variabilitx | An attribute indicating the ability to vary or to take different states. systems are usually limited in variability and these limits are experienced or expressed either in terms of a constraint on... |
vabiety | That aggregate (->aggregation) property of a set, collection or variable indicating the number of mutually exclusive alternatives available within it. variety may be expressed either by the simple... |
utilitx | Usefulness. value. an attribute denoting the capacity to satisfy human desires, usually mea.sured by the price someone is willing to pay. marginal utility is the change in utility due to a one-uni... |
uncertainty principle | A principle in quantum physics, formulated by heisenberg |
ultrastability | The ability of a system to change its internal organization or structure in response to environmental conditions that threaten to disturb a desired behavior or value of an essential variable. the ... |
transduction | - A process embodied in an input-output device for converting or coding without memory one type of signal, motion, wave or sequence of characters into another. e.g., a loudspeaker produces sound...
трансдукция; |
transcendence | Being beyond the reach or apprehension of experience. its opposite is immanence (kant). a state of transcendence indicates that a cognitive system is not powerful enough (->theory of logical types... |
thermodynamic entropy | The quantity of energy no longer available to do physical work. every real process converts energy into both work or a condensed form of energy and waste. some waste may be utilized fn processes o... |
technological determinism | The belief that technology develops (-)development) by its own laws, that it realizes its own potential, limited only by the material resources available, and must therefore be regarded as an auto... |
synchronicity | Jung`s term for an acausal connection between events that renders them meaningful to an observer, e.g., precognition, coincidences of dreams with independently (->independence) occuring events, th... |
synchronic | Attribute of descriptions or of theories that focus on the static aspects of a system`s structure or organization as opposed to diachronic descriptions. |
symbiotic | Attribute of a complementary relation between two essentially different systems in which both benefit from that dependency (contrasted with a commensal relation). 73 |
stratepy | Originally contrasted with "tactics," now the detailed description of a method for deciding among plans that cover all conceivable contingencies (->decision, ->game theory). |
statistical entropy | A measure of variation or diversity defined on the probability distribution of observed events. specifically, if pa is the probability of an event a, the entropy h(a) for all events a in a is |
state determiner | An attribute of systems whose behavior is specified, can be predicted or understood, from the state it occupies currently. in contrast to history determined systems, state determined systems can b... |
solipsism | The theory that locates reality entirely in the mind of the beholder. it specifically denies the existence of involuntary experiences with an outside world be it through direct perception of somet... |
socialization | A mutually adaptive process (->adaptation) which is realized (->realizatiion) in interaction among members of a social group and results in the elimination of individual behaviors of which the gro... |
social system | In cybernetics, a system involving its observers. such a system is constituted (->constitution) by communication among observers who participate within that system by drawing distinctions and crea... |
social entropy | A measure of the natural decay of the structure or of the disappearance of distinctions within a social system. much of the energy consummed by a social organization is spent to maintain its struc... |
selective information | ->information self-correcting~ |
satisficing | By evaluating all possible alternatives, the computation of an optimum strateny (->optimization theory) may not be feasable when the number of alternatives is very large (->combinatorial explosion... |
requisite variety | ->lah ~ requisite variety research anq development (r&d) |
reification | The process of regarding something abstract as a material entity, whitehead`s "fallacy of misplaced concreteness," e.g., the mistake of confusing a system, which is a construct, with the physical ... |
reconstructability | Property of a system whose model is composed of simpler parts. in reconstructability analysis, the analyst obtains data from a system to be analysed for its reconstructability, he hypothesises a g... |
qua | Deoxyribonucleic acid ->genetic information domain of a transformation |
qharacter | A written sign, a physical mark, a hole in a data tape, a magnetic pattern, an electric signal or any discontinuity of matter which can be read or recognized (->recognition), is subject of computi... |
qaia bark | An organized and comprehensive collection of data, typically stored on hollorith cards, magnetic tapes or disks and accessable for ~elective retrieval by a computer. |
qaia | Plural of ->datum |
prqblem | Literally, something thrown foreward (in time). specifically, a cognitive instability or disposition which demands of an organism that something be done to change its current behavior or that it a... |
programmed instruction | A technique for presenting a subject matter to a student who can work through it at his own learning speed. it consists of a network of statements and tests, which direct the student to new statem... |
possibilstic | Attribute of systems whose behavior includes options without specification of probabilities (->probability) within that system. in contrast to deterministic systems, possibilistic systems leave so... |
polystability | A stability involving many alternative and sometimes only temporary equilibria (->equilibrium) and is characteristic of systems involving many weakly interacting components. when systems are joine... |
orqborus | The medieval symbol of holism depicting a snake that bites its own tail. cyberneticians have used oroboroi to illustrate their interest in circularity and wholes. varela`s calculus of self-referen... |
orpinaliiy | Having a certain order of complexity or being defined on a certain logical level (->theory of logical types). a property, being defined within one variable or set is of ordinality one. a relation ... |
optimizing | ->optimization theory |
optimization theory | A mathematical technique for determining the most profitable or least disadvantageous choice out of a set of alternatives. typically the set of alternatives is restricted by several constraints on... |
operationalism | A radical empiricist doctrine which insists that all scientific concepts must be defined in terms of actual experimental operations, applicable in a given situation to decide whether an incident o... |
mqoel | A system that stands for or represents another typically more comprehensive system. a model consists of a set of objects, described in terms of variables and relations defined on these and either ... |
morphostasis | The process of retaining a structure, organization or form. morphostasis may be actively pursued as in the goal of perfect adaptation or simply characterize a state of structural stability. e.g., ... |
morphogenesis | A process of creating new organizational forms. in response to changing environmental conditions morphogenesis may be adaptive (->adaptation). as a consequence of positive feedback among physical ... |
mentalism | The belief that mental processes are autonomous (->autonomy), can explain but not be explained by an organism`s behavior. mentalism is opposed to behaviorism. n.chomsky is its most recent advocate... |
law of larqe numbers | A fundamental law in probability theory and statistics stating that if an event of probability p is observed repeatedly during independent repetitions the proportion of the observed frequency of t... |
latent function | -> manifest/latent functions |
iransient states | That set of a system`s states which cannot be occupied again when that system reaches one of its equilibrium states. behavior involving transient states is basically irreversable, e.g., processes ... |
intersubjectively verifiable | The quality of a description that `ii indicates its reproducability (->reliability) under varying conditions and agreement among independent observers concerning the meaning of that description, b... |
internalization | A learning process whereby the components or subsystems of a systems acquire a metasystem that represents the requirements, controls, goals, values and purposes of that system and thereby relieves... |
intelligence amplification | A process by which the power of appropriate selection is increased beyond the intelligence of the system which controls that process. e.g., if the programmer of a chess playing computer explicitly... |
incompletenes theorem | Goedel`s thesis initially about number theory but now found applicable to all formal systems that include the arithmetic of natural numbers |
hyperspace | A space within more than three dimensions. any geometrical construction whose cells or points are characterized by more than three values (->cartesian product). although hyperspaces can be depicte... |
hqmeostat | A machine built in the 1940`s by w.ross ashby to demonstrate the behavior of an ultrastable system (->ultrastability). it responds to deviations from certain essential values of a continuous varia... |
hoosphere | A term modelled after "atmosphere" and "biosphere" signifying (a) the space occupied by the totality of information and human knowledge collectively available to man and (b) the processes operatin... |
homomorhism | A many-to-one mapping in effect representing (->representation) a pattern in the domain of the mapping by a simpler pattern in its range. the product of applying a homomorphism is called a homomor... |
history determined | Attribute of systems whose behavior is specified or can be understood better by looking into its past history. in contrast to state determined systems, predictability of the future states of such ... |
hhqle | Without recognition of its parts a whole is an essentially structureless and unanalysable unity. if its parts are independent or randomly sampled by an observer, a whole has no outstanding quality... |
goepel theorem | ->incompletenes theorem |
gestalt | - A configuration, originally limited to visual forms, or a pattern which is seen as a whole unity. the nearest english equivalent to this german word is whole. the concept has given rise to var...
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genetic information | The information encoded (->encoding) in the genetic material with which all living organisms are endowed. the carrier of this information is a complex structure of dna. it represents an organism`s... |
genesis qe structure | ->law of genesis of structure |
generatiye | Attribute of a system capable of listing the descriptions of each of a certain set of alternatives. in linguistics, a generative grammar embodies a finite number of transformation rules for constr... |
general systems theory | A scientific effort to identify structural, behavioral and developmental features common to particular classes of living organisms. one "approach is to look over the empirical universe and pick ou... |
excluded middle | ->law of the excluded middle |
ethical imperative | An imperative derived from assumptions of |
equilibrium states | That set of a system`s states which it can reoccupy indefinitely often, each succeeding another either directly or indirectly. equilibrium states are constrasted with transient states. |
entailment | The converse of the relation of logical consequence. for p to entail q is for q to logically follow from p. 27 |
encoding:. the process of applying a suitable code to an original message in order to change its form into one which is more advantageous for transmission, storage, reading, etc. in cryptography, the task of enciphering is one of encoding a readable messa | |
ena | Ribonucleic acid ->genetic information bqaqi |
embryogenesis | The mechanism of development of organisms from the point of inception to reaching a structural equilibrium, usually conceived of as the adult state (piaget). applicable to social or technological ... |
eiher | Because light consists of waves, the belief that all waves must be channeled through a medium (as sound is through air or water) led 19th century physicists to construct ether as the medium suppor... |
deviation reducing feedback | Negative feedback. a circular causal process during which an initial difference between the value of a variable and a standard or criterion is asymptotically reduced, e.g., as in the regulation of... |
deviation amplifying feedback | Positive feedback. a circular causal process which may start from an initially unstable (->stability) condition after which the difference between the value of a variable 23 and that condition pro... |
degree qe freedom | That measure of variability which merely expresses the number of options available within a variable or space. in a system with n states the degree of freedom is n. in statistics, of the n cells o... |
decision science | (a) the study of how decision makers (individuals or groups) chose among a set of alternative courses of actions, and (b) the design of efficient procedures that either aid a 22 decision maker`s e... |
creativity:. the ability to see things from an unusual perspective and to produce from that insight a new organization of familar components, something that did not exist before, something original. in as much as creative acts are less probable (->probabi | |
coorientation | The communication of relationships among communicators to anyone of them; a process of communication in which a receiver responds not to the communications two or more sources emit, but to how the... |
constraint analysis | A formal method for decomposing the constraint within a whole system into several constraint within subsets of its variables, (i.e., of an ordinality lower than the original) so that the latter fu... |
conservation lak | A principle of great importance in a variety of scientific constructs. in the physics of closed systems, energy neither increases nor decreases as the system evolves (->first law of thermodynamics... |
computer science | - The study of the use, design and constructions of (largely digital) computers. computer science heavily relies on mathematical (->mathematics) and engineering insights. in spite of its mathema...
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