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 (State-determined) 2)

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A system whose path is uniquely determined, regardless of how the system arrived at the given initial state (After HALL & FAGEN, 1956, p.25).

W.R. ASHBY thus explains the concept: "The field of a state-determined system has a characteristic property: through no point does more than one line of behavior run" (1960, p.27).

Or, "A finite set of variables for which, at any instant, the state transition is completely determined by the present state" (Ibid).

In other words, in a state-determined system, there are no bifurcations because there does not exist any indetermination in any line of behavior: the system is wholly deterministic.

ASHBY observes that: "Because of its importance, science searches persistently for the state-determined" (Ibid, p.28).

He could have added that contemporary science, after running into many dead ends, is starting in earnst to research non absolutely deterministic systems, whether non-linear, far-from-equilibrium, or chaotic. See for example R. ROSEN's paper on "The Physics of Complexity" (1991 c, p.493- 500).

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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