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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COHESION 2)4)

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The result of selective interactions between the elements or subsystems of a system.

"Cohesion is a gestalt property of a system" (M. BUNGE, 1988, p.7).

In effect any system is governed by a global dynamic law (J. THlERIE, 1990, p.442).

M. BUNGE comments:"lnterestingly enough, cohesion turns out not to be proportional to overall participation. Instead, it is maximal for middling participation – which is reasonable, since nil participation is incompatible with communality, whereas the participation of everyone in everyone else's affairs results in anarchy.

"Cohesion… emerges and submerges from interactions among the members of the group. It is a good illustration of the claim that systemism is a sort of synthesis of holism and individualism" (1988, p.7).

This explains altogether why complex systems are semi-decomposable (H. SIMON, 1958). Cohesion is centered around a set, more or less specific and localized, of basic interactions, eventually at different hierarchic levels.

→ Hora and Tempus parable

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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