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

MODEL (Concept of) 2)3)

The concept of model has been widely discussed by a number of prominent systemists. Here are some relevant comments:

1. by John WARFIELD (1987, p.229)

"I believe that the word "system" should be reserved for something that is "out there", and the word "model" should be used for whatever human constructions we happen to use as a surrogate for the system. Another advantage of this is that the concept of system always remains open to amendments as more is learned, which is an inherent requirement for scientific advance. And the amendment can be made to the model as required.

"Even the word "model" has been co-opted in effect by people who insist on underconceptualizing it to the point where many people interpret the term to be congruent with a set of differential equations or their quantized surrogate, instead of its more general interpretations as a human construct applied to describe some phenomenon."

2. The same point is made by D. MEADOWS et al: "All human decisions are based on generalizations or abstractions about the world, or models. Most of these models exist only in people's heads. We call them mental models… complex, shifting and often unverbalized" (1982, p.XIX).

3. For V. TURCHIN a model is basically a "generator of predictions": "Informally, a model of a process is another process which somehow mimics, or simulates, the primary process; thus by using a model it becomes possible to know something about the modeled process without actually running it, or predict developments before they actually happen" (1993, p.6)… which is all right, provided the model is razonably accurate… and not too cumbersome.

In other words, let us not confuse some of the numerous specific, and quite restricted type of models with the general concept of model. See in this sense the taxonomy of models established by P. VOLTES BOU and B. WALLISER. (hereafter)

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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