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

INVIRONMENT 1)4)

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The internal milieu of a system, separated from the environment by the boundary, or interface.

This is a neologism that this author considers useful and appropriate, because it reflects a well characterized and quite common situation.

The invironment remains within precise limits, with the help of a set of coordinated mechanisms of regulation, which were described in cybernetic terms by P. VENDRYES in his noteworthy book "Vie et Probabilité" (1942).

In biology, it corresponds to the French physiologist CI. BERNARD "milieu intérieur". In BERNARD's words: "In all living beings, the internal medium, which is a product of the organism, maintains the needed exchange relations with the external medium; but as the organism becomes more perfect, the organic medium specifies and isolates itself more and more of the external medium" (1864, reed. 1952).

W. CANNON's homeostasis is dynamic stability within the invironment.

Human systems, such as industrial or business firms, organizations of any kind, nations, etc…, possess an invironment which appears in the guise of recognized and generally codified values, norms, obliged or more or less tolerated of prohibited behaviors, symbolic representations like languages, specific knowledge, currencies, emblems etc., and a proper space of restricted access to those who are not part of the system.

Invironment should not however be considered static. W. BUCKLEY observes that the internal organization of an adaptive system allows it to discern changes in its environment and discover adequate new responses to these. When these responses modify the general behavior and processes in the system, it may be said that its invironment has adapted. (1967).

Globally however, the system's invironment must remain autopoietic and cannot adapt too far away from its basic nature.

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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