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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SYSTEM (Hypothesis of the lone) 3)

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R. VALLÉE proposes the hypothesis of the "lone system", being an observing system unique in a given environment and emphasizes the difference in its quality of knowledge "as compared with the case of a collectivity of such systems" (1991a, p.143).

A lone system exists within a universe that it is able to know only within the limitations of its own perceptive and interpretative capacity. It can be said that it remains secluded within its own epistemological ability (VALLEE's "epistemological subjectivity").

Its relation with its universe depends on its own characteristics as an observation operator and on its aptness as a decision operator. VALLÉE makes clear that "We suppose furthermore that the system is what we call a cybernetic system, i.e. a system able to oberve its environment and itself" (Ibid).

On such a base the system can observe, decide and act, modifying its environment and itself, but strictly within the limits of its so-called epistemological subjectivity. This situation is unavoidable and could be improved only to a point by conversation and consensus among various systems within a common environment.

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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