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

GENERAL SYSTEMS LAWS 1)3)

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General systems "laws" are statements of mostly qualitative nature, as for example W.R. ASHBY's law of requisite variety, or J. WARFIELD law of linguistic drift.

They are not used to obtain precise or quantitative answers as in physics or chemistry, but to define relationships of a general character that can be found in numerous and quite different systems.

They could be considered as memoranda of very general properties, as for example in the case of: "The whole is more than the sum of the parts" or its complement, as aptly stated by G. WEINBERG: "The part is more than a fraction of the whole" (1975, p.43).

They are also tools for generalization and construction of transdisciplinarian models. As such, they should be used with restraint, taking carefully in account any special condition that would impede generalization or need qualification.

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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