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

AMBIENT (= UMWELT) 1)

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"The set of the small number of characteristics to which an organism reacts".(L.von BERTALANFFY, 1962, p.73)

This concept was introduced and developed by J.von UEXKÜLL and G. KRISZAT (1934, 1979)

BERTALANFFY explains the concept as follows: "… any organism, so to speak, cuts out from the multiplicity of surrounding objects a small number of characteristics to which it reacts and whose ensemble forms its ambient" (p.73)

The perceived ambient is only a reduced part of the environment, which does not mean of course that non-perceived environmental conditions could not affect the organism. Examples would be the effects on human beings of ultra-violet or X-rays, which were completely unknown to our forefathers and that we are still unable to perceive directly.

BERTALANFFY also notes that: "… the organizational and functional plan of a living being determines what can become 'stimulus' and 'characteristic' to which the organism responds with a certain reaction" (Ibid).

von UEXKÜLL has given numerous and sometimes startling examples of ambients corresponding to various animals, showing how unexpected and even outlandish they can look for us.

This ambient concept, transferred to human organizations, may help to explain many failures of environmental perception in management.

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]

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