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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REFLEX (Functional) 4)5)

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A reflex is functional if it responds adequately to the command triggered by the stimulus.

A behavior is functional if it is adequately adaptive. The functional behavior however, is created at the reflexological (or instrumental) level through the ordered inclusion of a number of coordinated reflexes within a reflexological system:

- able to produce a considerable choice of different sequences

- integrated, i.e. working as a regulated unit.

ASHBY expresses it in the following way: "the value of one part's behavior cannot be judged until the behavior of the other parts is known; and the values of their behaviors cannot be known until the first part's behavior is known. All the valuations are thus conditional, each depending on the others" (1960, p.7).

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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