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

HISTORICAL DIMENSION in systems 1)

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Any nonlinear irreversible system has its own history. This is a consequence, in I. PRIGOGINE words of: "…symmetry breaking dissipative structures in which the system has the "choice" between various possibilities. The type of initial fluctuations determines the specific dissipative structure which will be realized. Once realized this dissipative structure is stable against the type of fluctuations considered. Succesions of instabilities of this type may occur, involving a kind of primitive memory or, so to say, a historical dimension. The present structure of the system can only be understood in terms of the succession of instabilities through which it was originated" (1973, p.71). Thus, wide fluctuations and the resulting bifurcations: "… introduce in a sense "history" in physics" (1978, p.46).

This is also explained in the following way by G. NICOLlS; "A bifurcation is really a moment when a decision is taken as… the system is confronted with multiple choices. It thus becomes sensible to random effects that, by way of statistical fluctuations, will finally favour one of the accessible states. Once chanelled on one specific branch of states, the system will follow a course closely determined by this critical choice. In some sense, it then becomes a historical object, which will forever keep the record of former events that prevailed at the successive bifurcation points encountered. In sum, in addition to deterministic elements, concepts like randomness and history play a primordial role in evolution" (1984, p.12).

NICOLlS calls this "the insertion of time within matter" (Ibid).

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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