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 OVERLOAD 1)4)

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Any input of data which exceeds the integration and interpretation capability of a human brain.

While communication overload occurs in transmission systems as for example telephone nets or streets, information overload is a material (see R. WURMAN, 1989), but also, according to W. REEVES, a psycho-social phenomenon. Everywhere: "… the multiplicity of papers, periodicals, mail, notes, memos and videos… inundates our daily lives and numbs our critical thinking processes" (1992).

It occurs, writes K. DEUTSCH "within the minds and nervous systems of people…" and "The wider the range of relevant choices we put before a person of limited physical and psychic resources and capabilities, the more acute and pressing we make his problem of economy in allocating his own time, attention and resources" (1961, p.96).

Information overload is rapidly becoming a critical issue, because it interferes with the management of complexity (of which it is an important aspect in itself. REEVES contends "that the information explosion is a tremendous obscuring force for the the cognitive process within our society" (1992, p.95).

As an antidote for information overload in situations where the flow of information exceeds processing capacity, J. WARFIELD proposes his law of requisite parsimony.

→ "Christmas tree effect"

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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