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

EQUIFINALITY PRINCIPLE 1)

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"In open systems… the same final state may be reached from different initial conditions and in different ways" (L.von BERTALANFFY, 1956, p.4)

BERTALANFFY observes that this is not the case in closed systems and gives as an example the perfect previsibility of the movement of the planets and of their position at some t1 moment knowing their position at t0.(Ibid).

Let us remember that, nowadays, this previsibility is not anymore considered perfect (see:Chaos), which does not anymore allows for the unrestricted generalization of the quifinality principle to the physical systems.

The equifinality principle, as a conceptual model, replaces in biology the vitalist concept proposed by the German biologist H. DRIESCH based on his experiences on the development of sea urchins embryos: "The same final result, a normal individual of the sea urchin, can develop from a complete ovum, from each half of a divided ovum, or from the fusion product of two whole ova. The same applies to embryos of many other species, including man, where identical twins are the product of the splitting of one ovum" (Ibid).

BERTALANFFY adds: "… equifinality is not a mathematical characteristic but a physical characteristic of (certain) open systems. It does not depend on the structure of the system equations but on the meaning of the parameters so that formally identical equations may apply to non-equifinal closed systems as well as to equifinal open systems. However, the equifinal case where the final state depends only on the reaction and transport parameters, and not on the initial conditions, is found only in open systems" (Ibid).

In spite of its evident importance, the equifinality principle presents serious interpretative difficulties. For example, the same system necessarily starts from one and only one initial set of conditions and while it could follow different paths for its transformations, it wiII really take one, and only one.

Let us also remember the semantic ambiguities concealed under the concepts of "open", "closed" and "isolated" system.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

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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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