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

LEARNING (Evolutionary reinforcement) 1)

← Back

A form of individual learning that should have an influence on the evolution of a group or a species.

This hypothesis was proposed by D.H ACKLEY (quoted by S. LEVY, 1992, p.265), who writes: "As dictated by their genetic code, gents would actually develop two neural networks: an "action network" that would convert sensory input into behaviors, and an "evaluation network" that would also draw from sensory input, by using that information to judge whether a particular situation was good or bad. Depending on the feedback it received after acting on that judgment, the agent would reinforce, or modify, its behavior" (1992, p.265).

It seems for example that individual ethological adaptation (e.g. the monkeys who learned to clean potatoes in sea salt water, in Japan), transmitted from generation to generation, modify the ecological niche of the species as a whole and could eventually lead to a different selection of random mutations.

ACKLEY successfully applied the idea to define a set of rules for evolving groups of artificial organisms, with positive results.

The model – a kind of Lamarckian transmission of acquired behavioral patterns – could probably be useful for the understanding of the way human organizations react to individual adaptations and innovations of some of their members.

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