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-INQUIRING METHODS (a taxonomy of) 1)2)3)

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For G. KLIR systems inquiry covers: "the full scope of activities by which we attempt to construct systems that are adequate models of some aspect of reality… (in order) to make adequate predictions or retrodictions, to learn how to control the phenomena in any desirable way, and to use all these capabilities for various ends" (1993, p.30).

KLIR tried to establish a "taxonomy of systems" that may possibly be better understood as a taxonomy of methods to establish models of systems (1988).

He defined the following ideas: we start with an "experimental frame", which determines what precisely we are going to register, defining the limits of our inquiring. The basic element in this experimental frame is a "mask", i.e., a partialized screen through which we select and observe states and processes.

Using this basic inquiring device, we define a "source system" as a producer of empirical data.

Our observations usually lead us to the discovery of some "type of activity", characteristic of the source system. Such activity data can be referred to two different aspects of the system:

- The "behavioral system", corresponding to time-invariant relations.

- The "state-transition system", characterized by a set of overall states.

Integrating both aspects we obtain the "structure system", corresponding to a set of interconnected diachronic transformations.

→ "Reconstructability analysis".

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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