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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CONTROL (Time factor in) 2)

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G. VICKERS states: "Clearly problems of control are haunted by a complicated time factor. Each signal presents information derived from the past and initiates action which will take effect in the future. The effect of the action, more or less masked by other variables, will return for judgment at a still more remote point of time. Thus control is possible, even theoretically, only within limits; and these may present themselves as thresholds which are passed suddenly…

"The span between taking a decision and the comparison of its actual with its intended results ranges from seconds to years; and the longer it is, the more likely it becomes that no comparison will ever be possible, since so many variables will have contributed to affect the result" (1957, p.5).

This problem is closely related to chaotic determinism, in complex systems, prone to divergent bifurcations, whose theory was not yet developed when VICKERS wrote these lines (showing his impressive vision).

While his comment relates to volitive controls, it is no less evident that long term effects of natural controls are as difficult to predict… or more difficult still, because many of them are so ill understood.

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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