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

MORPHOSTASIS 1)2)4)

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"The processes in complex system-environment exchanges that tend to preserve or maintain a system's given form, organization or state" (E. LASZLO, 1974, p 35).

"Character of a system which in spite of perturbations it must endure, goes back to one of the states included in its repertory and maintains its organization within clearly defined limits "(p.35).

To maintain itself in morphostasis, the system needs to be able to correct any deviation from the set of its admitted repertory of states. This is obtained by a predominance of negative feedbacks when the system is coming too close to some instability threshold.

Morphostasis is also a necesary consequence of organizational closure and autopoiesis.

LASZLO gives the following example; "Negative feedback (morphostatic) processes dominate when innovation in a society is at a low ebb and the society is primarily devoted to coping with its environmental contingencies through the existing norms and codes of organized behavior" (Ibid, p.36-37).

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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