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

ULTRASTABILITY 1)2)

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"The form of stability apparent in an adaptive system" (G. PASK, 1961a, p.115).

Adaptive systems possess controllers which are themselves adaptive, i.e. able to counteract a wide variety of environmental or invironmental perturbations.

Ultrastable systems are able – up to a point- to change their internal functional organization and structures in order to adapt to external disturbances. However such changes must respect global coherence: "If the whole is at a state of equilibrium, each part must be in a state of equilibrium in the conditions provided by the others" (W.R. ASHBY, p.82).

And: "No state (of the whole) can be a state of equilibrium unless it is acceptable to every one of the component parts, each acting in the conditions given by the others" (p.83).

Ultrastability is thus the oscillating stability of the set of critical interconnected variables in a system, obtained through their repeated reciprocal action.

To demonstrate these characteristics, ASHBY constructed his well known "Homeostat", an experimental cybernetic machine which shows an enormous variability potential, through oscillations… but tends to oscillating stability within limits.

In a concrete system, ultrastability requires self-regulation and therefore it must contain a good model of itself.

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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