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

SPECULARITY 4)

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"A mode of complex organization (verified in anthropo-social systems) whose dynamics consists of a tangle of internal modelizations" (J.L. VULLIERME, 1990, p.147).

VULLIERME states: "Complexification has become an imperative in social sciences, as shown by the "specular theories".

"These theories start from the hypothesis that all anthropo-social organizations are based on the "specular interaction" of their members, i.e., a crossed cognitive interaction (see: "Cognitive rings"), such as any agent refers to himself only through reference to the way that others agents refer themselves to him" (p.148).

Thus the behavior of all agents is derived from these cross-references.

It seems moreover that:

1. this way to social complexity exists also in animal societies, as shown for example by Th. SEELEY's studies on honeybees (1989), and the one of SUSSMAN on the social phase of Dictyostelium discoideum (1964).

2. there exits also an indirect way of reciprocal social conditioning, by observation of the material results of the activities of other members even if these are absent, or even if they already disappeared (see stigmergy).

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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