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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FORM and FORCE 1)3)

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d'ARCY W. THOMPSON wrote (1916): "Form is a diagram of forces". He came to such a conclusion in the following way: "when we abstract our thoughts from the material to its form, or from the thing moved to the motions, when we deal with the subjective conceptions of form, or movements, or the movements that change of form implies, then Force is the appropriate term for our conception of the causes by which these forms and changes are brought about… It is a term as subjective and symbolic as form itself, and so is used appropriately in connection therewith…

"The form, then, of any portion of matter, whether it be living or dead, and the changes of form which are apparent in its movements and in its growth, may in all cases alike be described as due to the action of force" (1916, 1952, p.15-16).

Nowadays the concepts of energy, energy flows or energy fields have more or less replaced the concept of force and we interpret matter as local condensations of energy. These notions lead us to an interpretation of all systems as a provisionally permanent entity condensed within interacting energy fields (see "toroid", "vortex"). Of course, the difference in terminology does not affect THOMPSON's basic views.

A more geometric and static concept of form is thus enounced by R. THOM: "Form is always, at long last, a qualitative discontinuity referred to some continuous background" (1991, p.35).

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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