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

TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM 1)4)

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"The belief that technology develops by its own laws, that it realizes its own potential, limited only by the material resources available, and must therefore be regarded as an autonomous system controlling and ultimately permeating all other subsystems of society" (K. KRIPPENDORFF, 1986, p. 74).

KRIPPENDORFF himself evaluates this belief: "Evidence for the first proposition is largely taken from the natural history of technology, its progressive character and the co-occurrence of independent inventions. Evidence for the second proposition stems from the unwarranted generalization that everything that is invented is ultimately installed and ignores human playfulness, individual and collective interests and man's cognitive limitations" (Ibid).

It remains however obvious that the massive uses of technology deeply modifies human individual and collective behavior, generally accelerating and densifying interactions (Good examples are the car and the telephone, and now, the internet). Such changes could eventually lead to a negative feedback due to general overburdening of eco- and sociosystems.

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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