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

PRINCIPIA CYBERNETICA WEB 1)

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Johan BOLLEN (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) describes the Principia Cybernetica Project as a knowledge base for systems research. He writes:

"The Principia Cybernetica Project (PCP, founded in 1989, is devoted to the development of a complete and consistent cybernetic philosophy. The project's name refers to Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica, the work that laid the philosophical foundations for the science of mathematics as we know it.

PCP, however, is not thought of as a closed, rigid set of axioms and definitions. Its basic architecture consistes of nodes, representing concepts and their definitions, and links, representing the associations between the concepts. Nodes and links form a dynamic and continuously evolving network, incorporating the knowledge that makes up the Principia Cybernetica.

PCP was not designed as a specialized product of a few scientists, but rather as a collaborative development by many researchers in the field of systems science and cybernetics, each contributing their own viewpoint and expertise. Therefore, advanced collaboration and communication technologies are essential components.

PCP aims to build an adaptive and growing body of philosophical knowledge by applying cybernetic tools and methods to the development of cybernetics itself. PCP encourages multidisciplinarity and tries to integrate the different viewpoints that make systems science and cybernetics such a diverse field. PCP investigates the process of collaborative knowledge. The research results will, in the spirit of the project, be fed back into the development of PCP through improvements to software and infrastructure. Our most recent research has focused on dynamically adjusting the structure of a knowledge network so that information will become more easily and efficiently accessible. The idea is to develop learning rules and algorithms that can ensure the network's soundness when the variety of the nodes and links increases. PCP aims to provide an information service to the cybernetics community. Accurate and up-to date information on the main issues of the cybernetics and systems domain should be readily available to as many people as possible."

(IFSR Bulletin, p. 8-9, Dec. 1994)

PCP can be reached through http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

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