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 (Dynamic) 1)2)

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A system "to which events occur, whose state changes over time" (R.L. ACKOFF, 1972).

ACKOFF also calls it "multi-state".

It is difficult to conceive a system that would not be dynamic. Even very stable systems, like fossils, are merely the present, and of course not eternal result of a long physicochemical transformation. The expression is thus somewhat tautological!

E. OTT and M. SPANO, who investigate the possibilities of controlling chaos, give a more elaborated definition of what they call a dynamical system: "One whose evolution is deterministic in the sense that its future is determined by its current state and past history" (1995, p.34).

This definition implicitely contains the possibility of chaotic behavior, because of the possible "exponential sensitivity" to initial conditions.

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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