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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BELIEF 1)4)

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"Mental acceptance or conviction in the truth or actuality of something"(Am.Heritage diet., p. 121,1978)

Beliefs are very significant in individuals and in social systems. It is debatable if "acceptance"is "mental". It seems generally to be rather emotional.

In any case, for an individual, beliefs are a pre-ordering factor of reference frames, wheter rational, esthetic, philosophical or religious. But a rational belief may lead one to question a religious belief, or conversely. Different kinds of beliefs lead naturally to different decision making and behavior.

In any human group, as for example a business, or a political party, common beliefs are the indispensable common ground without which cohesiveness cannot be maintained and coherent behavior be sustained.

This remains true even if these beliefs are implicit and never overtly proclaimed.

Similarly, different cultures are different precisely because the basic beliefs shared by individuals in any specific culture are at variance with the beliefs of other ones.

In any culture, the set of beliefs acts as a general behavioral control, because it compatibilizes and coordinates individual behaviors (in German: Gleichschaltung)

Moreover, its beliefs set endows a culture with a kind of immunity to enchroachments from other cultures. Unfortunately this derives frequently into intolerance and reciprocal hostility between individuals or groups alien to each other.

→ Clanthink; Community; Communities (types of human); Compatibility; Group-think; Human Systems; Language and Culture; Semantics (General); Systems (Cultures as)

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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