We cannot leave out time to begin with. Nor possibility, multiple times. A first attempt would be as follows. A system involves an input space, an state space and an output space . We consider that the outputs are completely determined by states, that is, there is function . Let be time which has a total order . Given a set let be the set of all maps . Then a system over is a function .
has a distinguished element which represents doing nothing. We write for if there is a such that implies that .
A link function is a function . With a link function we can define the plugging of one system into another. The link function can also be considered as expressing simultaneous different outputs.
can be given the structure of a category so we can define composition, etc. We consider the possibility of multiple input and multiple output (and composition, plugging in of systems, including feedback). Thus there is an abstract cartesian product for a more general version of (and , etc.).
We define to be the set of all functions where for some . Then another definition of system is a function which respects .
We can consider a category consisting of sets of functions for different values of . If then we have natural restriction map. This is a category. Likewise we can define categories and . We can also define the category whose elements, for a given , are sets of elements of . A system is then a functor
is itself a moduli space of structures, networks. Thus where the first component is a configuration and the second the global state.
Note that is more general than 'information', its can also include matter and energy as in biosystems.
In general our system will be a composition of other systems. We will need a calculus of dynamic reconfiguration , merging, separation, etc.
This second definition of system is better; it is the only one accessible to us, for we cannot observe infinite input,output or state histories.
Perhaps one of the most fundamental division is between systems having an origin (and perhaps an end) and those that are not postulated as having an origin. Thus we need a special state of non-being. Then we can ask: does the system come into being because of a certain input (does this even make sense) or not ? We can conceive a kind of output from another system which is a self-replication or construction or generation of the new system. The state at the first instance in which the system has come to be, is its initial state . Thus a generated system is given by a map (functor between categories) which respects .
Note that the output or state-change is not necessarily to be considered instantaneous. Our framework is general enough to capture delay, feedback and a great variety of different kinds of causality, quasi-causality, indeterminism, etc. It is however important to be able to give the images in the structure of a -algebra and a measure (in particular complex-valued).
Thus a quantum system associates to each input path from an initial time to a time a space of possible state paths from time to together with a (complex-valued) probability measure on . We assume that all the are endowed with a -algebra structure in a coherence way (perhaps as induced by such a structure on the space of all state paths from to ).
If is the usual real line, then we can consider input sequences which are almost everywhere or only have a finite number of non- inputs. In this special case the framework above reduces to the classical Feynman formalization.