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

REPLICATOR 1)4)

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Any element "able to create copies of itself" (R. DAWKINS, 1992, p.16).

DAWKINS writes: "Think of the replicator as a mould or template" (Ibid) and he proposes the following construction rules:

- there is an abundance of diverse types of building blocks around the replicator

- each building block may have an affinity for its own kind, – or possibly for some other specific kind – situated somewhere in the replicator

As a result, they may be able to attach themselves "in a sequence which mimics that of the replicator itself" (p.17).

Crystals are replicators.

Replication also exists, in different forms, in living systems: DNA – amoebas – cells. It would be interesting to study the public opinion phenomenon from the same viewpoint. The Swiss engraver A. BÖCKLIN produced in the 19 Century a print suggesting precisely this.

Replicators can be modeled as automata. For the time being, such automata are still computer models, whose concept developped out of von NEUMANN's model of cellular automaton known as "universal constructor". The state of the art has been described recently by M. SIPPER & J.A. REGGIA (2001)

The possibility to create material self replicating automata seems to become real and is related to the so-called Artificial Life

For an interesting comparison between memes and genes, both considered as replicators, see S. BLACKMORE (2000, p. 56-8)

→ Fitness function; Paralled Distributing Processing; Synaptic Weights

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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