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

AURA 1)

← Back

The set of the traces or constraints left over by a system after the end of its functional existence.

This stimulating systemic concept has been introduced by the French biologist H. PRAT. It can be applied to a fossil, or petrified wood, as well as to a sunken ship, or a destroyed empire, or the teachings of a great disappeared mystic or philosopher.(1971. p.92-5)

At any moment the system contains its history and, when it functionally ceases to exist, something may remain of it. In J. BRIGGS and F.D. PEAT's words "Time is inflexible, and however, the past is continuously recycled, somehow maintained eternally" (1991, p.145).

The aura corresponds to a kind of fossil field , i.e. a certain degree of survival of material and/or abstract structures. given the condition that there be no excessive disruptive environmental activity and that important interconnections between elements remain more or less intact, or correlatively transformed.

In some cases, the aura may even give birth to a new system. A curious example is the "Gustav Vasa", flagship of the Swedish navy, sunk in the 16th Century, forgotten for 300 years, then refloated in the 20th Century, and now a naval museum in Stockholm's harbor.

G. CHROUST gives a complementary meaning to the concept, asking how far the effects of teaching do extend in space and time and also, "what size can a group have such that one can still communicate effectively" (1999, p.419).

These aspects can be mapped by using graphs and are also related to the small world model.

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