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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STEERING (Self-) 2)4)

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The automatic self guidance of a system.

If social systems are autopoietic and in dynamic equilibrium, it could be conjectured that their steering by leaders is, at least in part, an illusion. The leaders who become powerful could merely be those who understand, or even merely perceive, the basic trends and needs of the system at some precise moment, and know how to translate them into proposals and projects. On the contrary, the would be leaders who do not interpret correctly the needs of the system, would find themselves blocked by its resistance to the changes they propose.

However, if social systems are evolutive and emergent – as it seems to be the case at some moments in history – then the random appearence of some or other leader in such a system in a far-from-equilibrium situation, could be determinant for the emergence of a more complex system at a bifurcation point.

The whole subject was treated in "Sociocybernetic paradoxes" – Eds. F. GEYER and J. van der ZOUWEN (1986)

→ Governability

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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