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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REGULATION (Self) in Societies 4)5)

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Sociologists and theoretical economists of the past described self-regulation in societies under various guises long time before its cybernetic modelling.

F. CAPRA gives the following examples: "The best known, perhaps, are the "invisible hand" regulating the market in the economic theory of A. SMITH, the "checks and balances" of the US Constitution, and the interplay of thesis and antithesis in the dialectic of HEGEL and MARX. The phenomenons described by these models and metaphors all imply circular patterns of causality that can be represented by feedback loops"(1977, p. 62)

However, as also stated by CAPRA"… but none of these authors made the fact explicit"(Ibid)

As a result these models (with the exception of the "checks and balances"of the US Constitution) became all more or less ideologically tainted in their applications, with at times, very dubious results.

Accordingly, in human systems as enterprises, organizations, economic and in political law making, any modification of processes, functions, subsystems or relationships with the environment (previously clearly described) should be carefully scrutinized. Any subsequent planning should watch for underconceptualization, in order to avoid what is generally known as "vicious circles".

These are in fact uncompensated and unilateral positive or negative feedbacks unwittingly introduced.

This is also the case with so-called "self fulfilling prophecies".

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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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