General system theory of human development

Rather than a process whose outcome is fixed at inception, human development is seen as evolving interactively, new situations giving rise to new structures, likened to standing-wave patterns, these structures defining new processes which give rise to new structures and so on. This complementarity is the basis of a dynamic general system theory encompassing, among other factors: limitations on systems taken beyond practical complexity; interaction between system and environment (in general, complementarity of space-time structure and function); conditions giving rise to temporary structural stability at discrete levels of complexity; evolving rather than absolute nature of time as a property of the system.