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

SCALE (Large and small): their relationship 1)2)

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Large and small scale phenomena and systems are interrelated structurally (in space) and functionally (in time).

Their structural relations are obvious, as J.MILLER, for instance, has shown in "Living Systems" (1978): Societies are made from individuals from cells and cells from molecules and atoms.

Functionally, short term phenomena remain within the frame of long term ones: the waves within the tide and the tides within the geological variations of seas level. (an example that can be also used as a metaphor).

Any linear extrapolation from small scale variations into long term is probably illusory and this explains, for example, many costly planning errors.

In most cases, a comprehensive study of embedded short, medium and long term movements (and, if more or less regular, of cycles) may give important leads for a more realist understanding of ongoing transformations.

→Cycle

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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