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.

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ANASTOMOTIC NET 2)5)

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A model of neuronal net "in which each neuron listens to many and speaks to many" (W. McCULLOCH, 1974, p.14)

This definition corresponds to a model created by S. WINOGRAD and J.D. COWAN in McCULLOCH 's laboratory.

These authors used such nets: "… in such away as to incorporate the redundant error-correcting codes used in coding for noisy communication channels into the logical functions computed by each neuron in the net. The probability logic which results from their construction is functionally redundant, there are many more possible functions stored in the net than in our own anastomotic nets, and it is this redundancy which is used to obtain reliable computation. Given the assumption that the rate at which neurons malfunction is not tied to the number of inputs playing on each one, the WINOGRAD – COWAN construction is in a one-to-one correspondance with that of SHANNON's which led to the noisy channel coding theorem and the existence of a channel capacity. On this basis there is an analogous computational capacity for reliable computers made of unreliable components" (Ibid)

In view of the recent developments in neuronal nets applications to robotics and connection machines, and their possible use for the study of sociality, this was indeed, in the fifties, inspired work.

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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