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

ALLOPOIESIS 1)2)

← Back

The production by a network of interrelated component-producing processes of a system, which does not however becomes able to thereafter reproduce its components and processes. Adapted after M. ZELENY and N. PIERRE, 1976, p.150)

According to these authors: "… the actual realization of such systems is determined by processes which do not enter into their (own) organization. They are non-autonomous, since their realization and longevity as unities are not related to their operation" (Ibid)

In another paper, ZELENY states: "Allopoietic systems are organizationally open. They produce something different from themselves" (1977, p.14)

Allopoiesis is of course the opposite of autopoieisis, which implies organizational closure and thus, self-reproduction.

ZELENY and PIERRE give as examples of allopoietic systems "crystals, formal hierarchies and concentration camps" (Ibid)

Complex artifacts as for example cars or planes or machine-tools seem still more allopoietic: they are not self-created and are controlled from outside.

However, if the allopoietic system is to be really a system, it must at the same time be autopoietic in order to maintain its identity and coherence. This would be possible if we admit that the boundaries or other subsystems transform inputs into internally fitting elements, i.e. integrates them into the organizational closure cycle, while producing outputs by an inverse transformation. Some of J.G. MILLER 20 critical subsystems do just that.

According to H. MATURANA, an observer may treat an autopoietic system as if it were allopoietic by considering the perturbating agent as an input and the modifications undergone by the organism (which maintain its autopoiesis) as the output (1974, p.425). This is, for example, the way of traditional psychiatry.

However, this treatment does not reveal the autopoietic organization of the system.

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