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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EFFICIENCY (Limits to) 2)4)

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Efficiency is a somewhat questionable concept. If applied to systems functionality, it is possible to distinguish at least three different shades of meaning:

- Minimal efficiency, needed for the sheer survival of the system;

- Maximal efficiency, the system being pushed to its maximal level of activity compatible with its survival within the environment which provides it with its inputs. In such a condition, the system can easily cross some dangerous instability threshold;

- Sustainable efficiency, which guarantees that the system should be able to maintain its activity for long time through a well-balanced use of its environmental inputs sources.

H. ODUM gives the curious following example: "The elimination of fire from pine woods sets the stage for disastrous fires twenty years later" (1971, p.226).

This suggests that even the qualitative aspects of efficiency should be carefully considered. It also implies that short term efficiency may very well be incompatible with long term efficiency. This last observation may have an ominous significance for the present hyper-efficient use. of natural resources by human systems.

Still, instability thresholds, crossed because of such hyper-efficiency, may also lead to the emergence of more complex systems.

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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