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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LANDSCAPE 2)

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The global space-time wherein a system may seek better, or the best possible fitness conditions.

This is a more or less metaphorical description used by St. KAUFFMAN for the general study of the fitness conditions of biological systems (1993, Ch.2 to 4). He writes: "Adaptive evolution in real populations is necessarily a search process driven by mutation, recombination, drift, and selection over either fixed or deforming fitness landscapes" (p.95). However such landscapes can be mathematically modelized (p.95-120).

Landscapes can be more or less rugged, which means that a number of different situations can exist, offering variable fitness conditions. Very rugged landscapes imply separated islands of strong stability from which a system cannot easily escape, as it is in a nearly frozen states. Shallow landscapes imply the opposite conditions.

A single system is normally best adapted (fit) to a specific space-time situation, and may loose fitness if the situation changes too much for its adaptive capacity.

A population of some class of systems has the potentiality to globally adapt to changing situations by mutations and the search for better spots within the landscape.

This concept could be important for managers or leaders of human systems, seeking a better understanding of the evolving fitness conditions of their charge.

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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