satisfies separability, attribution, continuity, and identity under the declared regime.
Conditional: systemhood is admissible only under a revised boundary or a narrowed interaction regime.
Inadmissible: the proposed unit cannot be individuated as a persistent system–environment partition at that boundary under the declared regime.
Indeterminate: the boundary, regime, or evidence is insufficiently specified to run the check.
6.2 Procedure
Name the candidate unit. Specify the candidate system as a concrete unit (X), not a broad label.
Declare the interaction regime. Specify the time window and the class of interactions and perturbations relevant to the analysis.
Specify the boundary. State what is inside X and what is outside X. If the boundary cannot be specified, systemhood is indeterminate or inadmissible.
Test distinction under interaction. Ask whether interaction in the declared regime erases the inside–outside distinction. If interaction erases the distinction, systemhood is inadmissible for X at that boundary.
Run the attribution test. Identify what maintains the boundary. Determine whether boundary maintenance is attributable to processes located inside the stated boundary of X. If separability depends solely on an external scaffold, systemhood is inadmissible for X at that boundary.
Test continuity under the regime. Determine whether the maintained distinction persists across the time window and perturbations included in the declared regime. If persistence depends on conditions that exclude the declared regime, systemhood is inadmissible for X at that boundary.
Confirm identity of the unit. Determine whether the same bounded unit remains trackable across the declared window. If persistence appears as recurrence of a label or pattern without stable unit identity, systemhood is inadmissible for X at that boundary.
Boundary revision rule. When systemhood is not admissible at the proposed boundary, the appropriate response is not to treat the case as a dysfunctional system. The appropriate response is to revise the boundary, revise the declared regime, or treat the phenomenon as non-system dynamics for the purposes of analysis.
6.3 Procedure-to-failure mapping
Step 3 failure corresponds to distinction failure.
Steps 4 and 6 failure correspond to boundary maintenance and continuity failure.
Step 5 failure corresponds to attribution failure (scaffolded separability).
Step 7 failure corresponds to unit identity failure.
7. Failure Taxonomy
This taxonomy classifies admissibility failures under the Law of Systemic Separability. It does not describe mechanisms. It specifies failure modes under which the category system ceases to be admissible for a candidate unit at a stated boundary.
7.1 Distinction failure
The system–environment distinction cannot be specified or cannot be maintained in a non-trivial way. No inside–outside partition remains stable enough to individuate a unit.
7.2 Boundary maintenance failure
A boundary can be described at a snapshot, but interaction in the declared regime defeats boundary maintenance. The distinction does not remain enforceable under interaction-relevant perturbations.
7.3 Attribution failure (scaffolded separability)
Separability and continuity appear present, but boundary maintenance is not attributable to processes located inside the stated boundary of the candidate unit. The boundary persists only because an external system imposes constraints. Remove the scaffold and separability fails.
7.4 Continuity failure
A boundary may exist intermittently or locally, but the system–environment distinction does not persist across the declared time window and interaction regime.
7.5 Unit identity failure
A boundary may be maintainable, yet the same bounded unit does not remain trackable across time and interaction-relevant perturbations. Persistence appears as recurrence of a label or pattern, not continuity of an individuated unit.
8. Illustrative Boundary Cases
The cases in this section are not offered as domain theories. They illustrate how System Existence Theory evaluates admissibility at a stated boundary. Each case can yield different admissibility outcomes under different boundary proposals.
8.1 Viruses
Viruses are frequently described as biological agents, yet many boundary proposals for the virus as a standalone system fail systemhood admissibility. At boundaries where persistence depends on host cellular machinery for replication and metabolic constraint, attribution failure is common because boundary maintenance is not attributable to processes inside the virus boundary.
At alternative boundaries, such as the virus together with a defined host interaction context, systemhood may become conditionally admissible because boundary maintenance is attributable to the composite unit and persists under the declared regime. System Existence Theory does not resolve biological classification disputes. It specifies that system claims about a virus depend on the boundary under which the virus is individuated.
8.2 Artificial intelligence
AI is often treated as a single system for purposes of explanation, responsibility, and evaluation. In many deployments, however, the proposed system boundary encloses a label rather than an individuated unit.
Attribution failure is common when the maintained boundary depends on external infrastructure, operators, monitoring layers, training and data pipelines, vendor services, platform policies, and shifting integrations that are outside the proposed boundary. In those cases, separability is scaffolded.
Continuity and unit identity failures are also common when the named unit changes materially across time while retaining a stable label. A model can be replaced, retrained, realigned, rehosted, or integrated into different tool chains while still being referred to as the same system. System Existence Theory treats these as identity problems. A stable name does not by itself establish persistence of the same bounded unit.
System Existence Theory does not classify AI as a system or non-system. It specifies that many claims about “the AI system” are ill posed at common boundaries because the proposed unit is not individuated as a persistent system–environment partition under the declared interaction regime.
8.3 Identity as a candidate system
Identity is frequently treated as a persistent unit across time, roles, interfaces, and representations. In modern settings, identity is distributed across credentials, profiles, histories, attestations, devices, institutions, and social recognition. The result is that identity is often analyzed as if it were a coherent system when the boundary conditions for systemhood have not been established.
At many commonly proposed boundaries, identity exhibits continuity and attribution failures. Continuity fails when the system–environment distinction cannot be maintained across the interaction regime that constitutes the identity’s ongoing expression. Attribution fails when identity persistence depends primarily on external scaffolds such as institutional issuance, platform enforcement, and shared recognition located outside the stated boundary.
System Existence Theory therefore treats many identity disputes as boundary disputes. Persistence of a label, credential, or account does not by itself establish persistence of an individuated unit. The admissibility question is not whether identity exists in a social or moral sense. The admissibility question is whether identity can be individuated as a system at a stated boundary, and shown to maintain separability, continuity, and unit identity under the declared interaction regime.
8.4 Organizations as candidate systems
Organizations are often treated as self-contained systems in organizational analysis and transformation work. At many common boundaries, the organization is described as the people, processes, and internal governance inside a firm.
Under SAP-1, attribution and boundary maintenance can fail at that boundary when separability is enforced primarily by external scaffolds such as:
legal enforcement of contracts and property rights
banking and payment infrastructure
regulatory constraint and jurisdictional authority
external supply chain enforcement and standards
If the boundary maintenance processes that keep the organization individuated are materially outside the proposed boundary, then systemhood may be conditional or inadmissible at that boundary under the declared regime. A revision can make systemhood admissible by expanding the boundary to include the scaffolds that maintain separability for the analytic purpose, or by narrowing the interaction regime to one where those scaffolds are not interaction-relevant.
System Existence Theory does not deny that organizations exist in ordinary language. It specifies the conditions under which treating an organization as a bounded system is an admissible analytic move at a stated boundary.
9. Relation to Existing System Frameworks
System Existence Theory does not replace established system frameworks. It specifies a prior admissibility question that those frameworks typically presuppose.
9.1 General systems theory
General systems theory studies properties shared across systems and the relationships among system components, typically assuming a system–environment partition suitable for analysis. System Existence Theory does not address cross-domain system properties. It specifies when a proposed partition yields an admissible bounded unit at all.
9.2 Systems engineering
Systems engineering defines and manages systems of interest in relation to requirements and design constraints, typically assuming that the selected boundary is suitable for the engineering aim. System Existence Theory does not address requirements, design, or management. It specifies when the boundary supports systemhood as an admissible category of analysis.
9.3 Cybernetics and control
Cybernetics and control theory study stability, feedback, and control within bounded units, typically assuming that the unit is stable enough to be observed and regulated. System Existence Theory does not address control mechanisms. It specifies when the bounded unit remains individuated under the declared interaction regime such that downstream control claims are well formed.
9.4 Complex adaptive systems
Complex adaptive systems frameworks study emergence and adaptation among interacting agents, typically assuming an agent set and boundary appropriate to the model. System Existence Theory does not address emergence or adaptation. It specifies when the individuation of the modeled unit is admissible rather than an artifact of boundary selection.
9.5 Autopoiesis and operational closure
Autopoiesis characterizes certain systems by self-production and operational closure, treating boundary maintenance as endogenous to system organization. System Existence Theory does not commit to any single mechanism of unity. It specifies minimal admissibility conditions for boundary maintenance, attribution, continuity, and identity, while treating operational closure as one possible sufficient route in some domains.
9.6 Network science
Network science represents systems through graph structures, assuming a node set and edge definition that constitute the modeled unit. System Existence Theory does not address representational choice. It specifies when the candidate unit represented by a graph is admissible as an individuated system at a stated boundary.
9.7 Minimal adjacency note
This paper is structurally adjacent to traditions that treat boundary selection, closure, and individuation as primary problems in systems discourse, including general systems theory, cybernetics, autopoiesis, and contemporary boundary formalisms. System Existence Theory does not adopt a single ontology of boundaries. It specifies admissibility constraints that must be satisfied for system claims to be well formed at a stated boundary under a declared interaction regime.
10. Implications of Admissibility Failure
When systemhood is not admissible at the stated boundary, downstream claims about behavior, performance, control, function, or responsibility become ill posed. In such cases, the appropriate response is not to intensify diagnosis or expand the model. The appropriate response is to revise the boundary, revise the declared regime, or treat the phenomenon as non-system dynamics for the purposes of analysis.
A common practical consequence of failing to assess admissibility is misclassification. Analysts and institutions may treat boundary failure as dysfunction inside a system, producing incorrect attribution, ineffective intervention, and avoidable conflict about what is being evaluated.
11. Conclusion
System Existence Theory specifies the conditions under which the category system is admissible as a unit of analysis at a stated boundary. It formalizes the Law of Systemic Separability, a minimum requirement for system existence, a minimal admissibility procedure (SAP-1) with explicit outputs, and a failure taxonomy for classifying when system claims become ill posed.
This work is intentionally upstream of system modeling, control, optimization, meaning, and interpretation. Where systemic separability is not satisfied at the stated boundary under the declared interaction regime, system claims are not subject to correction through improved modeling because the proposed unit is not an admissible system in the first place.
Citation
Vallejo, J. (2026). The Conditions of System Existence: An Admissibility Theory of Systemhood. System Existence Theory Foundational Paper. Transformation Management Institute.
References
This list is provided only to orient readers to adjacent traditions. System Existence Theory remains a distinct admissibility program.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics
W. Ross Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics
Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, work on autopoiesis and operational closure
Niklas Luhmann, work on social systems and boundary problems
Herbert A. Simon, work on complex systems and near-decomposability
Donella Meadows, work on systems and leverage, treated here as downstream of admissibility
Karl Friston, work on Markov blankets and boundary formalisms (adjacent, not adopted)