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

ARTICULAR RELATION 2)

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Any connection device that provides a number of degrees of freedom in a relation between two elements or structures.

This notion was introduced by the French physiologist P. VENDRYES (1973, p.88) and is a generalization from the articulations between bones.

VENDRYES explains that no movement would be possible if bones were rigidly united. Freedom of movement depends on the possibility to adopt a number of different relative positions, as flexion, extension, rotation, etc… However movement could not be coordinated if the relations were totally undefined. The ligaments and their connections with the bones and muscles provide a more or less extensive program for mobility relations. This program is framed within defined determinisms, but, at the same time, within this frame it allows for a variety of combinations, and much more so when there is a chain of articular relations, as for example from the shoulder to the fingers. In VENDRYES terms: "Thanks to its elasticity, a muscle admits articular indeterminism; by its contractibility it imposes a determinism" (p.90) As a result, a number of more or less random options do exist. But any defined movement selects only one and thus imposes at some moment, in some situation and for a limited time, a specific determinism.

According to VENDRYES the articular relation concept can be generalized to any relation wherein a number of undefined possibilities coexist, but where only one can be selected (excluding all others) at any specific moment.

As an example, he gives the articular relation between words in a language.

The analogy with decision mechanisms in general is also striking.

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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