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

HOMOGENEITY 1)

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Quality of a group of elements which are all of the same nature and endowed of a similar behavior.

No concrete system can be totally homogeneous. Only the abstract "isolated system" after its full entropization could reach total homogeneity.

As the state of maximum homogeneity corresponds to the maximum level of entropy, and a total independence of the elements, a maximum of information should be required to obtain a full knowledge of the state of the set of all the elements at some moment. This is the basic reason why an inverse relation between information and entropy could be stated and established by various authors, as Cl. SHANNON and L. BRILLOUIN.

In concrete systems, the 2nd. law of thermodynamics is always finally prevalent, leading to homogeneity in the system… and its final demise and dispersal, i.e. its reduction to uncoordinated elements.

This final state of entropization is an attractor for the system.

However, in complex systems, local states of relative homogeneity may exist in subsystems, reflecting dynamically stable functions. St. KAUFFMAN propose to call these states "internal homogeneity clusters" (1993, p.203).

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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