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

GENERATIVE 1)3)

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The general characteristic of any device, set of rule or set of production rules that allows for, or produce a number of useful or significant combinations, while excluding others.

Languages, for instance, have a generative transformation grammar, defining the ways to form well constructed sentences, using correct words, formed by a reduced number of specific phonemes. In this case, the hierarchic nature of the generative system is quite clear.

The various branches of mathematics, as for example arithmetic, geometry, analysis or topology, have each a generative system, defining precise rules for the construction and transformations of their objects of study.

Chess rules, harmony rules in music, or the generative system of concepts in organic chemistry, produce in the same way conceptual spaces to be explored.

Even a culture can be seen as a generative system.

K. KRIPPENDORFF observes: "The use of… generative devices is constructivism's alternative to testing verbal hypotheses and theories with available data" (1986, p.33).

→ Algorithm; Congruence; Constraint; Creativity; Heuristics and Rule

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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