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

COMMUNICATOR 4)

← Back

Anyone who transmits information to other people.

A. LOTKA, taking up an idea also emitted by A. KORZYBSKI (1933, 1950), writes: "Man is the only animal who in any considerable measure bequeaths to his descendants the accumulated wisdom of past generations. Evolution in this case proceeds not merely by the slow process of selection, but is immensely hastened by the cumulative and continuous growth of a body of knowledge exempt from the law of mortality which sets a term on the life of the individual" (1956, p.379)

To a greater or lesser degree, we are all communicators and it is mainly this function which shapes society.

From the viewpoint of evolution, we could speak of a kind of collective lamarckian heredity of acquired mental characters.

The existence of communicators in non-human systems has not be researched to any great extent, save in ethology. However the presence, at the genetic level, for example, of elements, specific bearers of the communication function seems to be essential to explain organizational closure and autopoiesis in living systems. The same question is also latent within the ecological hypothesis of the "planet system" ("Gaia")

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint