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

PLANET as a SYSTEM 1)

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A. LOTKA introduced the idea to consider our planet as a whole, as a global system (although using a vocabulary of mecanicist style); "The great world engine – in which each of us is a most insignificant little wheel – has its energy source, its firebox, so to speak, in the sun" (1956, p.331).

This is more than a mere metaphor. LOTKA dedicates a significant part of his "Elements of mathematical biology" to the study of energetic exchanges between the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the hydrosphere and describes, in an explicite way the living beings as a whole (biosphere) or a unified system of coupled transformers of energy, tending towards its maximal possible use, in connexion with the planet system.

LOTKA has been indeed a precursor of LOVELOCK's GAIA's idea and of PRIGOGINE's thermodynamics of dissipative systems.

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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