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

EMERGENCE BY RANDOM FLUCTUATIONS 2)

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Any composite system, while endowed with dynamic stability at its own macro level (as being in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium), may undergo random fluctuations at a microlevel.

Such fluctuations may become amplified, by positive feedbacks and grow to the point of creating higher level macro structures within the system. Endly, they may be stabilized by negative feedbacks.

The global result is a new global behavior, that was not initially predictable. In J.de ROSNAY words: "Each random fluctuation is a possibility of new organisation, implying a kind of information. When amplified by a positive feedback, any fluctuation becomes a random variety generator, base of any evolution" (1975, p.226).

It seems that emergence of a higher level of complexity is possible only in composite systems, wherein the elements possess initially a considerable degree of autonomy and are all quite similar. Their ordering by structurating fluctuations which become fixed seems to be the basic process of organization of heterogeneous social systems, i.e. complex systems. If such is the case, what ROSNAY calls "evolution" should be better named "complexification" or "integration of 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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