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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"… The condition were the representative point of the system is trapped in a single confluent" (St. BEER, 1968, p.477).

BEER explains: "That is a lethal state of affairs; the system can no longer adapt: however much it is stimulated, and however often the point leaves equilibrium in E., it always returns. This is the model of over-specialization, of obsolescence leading to extinction and death" (Ibid.).

Systems reach this condition when the amount of redundancy contained in their original program becomes nearly exhausted. This is closely related to ageing and equifinality, and also to a dwindling amplitude of homeostatic fluctuations. All of these effects reflects the finally unavoidable increase of entropy in the system.

While BEER refers himself more specifically to human organizations, the concept may also be applied to biological systems.

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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