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.

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STRUCTURE (Deep) 2)

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Some systems are able to resist complete dissolution when submitted to violent turbulence and may restructure themselves at a higher level of complexity. In such cases, they do not lose completely their former structure, of which the subsisting part has been called "deep structure" by E. JANTSCH.

Ch. SMITH resumes as follows this concept: "This deep structure, as explained by JANTSCH, might be locked at as the evolutionary state of the system, the degree of sophistication or elaboration that the system has attained and that is irreversible even in the face of forces of dissolution. The deep structure thus serves as a self-referencing framework for experimenting behavior, pruning choices and guiding movement toward new structures. The structures adopted will be consonant with the system's accumulated evolutionary learning, its previously developed capacity to maintain viability amidst the complexity of its environment" (1986, p.206).

Somehow a really deep evolutionary transformation of the system implies the destruction of the superstructures, but not of the basic core of organization in its most general features.

The concept of deep structure seems relevant for example, to chrysalides, at biological level and probably to basic mutations as in GOULD and ELDREDGE's punctuated evolution. Important cultural mutations possibly follow the same pattern: e.g. the survival of Greek and Roman cultural structures in Christian cultures.

→ Radiation (Self-contained)

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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