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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DATA 3)5)

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Any elements of information.

G. BATESON observes: "… "data" are not events or objects but always records or descriptions or memories of events or objects.

Always there is a transformation or recoding of the raw event which intervenes between the scientist and his object" (1973, p.24).

This is true not only for the scientist, but also for any human being. Moreover, the transformation is at least physical and physiological and, as stated again by BATESON: "… always and inevitably, there is a selection of data because the total universe, past and present, is not subject to observation from any given observer's position… (and) no data are truly raw, and every record has been somehow subjected to editing and transformation either by man or by his instruments" (Ibid).

It could be added that data make sense only in contexts, acquiring different shades of meaning in different reference frames.

From another angle, the meaning of the word has been subtly changed since the advent of computers. In computers, data are not only collected, but also organized in order to be retrievable according to need for information treatment. As observed by W. REEVES: "Data is the specially designated electronic machine version of information. It has some structure, it may be true or not. It is not a process, but is does have the potential to render a meaning in the human observer. It lacks the human to human connection, but what is stored as data can only exist from human intervention either as input or algorithm" (1992, p.1100).

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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