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.

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RECOGNITION 1)2)4)

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The adaptive and continuous correlation of elements in a give physical domain to the new events taking place in another physical domain more or less independent of the first one (G. EDELMAN, 2000, p.109)

EDELMAN adds: "These adjustments take place without any previous instruction, through selection within a hypervariable set…. These recognition systems are based on similar principles…

- there is a variety (in french: "diversité") generator inside the internal domain

- there is an interaction mode between the external domain, and the various repertories inside the internal domain

- there is a differential amplification of some elements of the internal domain" (Ibid)

This last principle is concurrent with RUMELHART & Mc CLELLAND'S Parallel distributed processing.

EDELMAN gives the following examples: "In immunology these two domains are obviously antibodies and antigenes. In development they are the genetic and the epigenetic (i.e.: cellular environment). In the neuro-sciences they are dynamic neuronal structures and sets of informations, or stimuli originating in the external world" (Ibid)

MATURANA would problably accept "stimuli", but reject "information": the world is as it is and there is no information without a brain. For EDELMAN, the brain is a network. In the quoted interview (as in his former works) he develops his model.

Cooperative or associative behavior cannot work if the elements cannot somehow "recognize" each other.

This is specially true in complex relationships in groups.

The deepest nature of so-called "recognition" is however quite enigmatic.

While it would be highly anthropomorphic to say that atoms of hydrogen "recognize" atoms of oxygen, or chlorine as possible "associates", it is however obvious that chemical valencies that imply potencial complementarity have in a very basic sense a social meaning.

Characteristic significance by associative capacity through some forms of compatibility and complementarity does also emerge all along biological levels, for ex. from enzymes on.

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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