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.

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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

ORDER FROM ORDER Principle 2)

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E. SCHRÖDINGER, in his famed work "What is Life?" (1945) established the principle that order (in living systems) is somehow transmittable. He stated that "… the final approach to equilibrium is very slow. It could take anything between hours, years, centuries". He explained this by the way living systems "feed on negative entropy", i.e. maintain their organization "by extracting "order" from their environment". He describes this "order" as "entropy, taken with the negative sign,… itself a measure of order".

This so-called negentropy was a source of controversy for many years, until is became clear that it simply measures the level of complexity (order) in complex systems. The final connection with thermodynamics is through the creation of order by dissipative structuration of energy in far- from- equilibrium systems submitted to giant fluctuations, precisely because of very high energy inputs. (BÉNARD's instability; PRIGOGINE's thermodynamics of far-away from equilibrium systems).

As proposed by LOTKA with his "world engine" model, the energy provided by the sun is slowly degraded through a "ladder" of systems. Endly, increases of order in some systems must be paid by a correspondingly higher decrease of order in their environment.

SCHRÖDINGER's principle has been extended by H. von FOERSTER, precisely in relation to his principle of "order from noise". (see above, for critical appraisals)

Its relations with DAWKINS "Selfish Gene" should also be explored. What is transmitted from system to system is not merely order, but better historical structural and functional order.

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Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

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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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