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

AUTOPOIESIS and the "IMMANENT QUESTION" 3)

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The concept of "immanent question" has been introduced by G. BATESON in "Steps to an Ecology of Mind".(1973, p.371)

However the first example given by him comes from biology: "Consider the case of the unfertilized frog's egg for which the entry point of the spermatozoon defines the plan of bilateral symmetry of the future embryon…. The prick of a hair from a camel's-hair brush can be substitued and still carry the same message… But the internal context into which the message comes must be exceedingly complex. The unfertilized egg, then, embodies an immanent question to which the entry point of spermatozoon provides an answer" (Ibid).

This implies that the egg, the seed or, probably, the brain and even possibly the first germ of a culture, contains (in BATESON's words) an appropriate structure, i.e. the implicit time-totalized order created from former adaptation and evolution. (see "order from noise", for a critique of the well known von FOERSTER's experience with magnets).

Autopoiesis seems thus to be the result of a process of progressive emergence of order, as the source of BATESON's "immanent question".

Remains to find out which is the prime mover of this emergence.

→ Autogenetic system precursor; Zerosystem

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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