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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INTEGRATION vs ISOLATION 1)

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More than contradictory or incompatible, integration and isolation seem somehow complementary forces.

J. T. BONNER writes: "It is an interesting paradox that at all levels of complexity there seem to be forces which bring components together, as in integration of cells into individual organisms, or gatherings of organisms into social groups; but at the same time there are other forces which work in the opposite direction and cause those individual organisms or those social groups to be isolated from one another. Curiously, the forces which seem to be working in opposite directions producing integration and isolation are the same; they are forces of natural selection" (1988, p.229).

In order to be able to establish well defined interconnections, based on reciprocal constraints, the components of any system must be separated from each others, but not to the point that relationships could never become established. BONNER describes the different biological and ethological mechanisms which al low for these antithetic processes. For a good example, see "Dictyosteliun discoideum".

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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