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

SUBSYSTEM 1)

"An element or functional component of a larger system which fulfills the conditions of a system in itself, but which also plays a specialized role in the operation of the larger system" (V. CSANYI, 1993, p.67).

According to CSANYI, subsystems are "…communities of simultaneously replicating components".

The subsystem is thus simultaneously an interacting component in a suprasystem and in its own right a system made of interacting components.

This author explains that subsystems result in a progressive way from the increase of specific and different replicative cycles during the process of autogenesis in the recently shaped system: "Their components are separated from others by their participation in co-replication". He adds that: "As time passes, replicative coordination of various supercycles develop and fidelity of replication increases" (1993, p.263) As a result, functional differentiation and cooperation grow on par.

CSANYI's "supercycles" are the primeval form or M. EIGEN's hypercycles, which are thus stabilized supercycles.

A subsystem can in most cases be clearly recognized because it perfoms a specific function.

Subsystems are generally made of numerous components. As a rule, they interact with each other in specific ways. They frequently exchange their products and the output of one of them may be an input for another.

Most of them are critical for the system: the demise of one of them generally brings along the destruction of the whole system within a short time. This is specially true when the system is strongly integrated.

M. BUNGE observes: If a system does have subsystems, not just components, then the cohesion of the subsystems competes with that of the overall system" (1979, p.37). This may explain why, in very complex systems whose global coherence is costly and difficult to maintain, some subsystems may turn more or less parasitic of their own system: Bureaucracy could be an example.

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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