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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LEVELS (Integrative) 2)

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A theory of Integrative Levels was summarized by J. K FEIBLEMAN as early as 1954 (1954, p.59-66), as a synthesis from previous work by K.L.von BERTALANFFY, J.H. WOODGER and A.B. NOVIKOFF.

FEIBLEMAN stated the following laws of levels:

1. Each level organizes the level or levels below it plus one emergent quality.

2. Complexity of the levels increases upward.

3. In any organization the higher level depends upon the lower.

4. In any organization the lower level is directed by the higher.

5. For any organization at any given level, its mechanism lies at the level below and its purpose at the level above.

6. A disturbance introduced into an organization at anyone level reverberates at all the levels it covers

7. The time required for a change in organization shortens as we ascend the levels.

8. The higher the level, the smaller its population of instances.

9. It is impossible to reduce the higher level to the lower.

10. An organization at any level is a distortion of the level below.

11. Events at any given level affect organizations at other levels.

12. Whatever is affected as an organization has some effects as an organization.

To these characteristics, FEIBLEMAN added some significant rules of explanation related to levels of integration:

1. The reference of any organization must be at the lowest level which will provide sufficient explanation.

2. The reference of any organization must be to the highest level which the explanation requires. (FEIBLEMAN adds the following and significant comment: "The lowest levels are complex enough to make explanation a difficult affair, but over-simplification does not explain: it explains away" (p.64)

3. An organization belongs to its highest level.

4. Every organization must be explained finally on its own level.

5. No organization can be explained entirely in terms of a lower of higher level.

FEIBLEMAN's is a very seminal paper. Some of his concepts on levels have been rediscovered, and extended, later on – possibly without knowledge of his work – by other authors as for example:

- K. BOULDING with his 8 levels of complexity

- J. MILLER, with his taxonomy of living systems.

- H. SABELLI who in his process theory emphasizes the "priority of the simple" and the "supremacy of the complex".

- H. SIMON with his "Architecture of complexity".

- J.van GIGCH with his theory of metasystems.

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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