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.

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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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BALDWIN Effect 2)

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D. DEPEW writes: "The general idea of the Baldwin effect is that learned behaviors can affect both the direction and the speed of evolutionary change. If an organism changes during its lifetime to acquire habits or exhibit behaviors which permit more effective interaction with its environment…it will probably leave more offspring" (2000, p. 7)

In this way a connection is established between ethology (and even ecology) and evolution. The idea reminds also somehow of LAMARCK'S view about "heredity of acquired characteristics". In relation to DARWIN'S view of evolution, it adds sense to the concept of selection

Baldwin's idea, according to DEPEW is in need of "the articulation of new theoretical frameworks in which it may make sense"(Ibid)

More generally, it is obviously related to the ways adaptive or evolutive change in elements or individuals affects the group of the social system. In modeling terms, it would be the reconstruction of the "metasystem" from bottom up, or the subtle contradictions and complementarities between autopoiesis (Maturana), homeostasis (Cannon), emergence (Prigogine), autogenesis(Csanyi) and variety (Ashby).

No doubt: the debate is far from concluded. But the collection of papers published by "Cybernetics and Human Knowing" is a quite significant step. (7(1), 2000)

→ Renormalization group; Somatic ecology

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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