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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OBSERVATION: The autopoietic view 2)3)

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O. THYSSEN (1995, p. 20) explains as follows the nature of observation, as understood by N. LUHMANN, in his autopoietic interpretation: "LUHMANN does not base his systems theory on ontology, but on distinction. Even being, or what is observed as real, is a distinction between being and not being.

"In observing, autopoietic systems use codes to distinguish between positive and negative values of a distinction, artificially doubling the world (+/-, true/false, government/opposition, good/bad)… They use programmes in order to distribute the +/- values of the code to positive and negative prototypes. And they use interpretations in order to link the prototypes to real world events"

Moreover:

"Any observation is based on the fundamental distinction between self reference and external reference. The two types of reference imply each other so that no materialism (only external reference) and no idealism (only self-reference) is possible. At the same time, the system environment distinction is an internal distinction, as no system can operate outside itself. So, the world is at the same time "out there", as external reference, and "in here", as the re-entry of the distinction system/environment in the system.

"The "world" is a borderline concept which cannot be negated"

→ Model; Models; Recursion; Recursivity

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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