BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

ADAPTIVE PROCESS (Statistical) 2)

← Back

"A process in which the chance occurence of appropriate of inappropriate behavior is positively or negatively reinforced, respectively" (A. H. KLOPF, 1972 ,p.59).

According to KLOPF: "Such a mechanism eventually produces a network that, to some degree, models the organism and the environment. As the model becomes increasingly refined, the statistical aspect of the adaptive process becomes less apparent and behavior appears more directed" (Ibid.).

Using KLOPF's terminology, as well as ASHBY's, one may say that the heterostat tends towards the homeostat when its behavior tends to stability. On the other hand, they stabilize because any system must become autopoietic: its coherence can be maintained only if, in some defined environment, some types of behavior are either impossible, prohibited, strongly constrained or, on the contrary highly favored.

The system goes on, constructing progressively its own algorithm, by a trial and error process. Besides, it constructs this algorithm in a specific way, because it does not start from scratch, but from some archetype, which allows only for a pre-defined repertory of admissible variations.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint