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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TIME (Thermodynamic) 1)3)

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L.von BERTALANFFY writes, (in accordance with PRIGOGINE's open systems thermodynamics – as stated in 1947): "The consideration of irreversible phenomena leads to the conception of thermodynamic, as opposed to astronomical, time. The first is nonmetrical (i.e. not definable by length measurements), but arithmetical, since it is based upon the entropy of chemical reactions and, therefore, on the number of particles involved; it is statistical because based upon the second law; and it is local because it results from the processes at a certain point of space" (1969, p.78).

He also writes: "Thermodynamic time is non-linear, but logarithmic since it depends on probabilities; it is for the same reason, statistical; and it is local because determined by the events at a certain point. Probably biological time bears an intimate although by no means simple relation to thermodynamic time" (1962, p.75).

These ideas seem consonant with research on biological time carried along by P. LECOMTE DU NOUY and A. MISSENARD in France before 1940. This work was based principally on the differential velocities of wounds healing in relation to age. Biological time seems to be not only local, but also variable in relation to astronomical time.

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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