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

MATTER 1)3)

← Back

Anything that can be perceived as occupying some space during some time.

The true nature of matter seems to become evermore elusive in modern science. EINSTEIN's understanding that particulate matter could be the result of local and instantaneous energy concentrations in a fundamentally continuous field is becoming more and more confirmed.

H. SABELLI and L. CARLSON-SABELLI formulate that idea as an hypothesis: "Structures of matter are formed when opposite forces in a system are both of high and similar intensity… At the most fundamental level, energy forms matter, which is an equilibrium or symmetry between opposing energies" (1992, p. 663).

D. BOHM and F.D. PEAT go farther and write: "Current quantum field theory implies that what appears to be empty space contains an immense "zero point energy", coming from all the quantum fields that are contained in this space. Matter is then a relatively small wave or disturbance on top of this "ocean" of energy" (1987, p.199).

As stated by A. KORZYBSKI, there can be no matter outside space and time and the equivalence and convertibility of energy into matter and conversely, also proposed by EINSTEIN, has been dramatically confirmed by nuclear fission.

The possibility that matter appears as the materialization of vortexes in interacting fields has also been studied by the French engineer Ch. LAVILLE (1950)… and obviously already sensed by d'ARCY W. THOMPSON in his famous work on "Growth and Form" (1916).

Matter is somehow related to information. L. CARLSON-SABELLI and H. SABELLI state: "Energy, matter and structure coexist as three distinct inseparable aspects of action. Even the simplest subatomic particles have material and energetic aspects (quantum wave, particle duality) and contain information, albeit limited (quantum uncertainty)" (Ibid).

To conclude, so-called "matter" could be a fragmented perceptive and conceptual interpretation of an integrated reality whose true nature remains elusive.

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