Introduction: Life has an unprecedented historic record of favorably sustaining itself; humans are best to be in synch with its cycles. This study searched for key determinants of biologic systems sustainability. Material/Method: Public domain records from the 1960s were selected for the study. Systems Science and the Dynamic Systems Model methodologies were used as they offer a complementary perspective on examining sustainability. Results/Conclusions: Sustainability is related to the way systems deal with transformation, individually and collectively; when present, sustainability is the output, the emergence, of an optimized system. In order for a biologic system to create healthy emergence, it first needs to select optimizing attractors for its sensory processing from the existing field of awareness; second, the sensory perception that follows, must engage the collaboration of 3-D hippocampal memory and an optimized executive prefrontal cortex; an alternate, though unhealthy, pathway does exist, when sensory input is processed through the reward centers of the neuro-net and ends in the prefrontal cortex that is in a state of a dysexecutive syndrome.

sustainability, systems science, adaptation and evolution, transformation