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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HETERARCHY 1)2)4)

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A decentralized arrangement of nodes in a network.

This concept was introduced by W. Mc CULLOCH who explained that the relationships among the nodes may be variable, and even contradictory.

Heterarchy can also be defined as a noncentrally distributed system of components with various interconnected focal elements in a hierarchical organization.

Heterarchy is quite different from the treelike classical hierarchy. Not every decision must be here taken or controlled by the top power. Moreover, many elements, if not all, are multivalent and may, up to a point, play different roles in the system and replace each other.

According to G. WEINBERG, many attempts to use strictly hierarchical models are ill adapted to complex systems (and particularly, human systems), which are more like hybrids of hierarchical and heterarchical systems (1972, p.272).

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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