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

INTEGRATING MECHANISMS 1)4)

← Back

Integrating mechanisms are a general feature of organized systems. They exist at every level of complexity, at least from the atomic one up to the social one. They are always relational mechanisms, based on some complementarity or some response to an external constraint.

An extraordinary biological example is the production of acrasin in the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum, when starvation sets in within a colony of this organism, as a result of overpopulation within an environment limited in resources. (J.T. BONNER, 1988, p.231).

The search for the corresponding mechanisms in sociosystems is not yet systematic and no definitive conclusions exist until now. However, norms, beliefs, ideologies and scientific or philosophical paradigms are probably integrating mechanisms, resulting from the necessity to collectively face environmental pressures.

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