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

DECISION THEORY 1)3)

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"The corpus of theoretical knowledge which bears on the process of reaching the best decision" (after S. BEER,1968, p.211).

This corpus is now enormous and quite dismembered, since it has been considered from numerous and varied viewpoints by many authors. However, BEER's cybernetic and systemic 1968 treaty on "Decision and Control" remains a most important source on the cybernetic- systemic decision theory.

According to M. BELIS: "The decision theory aims at the establishment of a rational base for action in uncertainty. It is a normative theory as it elaborates the rules along which a rational decision making system (human or technical) should operate in order to reach its goal. It is also a descriptive theory which tries to discover and formalize those algorithms used by human beings when facing uncertainty.

"When facing a decision problem, the system must chose a response (or an action) in order to maximize a performance index. The interference of the response with the environment generates an event, namely the result, whose usefulness is assessed by comparing it with the goal.

"The uncertainties that may exist in a decision problem are related to the state of the environment, to the set of possible actions, to the potential results and their usefulness in relation to the goal. The decision system may be short of information on one or various of these points. Sometimes uncertainty may affect the goal itself.

"One of the fundamental, and still not solved, aspects of the decision theory is related to the algorithm which should allow us to transform the incomplete and disparate information at our disposal in relation to the states of the environment.

"This leads to question the very fundaments of the concept of probability, which should from now on acquire a broader meaning.

"It must be also defined in the cases of isolated (non recurrent) events and permit to calculate the numerical value of the apriori probability (i.e. before the experiment) in the general case of unequally possible events" (1987, p.57-58).

Decision theory is also concerned with risk assessment, cost and benefits evaluation and programing of the best course to follow in time in relation to resources presently available or supposed to become available in due time.

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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