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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ORGANIZER 2)5)

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Some biologists – among them H. SPEEMAN-discovered that the amphibian embryo contains a section that has the potential to induce and to promote-when grafted in another embryo- the appearance of a second embryo, in many cases complete. This section has been called "organizer"

C. WADDINGTON described in detail this process of embryonic determination as a sequence of progressive constraints on the original equipotentiality condition (Waddington's inverted cones, as a diagramatic way of representing this course of embryonic determination) (See J. NEEDHAM, 1968, p. 58)

The organizer is also a feature of WADDINGTON's morphogenetic fields. for his part, the Belgian biologist A. DALCO tackled the organizer concept in his 1940 book.

Of course, a disquieting question mark remains: "How does the organizer appear?", as for example in CSANYI's proposed zero-system model.

Another intriguing point is the possible existence of organizers as features of complex biological and of metabiological systems. On this point, NEEDHAM writes: "It was soon recognized that the organizer phenomena were not confined to amphibia, for parallel cases were found in echinoderms (HÖRSTADIUS) insects (SEIDEL), and birds and mammals (WADDINGTON) (p. 83)

And could the organizer model be translated to meta-biological and social systems?

→ Autogenetic system precursor; Bifurcation; Gradient; Morphogenesis; Nodal activity; Positional value; Threshold; Zero-System

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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