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

REDUNDANCY in NETWORKS 2)

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The existence of a multiplicity of nodes and paths between them, able to perform in an equivalent manner.

The theory of redundancy in networks was developed by W.S. McCULLOCH, W.H. PITTS and J.von NEUMANN, who showed that redundancy offered the only hope to obtain satisfactory operative results from networks made of sometimes unreliable components.

In St. BEER words: "… von NEUMANN propounded a mathematical theorem which showed that if one is prepared to go on increasing the redundancy of a network without limit, it is possible to obtain an output of arbitrarily high accuracy from a network whose components are of arbitrarily low reliability" (1968, p.201).

This is so in natural networks, like the cerebral cortex, which remains more or less reliable as a whole, even when numerous neurons have been lost, for example because of a cerebral haemorrhage. It is also the case in artificial networks and even in social ones, as may be seen when they repair themselves, sometimes after massive destruction of elements and interconnections.

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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