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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COGNITIVE RINGS 3)4)

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J.L. VULLIERME explains the concept of cognitive rings in the following way "The aim of knowledge is knowledge of the object by some local (and localized) observer (1990, p.151).

However, any observer or modelizer needs some observational reference frames. These can be acquired only through specular interaction, by which one observer uses his observation of other(s) observer(s) behavior to enhance his own understanding.

"It is because the community we belong to is not merely an aggregate of individual behaviors. (Note: i.e. statistical, uncoordinated behaviors) observed from outside, but moreover a cognitive reality for us, that the community exists and that we belong to it" (p. 154).

Shortly put: A society is in some sense a set of cognitive rings.

The concept is closely related to the basic ones of von FOERSTER Cybernetics of the 2nd order and JUMARIE's Relativistic theory of information. (see "Information theory").

An interesting observation by VULLIERME: "The cognitive rings do create these social membranes which are the boundaries. We reproduce them only because we respect them and we respect them only because we ourselves produce them by a cross interaction which spans and transcends individual wills" (p.155).

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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