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

DESIGN INQUIRY 2)

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A research centered "on the possibilities for structural, functional and transformational changes in Human Activity Systems" (A. COLLEN, 1992, p.563).

COLLEN comments: "The long standing preoccupation in institutions, corporations and governments with strategic planning does not serve well the long term processes of societies and the planet… and the growing interdependence among nations and transnational corporations confronts those in the most industrialized societies in particular with a startling challenge to an established way of life" (Ibid).

The most important need is a satisfactory understanding of the complex present interrelations of the system to be modified, with its zone of activity in its environment. In particular, much care should be taken about the "invisibility" of some aspects of the situation under consideration.

Designers should also research carefully the possible unforeseen consequences of the changes they wish to introduce into the system, in view that the positive sum game is quite generally a fallacy: desired changes are to be paid for, somehow, sometime, by somebody or by the environment (with probable feedback, according to the "no free lunch" principle), and it is better to know the price, or at least to try to know it before taking any irreversible decision. This is best done when every stakeholder is duly consulted.

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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