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

ENERGY 1)

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The power to bring about some transformation.

This definition is merely for general practical use. In fact, as G.L. FARRE states: "No one really knows what energy actually is. We only observe its transformations, which are represented by the laws of science, and marked by the eventual traces they leave…whatever energy is, it is at the very least the dynamical principle of the observable universe"(1998b, p. 262)

We do not observe energy directly, but merely through events, i.e. changes produced by it. FARRE also notes that energy manifests itself under different aspects at different levels of the observable world, from the quanta to the gravitational level (Ibid.)

Energy is quite an abstract concept, that we extract from perceived manifestations of change as for example electric, mechanical or thermic transfers, that may become or made visible through material phenomena.

It seems to be part of our very basic perceptive and mental structure, and inseparable from these other very basic notions: time, space and matter.

This may explain why the global concept of energy emerged only slowly, through the works of the 19th and 20th centuries thermodynamicists and of EINSTEIN.

According to D. SEIDEN and H. SABELLI: "Flowing in the direction of time, energy as well as change embodies a form, namely unidimensional asymmetry" or: "Process theory identifies… cosmic asymmetry as the temporal flow of energy" (1992, p.721).

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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