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

SUSTAINABLE 1)4)

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Character of a process that can be maintained in a permanent way.

A systemic process is sustainable in this sense if a regular and permanent input of needed resources is guaranteed and if the process does not end up choked by its own products.

In M. DODDS and G. JAROS words: "… the environment is not a neutral laboratory but a stakeholder with needs of its own" (1994, p.14).

The chances for a process to remain sustainable are poor if it uses up an ever growing quantity of critical inputs: such a situation normally leads to scarcity or exhaustion of the resource and asphyxy of the process. Thus only steady state processes can be sustained in the long run, normally after a progressively slowing down growth phase.

This is a very important practical notion for any systemic process of development.

→ "Economics in systemic terms".

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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