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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STELLAR TYPE SYSTEM 1)2)

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A. MALINOWSKY proposed this concept according to which an integrated system maintains a maximum coordination through a central link, or subsystem, uniting and controlling the whole of the internal organization of the system. Only this central subsystem is tied up in an evolutive way. This means that eventual innovative characteristics within the dependent subsystems are allowed only if they do not contradict the constraints imposed by the central subsystem (See BLAUBERG et al, 1977, p.218)

The appearent contradiction between autopoiesis and evolution seems thus eliminated. Evolution is still possible, but only within the limits of the already strictly fixed characteristics resulting of former evolution.

By the way, this explains why there is no "way back" in evolution: it is never possible to undo what has been done. In parasitism for example, even when various functional subsystems are eliminated or reduced, the basic nature of the paraSite is not altered.

Conversely, a new adaptive device, may very well be quite innovative and solve in a completely unexpected way a seemingly insoluble problem: man has no wings, but he may "fly", for example using a Delta wing.

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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