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

SYSTEMIC PROPERTIES: a tentative listing 1)

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- A whole is more than the sum of its parts (it includes the interactions of the parts and their possible multi-functionality)

- A part may have different action potentials in different systems (H in NH4, or in HCI).

- A reliable system can sometimes be made of unreliable, but interacting parts (von NEUMANN)

- A whole tends to maintain a specific and a dynamic stability in time, by being adaptive.

- In a whole, internal relationships are frequently organized in networks.

- Internal networks are dynamic and adaptive through multiple simultaneous and repeated feedbacks.

- Adaptiveness remains constrained within defined limits, frequently in a cyclical way (limit cycles).

- A whole is autonomous in relation to its specific environment, i.e. is able to determine within limits its relationships with it (for ex. Internal temperature regulation in mammifers; or Inputs and outputs flows in an entreprise).

- A whole can associate with others and build wholes of higher complexity (Fusions between entreprises, the European Union)

Generally speaking, systemic properties conform a set of correlated explanations, useful to describe integrate behavior in entities and issues made of numerous interacting elements, as contrasted, but also complementary to the more classical analytic approach.

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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