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

REPLICATION 1)

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The direct or cyclical production of elements in a system or a population.

The reproduced elements may be similar to or different from the initial ones. But all must be compatible with the system to which they pertain.

For M. EIGEN, replication is the condition for the shaping of populations, from which different types may form quasi-species, each time that some error threshold is crossed during replication.

From another viewpoint, V. CSANYI writes that, in order to operate replication: "… the constructor needs a description, the information necessary for the copying process. The essence of replication is the function of copying regardless of the particular mechanisms of storage and retrieval of information. It does not matter whether this information is stored separately (as in the case of DNA for example) or is distributed in the whole system (as in society)".

CSANYI also distinguishes temporal replication "as the continuous renewal of the system in time… (in a way) sufficient to maintain the unity and identity of the system and its organization"; and spatial replication, in which: "the system produces its own copy, which becomes separated from it in space" (1993, p.262). This is for example the case of cellular reproduction.

The first case corresponds to autopoiesis, while the second accounts for the growth of populations of some specific type of system, as cells or amoeba.

According to V. CSANYI and G. KAMPIS: "Replication is an imperfect copying of the components directed by information (that is) located… in the component itself or is distributed within the system" (LASZLO, 1991).

This is practically equivalent to autopoiesis and to hypercycle reproduction.

Any system needs an autogenic precursor, whose characteristics reflect a specific combination of information received from former systems.

The authors call "zero-system" such a not yet developed network of components (G. KAMPIS & V. CSANYI, 1986).

→ Archetype

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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