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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RITUAL 4)

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A spontaneous mechanism of social control characterized by non-rational behavior uncritically adopted by the members of the society.

A ritual is a behavioral template, obviously of evolutive origin. It operates a socially and transgenerational recursive pre-conditioned conditioning based on a set of mostly gestual communication devices (in fact a language in a very general sense). It is representational and tends to standardize learning and use of basic behaviors.

Rituals seem to have their roots in some animal behavior like nuptial parades, territory marking and danger signalling. In human societies, they become masses manifestations, generally religious or ideological. They strongly inhibit individual behavior and, by reinforcing adhesion to common beliefs, values and norms, focalizes mass action. Consequences can be either positive, or negative.

→ Consensus; Culture; Imitation; Meme; Memetics; Schema

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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