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

SELF-SIMPLIFICATION 2)

← Back

This is an evolutionary process postulated by H. PATTEE, as indispensable to complement mutation by random search and subsequent selection, which must be considered in his opinion as quite an insufficient explanation for evolution (1972, p.39).

PATTEE sees self-simplification as a jump from one level of complexity to the next higher one, more or less akin to SIMON's Hora and Tempus metaphor.

It implies self-description through a code, i.e. "… a new hierarchical level of (self) description which selectively ignores the trapped details at the lower level" (p.39).

Self-simplification could result, through the steering power of such a code, from the appearance at the higher levels of specific (i.e. constrained) networks of interrelations between very numerous elements. In this way composite systems could conceivably produce complex systems, as for example in the social phase of the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

It could also possibly correspond to N. ELDREDGE and S. GOULD concept of punctuated evolution, as well as to biological ordering through genetic codes and social order through values and norms.

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint