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

FUZZINESS: An epistemological evaluation 3)

According to M. ZELENY: "Any notion of fuzziness can be meaningful only in dependency on human systems, human observers, and human tools and strategies to describe reality: That is, human beings are the only and exclusive source of fuzziness in linguistic labelling – there is no other source" (1984, p.301).

While this is evident, it is also true of any knowledge and will remain so until some hypothetical non-human knowledge should appear.

Fuzzy models try to codify, measure and diminish ambiguities in natural languages and labels and, quoting I.R. GOODMAN and H.T. NGUYEN, we should remember that "The most complex mathematical expressions are meaningless unless they represent concepts at least theoretically expressable in natural language" (1985, p.13).

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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