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 (Self-energizing) 2)

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A system which possess sufficient stored energy to be able to draw on its reserves to react to some external stimulus.

G. BATESON gives the following examples: "If I kick a dog, his immediatelely sequential behavior is energized by his metabolism, not by my kick. Similarly, when one neuron fires another, or an impulse from a microphone activates a circuit, the sequent event has its own energy sources" (1973, p.379).

However, as stated by BATESON: "Of course, everything that happens is still within the limits defined by the law of energy conservation" but "… in general, in the systems with which we deal, the energy supplies are large compared with the demands upon them; and, long before the supplies are exhausted, 'economic' limitations are imposed by the finite number of available alternatives… A telephone exchange at a time of emergency may be 'jammed ' when a large fraction of its alternative pathways are busy. There is, then, a low probability of any given message getting through" (Ibid).

A complex system has generally "… the necessary circuit structure so that (its) energy expenditure can be an inverse function of energy input" (Ibid., p.457).

Such a system, when its energy reserves are lowering, will generally redirect their use to replenish them.

This was the general idea of W GREY WALTER's electronic tortoises.(1955).

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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