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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APOPTOSIS 1)5)

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The process of self-destruction of the cells in the living organism.

Apoptosis is a very general process, active even at the embryological level, where it seems to be important for the progressive construction of the definitive form of the living being.

Every biological element or individual appears to include some timer device. The ways of apoptosis are becoming better known, but its deeper cause or causes remain obscure.

Its relation to autopoiesis as well as to ageing should also be researched more thoroughly.

This biological process discovered quite recently seems to imply a more general systemic meaning. It could mean that the need for the system to self-reproduce at its level of complexity corresponds necessarily to a longer life time dimension which is out of reach of its elements. This would be more generally an expanding time dimension of complexity

Human societies, for example, considerably supersede the living limits of their individual components, whose ageing seems to be commanded by some biological clock, i.e. a timer.

(For more on biological apoptosis, see "Science", Special issue, 281, nr.5381, 1998).

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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