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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WEBS (Multilevel) 2)3)

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"A class of systems in which various forces or subsystems interact simultaneously within and across levels". (C. HARDY, 2001, p. 35)

HARDY adds: "Webs thus exhibit dynamical evolution through the cooperation and coevolution of processes" and…

"In multilevel webs, the variety and complexity of forces interacting simultaneously instantiate inter-influences between connected elements/ processes, so complex that they render causality irrelevant as a formalism. Webs inter- influences are fundamentally non deterministic, and they reach beyond causal mechanisms".

"However, simpler mechanisms such as linear cause-effects and circular causality may exist as component processes, enmeshed in the ensemble of interactions of the more complex system "(Ibid.)

The crux of the matter is the simultaneous character of different events and actions at various locations in the system. As their propagation is generally neither isochronous, nor takes place in an isotropic space, rigorous determinism is impaired and replaced by statistical or chaotic determinism. It is however not suppressed, specially at macroscopic scale.

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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