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

BEHAVIOR (Purposive) 1)4)

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A. RAPOPORT observes that: "…mathematical analysis shows that the apparently purposeful behavior of the system is a consequence strictly deduced from the fact that it is open, not closed" (1966, p.8).

In effect, the need to process specific inputs of energy, matter or information in accordance with the internal nature of the system implies a behavior oriented toward the maintenance of defined internal parameters. This does not necessarily impose consciousness, and even less so, teleology.

We would probably have to distinguish between two types of purposive behaviors. The first one is, in animals, non-conscious purposive behavior (another semantic trap!) and the second is man's, based on symbolic capability (crf. L.von BERTALANFFY, 1967), that should be called purposeful.

Evolutionary differenciation seems to bear on a steadily growing capability to create new behavior within the reference frame of an already globally installed understanding of environment as well as invironment.

Such a capacity could be a result of the growing variety of effective and of potential neural interconnections in the brain, which provide the possibility of practically unlimited recombinations.

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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