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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TELEON 1)2)4)

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"A goal-directed process unit, which stretch over several levels and incorporate numerous living and non-living subsystems".

This concept has been introduced by G.G. JAROS, of South Africa, who states that it "has been applied to the study of complex systems in the diverse fields of education, social governance, business organization, technology assessment, psychology, health care and music theory" (1994, p.5).

JAROS distinguishes endoteleons, "which connect an upper (outer) level to a lower (inner) level" and exoteleons "which are directed at the higher (outer) levels. At each level bundles of both kinds of teleons combine to form doublets. Examples of doublets are the cells, individuals, families, organizations, communities and societies" (Ibid).

The similarity with MILLER's levels is obvious. But JAROS states: "Cells, humans and organizations are the result of their processes and not vice versa" (Ibid). This could provide the connection with SABELLI's Process theory. JAROS, moreover, seems to consider his teleons as translevel connective units, not merely structural-functional ones at specific levels.

In a more recent paper G. JAROS & E. DOSTAL replace the word "teleon" with the word "process" in italics, to differenciate it from the common use of the word.

They define this new" process" as "a spatiotemporal arrangement of actions forming in an autonomous, self-regulated system, as opposed to a simple, non regulated temporal sequence of actions the everyday usage of the word "process" tend to indicate"(1999, p. 199)

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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