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

ELEMENT 1)2)

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The minimal components of a system such as their total set and the global set of their interrelations form the system.

According to I.V. BLAUBERG, V.N. SADOVSKY and E.G. YUDIN :"Since the element appears as a kind of limit for a possible decomposition of the object, its own structure (or composition) is usually disregarded in the characterization of the system…" and, "… in general an element cannot be described outside its functional characteristics: from the point of view of the system's wholeness it is not the substratum of the element which is of primary importance, but what it does within a whole, what functions it performs in it" (1977, p.139).

As the concept of element is also used to denote a mathematical basic part of a set, it becomes a link toward formalized models of concrete systems. However, such models should better include the specific interactions between the elements, and still better, the rules defining these interactions.

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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