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

SYSTEM (Autonomous) 1)

"A system whose action results of its own impulses, which selects its goals and the means to pursue them according to its knowledge of the laws of the world and its present perception" (F. BONSACK, 1990, p.118).

There are various understandings of what autonomy means; for a general survey, see: Autonomy.

F. BONSACK adds: "The source of actions is not however immune to any feedback from the world,… but these inputs should not be considered as the source of action: they only modulate the internal source" (Ibid.).

This is the basic meaning of the concept of autopoiesis.

R. ROSEN states: "It is absolutely essential… that the time-dependent inputs, or forcings, do not change the autonomous dynamics in any way. it must neither create nor violate the system constraints; more generally, it must not change any of the parameters which govern both transient and asymptotic behaviors in the autonomous system… This restriction is not often mentioned explicitly, but it is absolutely basic. Unless we impose it, the very identity of the system will depend on the environment with which it is interacting, i.e. the identity of the system in vacuo will be different from what it is in a specific context which is forcing it, that identity has become, in a sense, contextdependent" (1993, p.21).

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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