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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EVALUATOR 2)4)

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A device within an adaptive system that "calculates an estimate of the "distance" of any given situation from the goal"( J HOLLAND, 1992, p.48)

The evaluator needs to receive information from detectors about the results of the most recent actions.

HOLLAND observes: "There is however a caveat. If the set of detectors is inadequate, for whatever reason, the improvement of the evaluator will be blocked. This raises the broad issue of pattern recognition, for the set of detectors is, of course, meant to enable the (genetic adaptive) plan to recognize critical features for goal-attainment" (Ibid).

HOLLAND also offers adequacy criteria for detectors: "The estimates are supposed to take the costs of the transformations, etc., into account; that is, the "distances" are usually weighted path lengths, where the paths involved are (conjectured) sequences of transformations leading from given situations to the goal. The intent is to use these estimates to determine which transformations should be carried out next. An evaluation is made of each of the situations which could be produced from the current one by the application of allowed (simple sequences of) transformations, and then that (sequence of) transformation(s) is executed, which leads to the new situation estimated to be "nearest" the goal." (Ibid)

Evaluators are an essential part of any adaptive system, from biology to business and artificial life devices.

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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