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

SIMPLIFICATION 1)

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As a set of methodologies to study "organized complexity" (W. WEAVER, 1953), systemics and cybernetics have introduced new modes of simplification.

Some interesting examples, among others, are:

- J.G. MILLER's general principles of organization of living systems

- H. SIMON's hierarchies of subsystems and modes of decomposability of complex systems

- G. KLIR's Reconstructability Analysis

- J. WARFIELD's Interpretive Structural Modeling

- H. HAKEN's Synergetics

- H. SABELLI's general Process Theory

- D. Mc NEIL's general Toroid model

In general these methods aim at identifying coherent complex units within more global wholes. As jokingly stated by J.L.LE MOIGNE, a system should not be sliced as a sausage.

G. KLIR defines a "basic simplification principle": "A sound simplification of a system should minimize the loss of relevant information with respect to the required reduction of its complexity". He adds: "Among all comparable simplifications of the given system, we accept only those with minimumm uncertainty" (1991, p.401).

Even such complex transformations as the ergodic or chaotic ones, are made more intelligible by models whose systemic character is evermore widely recognized.

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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