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.

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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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"The unit of structural information is that which enables one such new distinguishable group to be defined for a representation." (D. GABOR, as quoted by D.G. Mac KAY)

Mac KAY, who adapted GABOR's concept, comments:

"Thus structural information is not concerned with the number of elements in a pattern, but with the possibility of distinguishing between them" (1969, p.165).

This is the same characteristic difference which exist between homogeneity and heterogeneity, in space as well as in time as the following example given by Mac Kay expresses:

"… if we are counting identical sheeps jumping through a gate, and we have no sense of time, our result can only be represented by a certain total number; but if we have a clock we can now define what we mean by "the number in the first minute" and "in the second" and so forth, and represent our result by a set of distinguishable subtotals. The clock has provided structural information. In a similar way the ability to distinguish (e.g) spatial position along the gate would provide distinguishable subtotals and hence increase the structural information- content of our representation" (p.165).

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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