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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REVALIDATION (Cybernetic cycle of) 1)2)

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In his well known lecture "The surrogate world we manage", St. BEER explained why and how our model of any factual situation or issue must be constantly (or at least frequently) revalidated (1973)

Modeling should be ideally a dynamic ongoing process, at least for five reasons:

1- our perceptions of anything in the world outside ourselves (and even inside!) are always parcialized, as our senses are such imperfect perceptive devices (even when aided by instruments)

2- our model construction is subjective by nature and depends on our acquired frames of references and their more or less frequently verified relative validity

3- we tend to confuse our model with the objective/ reality (as we understand it)

4- after a time lapse- that can be long or short-the external situation has probably changed, and sometimes very much so

5- when we make decisions for action, apply them to the perceived issue or situation and the results are unsatisfactory, we tend to cling to our model, whatever the cost, and thus introduce our own evaluation problem as one more factor of disturbance

Consequently we should revise and recycle our models in a cybernetic way, considering registered external changes and the results of our own interventions as recurrent feedbacks

→ Decision making; Program; Strategy

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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