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.

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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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ALGEDONIC LOOP 2)

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A positive or negative reward feedback.

Algedonic means: by pain or pleasure, i.e. implying punishment or reward.

Rewards can be quite various in kind. St. BEER cites as examples: teaching, bribing, the epigenetic landscape (1968, p.368). The concept appeared in psychology with PAVLOV and was (over) exploited by B. SKINNER.

According to BEER the algedonic loop "… interferes with the alleged randomness with which the variety generator pose solutions, as well as vetoing further attempts to pose the same unsatisfactory solution as before. It biases the throw of the dice" (p.368)

Further along BEER explains how this reward feedback allows very complex systems to produce in due time – notwithstanding the necessity of considering many interconnected conditions for action – "… a very ingenious and appropriate response" (p.395)… and how, if corrective mechanisms "were highly stable, their response to gross perturbation would be too sluggish and would call for huge control energies" (p.396).

The algedonic loop could probably be usefully mimicked in Artifical lntelligence

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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