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

OPPOSITES (Union of) 2)

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The character of interrelations that are at the same time antagonistic and synergetic.

Such a view disregards the traditional mutually exclusive character of opposites, which merely reflects the very strongly dichotomic bias in Western philosophy.

H. SABELLI and L. CARLSON-SABELLI write: "Every process contains complementary opposites, herein including energetic polarities, two-valued information and structural symmetries. Rise and fall, positive and negative, woman and man, right and left, cooperation and struggle, union and separation, similarity and difference, symmetry and asymmetry, necessarily coexist. In Heraclitus' magnificent words, there is harmony in strife and strife in harmony. In contrast, logic postulates the absolute separation of opposites, a premise that leads to black and white thinking" (1994).

H. SABELLI also states: "The term opposition refers to both synergic and antagonistic interactions. This apparent ambiguity of language reflects the fundamental fact that synergic interactions and antagonistic ones are closely associated" (1991, p.2).

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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