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

MODELING and METAMODELING 2)3)

J van GIGCH emphasizes the important distinction between modeling and metamodeling: "Modeling… implies that the modeler "abstracts" properties from things in order to obtain a representation of the physical world. It is easy to conceptualize that the model stands at a level of abstraction higher than the things from which the properties are obtained. The process of abstraction can be applied to modeling itself, to obtain a model of the modeling process which we call a metamodel.

"The metamodel embodies the properties which are abstracted from all models (There is more than one model). By metamodeling we imply a process of design which is carried out at the metalevel, and by which we define how the process of modeling (at the object level of abstraction), is to be carried out. METAMODELING defines the epistemology or design foundations of modeling. Design foundations consist of the reasoning processes, guarantees of truth, proofs, axioms of validity, or any other logic which underlies a methodology.

"Any discussion of modeling must, of necessity, involve metamodeling from which the former evolved" (1992, p.2-3).

If it does not involve it explicitly, it does it in an implicite – if not more or less unconscious – way. This can be risky, because:

- hidden epistemological assumptions may be unsound

- they may even be perfectly sound in the modeler's view, but not admitted by all stakeholders. This may remain unknown if the metamodel is not openly discussed.

This is still more important at the meta-metamodeling level, where values are paramount.

This "ladder" for validation is related to GÖDEL's Theorem, as shown by Ch. FRANÇOIS (1987), as well as with KORZYBSKI'S structural differential.

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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