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

SANTIAGO THEORY 1)3)4)

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"A system theory of cognition, developed by H. MATURANA and F. VARELA" (F. CAPRA, 1997, p.174)

Santiago is for Santiago de Chile, as both authors are Chileans.

Santiago theory is practically a synonym for autopoiesis.

CAPRA also states: "Mind is not a thing but a process – the process of cognition which is identified with the process of Iife"(Ibid., p. 175)

He resumes the basic ideas of the theory as follows: "In the Santiago theory, cognition is an integral part of the way a living organism interacts with its environment. It does not react to environmental stimuli through a lineal chain of causes and effects, but responds with structural changes in its nonlinear organizationally closed autopoietic network.

This type of response enables the organism to continue its autopoietic organization and thus to continue living in its environment. In other words, the organism's cognitive interaction with its environment is intelligent interaction… manifest in the richness and flexibility of the organism's structural coupling"(1991, p.269)

The basic importance for cognition of the interactions of the living organism with its environment was already clearly sensed by J.von UEXKULL in his theoretic biology and ethology research (1928, 1934) and, in a different way by A. KORZYBSKI in his work about the relations between our perceptions and the way we construct our abstractions, as well as about our very semantically based reactions to our perceptions (1950)

→ Semantics; Structural differential

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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