Living systems persist because many biological functions operate as mutually supportive organisational relationships rather than as isolated activities. Metabolism, physiological regulation, repair, development, behaviour, and reproduction each contribute to viability through their continual coordination within the organisation of the organism.
Functional Integration therefore explains how diverse biological functions collectively realise the continuing organisation of life.
Why It Matters
Functional Integration explains why biological explanation cannot be reduced to cataloguing individual functions or analysing isolated mechanisms.
Understanding what a function contributes does not by itself explain how living systems persist. Persistence depends upon the coordinated relationships among many mutually dependent functions whose integrated activity continually maintains viability-oriented organisation.
Functional Integration therefore provides the organisational link between Biological Function and Functional Organisation.
What It Is Not
Functional Integration is not simply the simultaneous occurrence of many biological processes.
Nor is it merely physical connectivity between structures or mechanisms.
It refers specifically to the coordinated organisational relationships through which multiple biological functions collectively contribute to organised persistence.
Relationship to Other APS Concepts
Functional Integration is one organisational dimension of Functional Organisation.
It depends upon Biological Function, whose individual contributions become biologically significant through their integration into mutually supportive organisational relationships.
Functional Integration provides the organisational basis for Functional Equivalence and Adaptive Reorganisation, both of which contribute to Operational Persistence by preserving coordinated functional activity under changing conditions.
Architectural Summary
Biological Function
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Functional Integration
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Functional Organisation
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Operational Persistence