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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CONTROL (Hierarchic) 1)2)

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The control at each level by a higher level control.

P. CORNING writes: "…the principles that control higher levels may serve to restrict, order and "harness" lower levels". He uses an example by POLANYI (1968): "The grammatical rules that govern the structure of various human languages utilize but also subsume the principles of phonetics".

Thus, without phonemes there is no language.

But phonemes without some superseding ordering cannot become a language.

This is another example of SABELLI's "priority of the simple" and "supremacy of the complex"(1994).

It also corresponds neatly with van GIGCH 's model of control by recursion (1986). At higher levels, it becomes obvious that the relationship between the complex and the elements is bidirectional. A "revolt" of the elements- at time due to abuse of the higher complex can destroy the whole. For example, an alcoholic can destroy his liver…and as a result the liver destroys the alcoholic.

In P. CORNING's words: "… In short, there is both upward and downward causation in nature, and very often a synthesis of the two" (1998b, p. 14)

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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