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

PREDICTIVE EVENT 1)2)4)

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An event that normally precedes some other event.

The concept of predictive event is useful but quite ambiguous. A lightning is most generally succeeded by a thunderclap, because it is its direct cause and the connection between both is quite evident and inmediate.

Some events produce however their consequences in faraway places where they may remain unknown, or after such a long span of time that the perception of any connection is lost. In some cases distance in space and/or time does not suppress the predictive value of an observation. B.S. ORLOVE et al. have described cases of use of predictive meteorological events made by more or less archaic populations in south America, Asia, Africa and Australia, all of these strictly based on empirical observations of clouds or brightness of stars (2002, p. 428-35)

On the other hand, the event becomes predictive for the observer who has already witnessed at least one (and better, various) similar sequences of events.

And even this is not enough if the observer has no model or frame of reference through which the observation makes sense. However, as in the case of so-called ethno-climatology, the frame of reference does not need to be an elaborated scientific theory.

→ Clue; Predictability; Predictor; Prediction; Prospective

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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