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

COGNITIVE PROCESS 1)3)

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H.von FOERSTER writes: "No theory of cognitive processes can be constructed merely from sensorial data"… which he thus explains: "The excitations of a nervous cell code only the intensity, but not the nature of the excitation. Codification is only 'such and so much' in this place of my body, and not 'what'". (1992, p.58).

If so, we are left with a need to bridge the chasm between perceived nervous impulses and their meanings. This is the riddle that constructivism is trying to solve, through interconnected concepts like circularity, operators, closure and algorithm construction.

The cognitive process is now also explored through artificial intelligence research. A mumber of interesting papers By R.L. BROOKS, P. MAES and others, from a symposium on "Integrated Cognitive Architectures", were published in SIGART, Vol. 2, Nr 4, 1991.

Among the important aspects of the cognitive process, these studies emphasize: perceiving, interconnecting perceptions, acting, registering the positive or negative results of action, keeping these results registered for further reference (i.e. becoming able to use them selectively in future action), improving behavior (i.e. obtaining better results from action, based on cumulative experience).

This kind of progressive build up of cognition, integrated from perception, action and memory could be the bridge between old behaviorism, constructivism and autopoiesis.

The subject is also related to so-called artificial life, through "Agent network architecture" (P. MAES, 1991, p.115-20).

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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