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 (Self-reproducing) 2)

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This is now such an ambiguous expression that no reliable definition seems possible. At least five different meanings can be identified. Self-reproduction could be said to occur in:

1. the division of a cell, transmitting its genetic material without modification to the resulting new cells;

2. the production by cloning of new plants also genetically identical to the original one;

3. the production of new plants only by vegetative propagation, as for example by rhizomes in colonies of poplars, or stolons in strawberry plants;

These first three meanings are relative to concrete living systems.

From an abstract viewpoint, we may distinguish:

4. the self-reproductive automaton, as for example in some cases in J. CONWAY's Games of Life;

5. the autopoietic reproduction of a system through which the system more or less continuously reconstructs itself by the cyclical or recursive reproduction of its elements and the characteristical links amongst them.

These different meanings are obviously related. Remains to be seen if the two last ones can be compatibilized, really becoming general models for the former ones, and how.

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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