“An anticipatory system is a natural system that contains an internal predictive model of itself and of its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant.” –Robert Rosen
“The Modeling Relation is described primarily in Rosen’s books, Anticipatory Systems and Life Itself. The former, in particular, devotes many chapters to defining, describing, and illuminating the consequences of the Modeling Relation. Therefore, what I describe herein only scratches the surface of the detail and depth to which Rosen examined the Modeling Relation. In its most general terms, the Modeling Relation is a way to compare synonymies between a system in one form and another system in another form. In other words, to establish a congruence relation between two systems.”