Is there a knowledge environment?

The analogy between the physical world and that of knowledge enables us to speak of the "knowledge environment" and discuss various environmental problems of great significance. However, analogies can be misleading if they are not based on systemic relationships. In this paper we take the three worlds, physical, mental, and world 3, as defined by Popper, and analyze them in a common systemic framework. In particular we discuss the use of the term "living organism" in relation to the three worlds. We conclude that the metaphor of a knowledge environment does have an underlying systemic model which can be formalized as required. The analysis also applies to the world of subjective experience and gives a common foundation for ecological notions such as pollution in the worlds of biology, the mind and ideas. In this paper we attempt to analyze some systemic aspects of the proposals of these three authors, particularly the view that they present of knowledge as an environment on a par with the physical environment. This may appear reasonable to some people but not to others. In a paper at the AAAS meeting last year we illustrated the distinct ontology of the knowledge environment by discussing a computer-based library system actively continuing to acquire and develop knowledge after the human race had gone. A questioner had difficulty with this, ultimately resolved as an objection to this happening. We assured her that, in the same way as the suggestion of nuclear fission was not to be taken as a suggestion also that we annihilate