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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SIMULTANEOUS EFFECTS 1)3)

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Simultaneous perception by neurons is not absolute.

J.von NEUMANN writes: "…Wherever "simultaneity" is mentioned in the above (note: i.e. in nerve stimulation), it cannot and does not mean actual, exact simultaneity. In each case there is a finite period of grace, a summation time, such that two pulses arriving within such a time period still act as if they had been simultaneous. Actually, things may even be more complicated than this – the summation time may not be a sharp concept. Even after a slighly longer time, the previous pulse may still be summed to the subsequent one, to a gradually decreasing, partial extent" (1958, p.55-56).

Perfect simultaneity thus seems to be still one more abstract concept, which conceals a practical observational impossibility, even at the receivers end.

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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