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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DISTANCE (Critical) 1)2)

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The distance at which formerly isolated elements start to interact or formerly interconnected ones become totally independent from each other.

(Also called "Correlation distance, or length")

This intriguing notion is undoubtedly present from the subnuclear level up to the most global social one.

Critical distances depend on "forces" acting through space and time, in ways generally quite difficult to explain. Moreover, there are interaction thresholds, specific for every kind of interactions, be they subnuclear weak forces or human communication nets.

Crowding (or scattering) seems to be always the trigger factor, but this concept is nearly tautological with the "critical distance" one.

In any case, no complex system may appear, nor subsist when distances between elements do not allow for more or less frequent interactions.

The concept evoques very basic questions about the nature of space and time and their relative meaning.

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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