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

HETEROSTAT 2)4)5)

← Back

"A system that seeks (moves toward) a maximal condition while not necessarily ever achieving it" (H. KLOPF, 1972, p.9).

According to KLOPF :"The primary goal of animals, including man, is the achievement of a maximal condition (of excitation), not the achievement of a steady-state condition… The variable to be maximized is that of the amount of neural polarization being experienced (which is) defined to be equal to the amount of depolarization (pleasure) minus the amount of hyperpolarization (pain) (p.5)

The author adds the following comments: "Nervous systems are so structured that homeostasis is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the maintenance of heterostasis. This explains why organisms vigorously pursue homeostasis even while it is not their primary goal. That homeostasis is a subgoal suggests that survival may not be as central a concern of living systems as has been previously assumed" (p.5).

From a more general viewpoint he considers that "The nature of heterostats is such that they do not cooperate as parts of larger heterostatic systems unless they have more positive than negative reinforcement to do so" (p.57).

The present example of the difficult ordering of various supra-national systems seems to confirm KLOPF's opinion. It seems thus possible that the growing severity of global planetary messes may exert finally a favourable influence.

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint