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

TIMER 2)

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"The subsystem which transmits to the decider information about time-related states of the environment or of components of the system".

This is one of J.G. MILLER's 20 critical subsystems in his taxonomy of living systems. It was however introduced only in 1990, i.e. 25 years after the original work, in an article by Jessie MILLER (1990), who states: "living systems, at all levels,… have an information- processing system, the timer. The timer consists of one or more oscillators known as clocks or pacemakers, the phase of which can be reset. They measure duration or order in time or underlie rhythms of various sorts. The timer subsystem synchronizes internal processes of the system and coordinates the system with its environment" (p.164).

It is very significant that, in parallel with PRIGOGINE's generalized thermodynamics, SABELLI's process theory, and with chaos theory, the MILLERs now also acknowledge the unavoidable need to introduce time in our understanding of complexity.

The timer can be studied through the system's life cycle, its periodic variations, and be useful for forecasting and planning.

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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