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

INFORMATION, as an energy modulation 1)

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It is sometimes forgotten that no information can be transmimtted without an energy support of some kind. Moreover, this energy must be modulated, i.e. its transmission must be irregular, have some rhythmic complexity in form of a mix of waves. Thus the energy-information dichotomy is, in some sense a mental fabrication, becomes easily a quagmire, and should be used with care. In R.N. ADAMS words: "Information succeeds in stimulating, igniting, moving and more generally triggering INFORMATION energetic activity because, and only because, it is also energetic activity… The insistance on dualism has inhibited exploring how the two were related" (1988, p.80).

In this sense, the insistance of BATESON on information as consisting only of abstract "differences" may lead to epistemological problems.

All that we have learnt about the different forms of energy confirms that it presents always a variety of frequencies and amplitudes. On the other hand, physical sciences and technology showed that such frequencies and amplitudes may be, or not, perceived by various natural organic receptors, which became adapted in a selective way to only some of them.

Moreover, present technology allows artificial decoding of frequencies and amplitudes that cannot be perceived organically, and their conversion into perceptible ones. In this way we succeed in transforming potential information into usable one. Such is the case with ultra and infrasounds, radio waves, ultra-violet and infrared radiation, X-rays, gamma-rays, etc…

In all these cases, there is no doubt that information is carried along by energy. However, the origin of modulations and of our ability to perceive only some of them is still not so clear.

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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