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

SYSTEM (Conscious) 3)

Following A Harry KLOPF, to be conscious, a system must possess two characteristics:

1. It must include a model of itself, of its environment and of the relationship between both

2. The information included in the model must be encoded in terms of physical variables that are identical with the psychic variables we introspectively know (after KLOPF, 1972, p.35).

He adds: "Should the system's information be encoded in terms of some other set of physical phenomena, the system could behave as we do but not necessarily feel as we do. This is a way of observing that systems may be isomorphic with respect to their behavior and still differ with respect to their psychic existence" (Ibid, p.37).

One may wonder what precisely the author means by physical variables "identical" to psychic variables and, even, what is exactly a "psychic variable". However his hypothesis about the psych ism of eventual non human conscious systems – as for example electronic ones – is arresting.

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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