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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AUTOPOIESIS: About LUHMANN's view 4)

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O. THYSSEN (1995, P. 13) characterizes as follows the way LUHMANN (1927-1998) extends the concept of autopoiesis: "LUHMANN generalizes the concept to cover not only living systems, but also mental and social systems. Whereas living systems operate in the medium "life", mental systems operate in the medium "consciousness" and social systems in the medium "communication". According to LUHMANN, a social system does not consist of human beings or artifacts. It consists of an ongoing stream of communication ". THYSSEN has some problems with these views: "An autopoietic system is closed "(Note: i.e. organizationally closed) "It has no contact with the environment"(Note: it is however structurally coupled with it. Is that not a "contact"?)

THYSSEN adds: "A disturbing consequence is that mental and social systems are totally distinct. No analysis of consciousness will ever reveal anything about brain processes, which are the domain of living systems"

One wonder if it is not the reverse: could not brain processes reveal something about consciousness. And: "Another disturbing consequence is that LUHMANN has no place for the individual. This point is methodological, not normative or "antihumanistic".(Ibid)

MAN is a very diffuse idea allowing references to many different systems which do not have MAN as an element and which do not form a unity: no supersystem encompasses living, mental and social systems. So what is MAN depends on who is observing and how. KORZYBSKI (1879-1950) could have said it: MAN is a high level abstract "label" that should be used very carefully.

The hinge of the problem is obviously that any social system depends on individual observers in two complementary ways:

1- In any activity the structural coupling with the environment of the social system is through individuals (which make a kind of porous frontier with the environment)

2- The internal autopoietic behavior of the system as a whole depends on myriads of inter individual structural couplings as observers of each others

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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