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

LEVEL-SPECIFIC PRINCIPLES 2)3)

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Our study of nature led us to the discovery – quite recent – that no level of complexity can be totally understood at the lower levels.

In P. ANDERSON's words: " Psychology is not applied Biology, nor is Biology applied Chemistry" (1972)

To cross from one level to a more complex one we need in each case a principle that prescribes a specific way of organization at that level.

For example the organization of the cell cannot be explained merely by the rules of chemical valencies resumed in MENDELEIEV's periodic table of elements.

However principles at each level seem to be somehow intertwined in a more general principle of complexification as for example P. CORNING's synergetic hypothesis, or HAKEN's power laws or slaving principle, or van GIGCH's recursive meta-control.

In one or another way similar principles are to be found in all of the disciplines which study more or less organized complexity, as for example ecology or climatology.

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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