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

BLINDSPOTS 3)

← Back

The non-perception of some aspects of problem situations.

H.von FOERSTER uses the example of the ocular blindspot as a metaphor for psychological and mental selective blindness. P. LEDINGTON has given a remarquable example of this anti-systemic disease (1992, p.57), but many other are well-known. The basic causes are the difficulties for specialists to see aspects of a situation outside their own field, their feeling of righteousness about their own way to tackle a problem and their tendency to mere technical patching up.

LEDINGTON observes that there is also a kind of communities blindness – through subsumption of individual and groups blindness which does not allow them to face their problems in a coherent way.

G.de ZEEUW's "invisibility" and R.S. ACKOFF's fables and parables are closely related to the blindspots problem.

The elimination – or at least, reduction- of blindspots can be obtained through conversation among various observers who observe the same situation. In effect, each one observes or can observe the blindspots of the other observers and thus contribute to their detection

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