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

CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES MATRIX 2)

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"A matrix determining the relative probabilities of various patterns (and patterns of patterns) of behavior in all possible circumstances" (1969, p.95).

Mac KAY expresses this also in the following alternative way: "A hierarchic structure of organizing "sub routines" to determine these conditional probabilities interlocked in such a way as to represent implicitely the structure of the environment (the world of activity) with which the organism must interact. For many purposes, we may reduce it to the filling-out of a world-map, ready to be consulted according to current needs and goals" (Ibid).

These very interesting definitions evoke:

1 – K. STEINBUCH's "Learn-matrixes" through wich a system is establishing connections between specific signs and specific meanings.

2 – H. MATURANA and F. VARELA "organizational closure" according to which everything which happens to a system happens within the system and then only within the limits of the predefined capacity of autopoiesis (self-reproduction) of the system. (Remains to explain wherefrom this capacity comes into being and why and how it becomes closured).

3 – W.R. ASHBY's "Law of requisity variety" and concept of constraint.

4 – the incapacity for any system to construct a complete and totally thrustworthy map of the world wherein it exists; as shown by A. KORZYBSKI (1933, 1950).

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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