A group of members of various systemics societies who meet every two years in the Austrian town of FUSCHL (near SALZBURG).
The Fuschl Group basic tenet is that systems concepts should be applied in a useful manner to the better co-participative (i.e., with the effective participation of all the stakeholders) management of human systems. Its mentor is B. BANATHY. The members, generally about 20 of them, organize themselves in workshops around some 3 or 4 pre-defined thema. Some months before the meeting, each member mails to the others an "input paper" in which she/he states her/his views on the subject she/he selected as of her/his main interest. However, no so-called papers are presented at the meeting, which is entirely dedicated to "open conversations".
At the end of the meeting, each workshop offers a statement of its views about the debated subject. A general report is prepared later on for the International Federation for Systems Research, which sponsors the meetings.
The members commit themselves to use and promote the practical proposals and methods produced by the "conversations".
Some of the main thema of the recent conversations have been:
- Development in systemic terms
- Models for a better education
- Models for a better social organisation
- Methodology of co-participative design
Supplementary Fuschl conversations are organized during interim periods, in other countries (Spain, Greece, United States, etc…).
The Fuschl Group also sponsored the publication of the "International Systems Science Handbook" (1993), whose edition was organized by R.RODRIGUEZ DELGADO, founder of the Spanish Society for General Systems.
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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The character of something which is related to, or pertinent, in relation with an investigated issue.
Elements, events, environment are considered relevant for a system if, at least in some cases and sometimes, they exert an influence on its behaviour.
Of course, criteria of relevance are defined by the observer and his/her specific viewpoint. They are thus never absolute and, in many cases, may even be illusory.
From a systemic viewpoint, we could tentatively distinguish:
Underconceptualized relevance: Relevance is considered only from a very narrow viewpoint by an individual or a small group merely interested in an ill-understood and/or ill-conceived circumstantial and very limited issue. In most cases no serious research is done, or taken into account. In some, serious (or spurious) research may even be used as an ad-hoc tool to further some dubious objective.
This type of viewpoints is very common in day-to-day politics.
Broad relevance: Relevance is considered in a long term and wide embracing perspective. This supposes a clear defintion and a broad inquiry about the system considered and also of the motives, expectations and goals of all the stakeholders. However, research excessive in a scope and in time may lead to procrastination.
In big issues, as for example great public works, the limits of relevance should be clearly defined, justified and explained.
Overconceptualized relevance: Relevance is considered in such a vast space and time perspective that it becomes … irrelevant for any practical purpose.
In such cases, red-hot issues may remain unattended while spurious research and abstract debates linger unconclusively on.
A good understanding of systems and their conditions of existence and survival is instrumental in defining criteria of relevance at any level.
On the contrary, the lack of appreciation of the relevance of some events or elements for a given system leads to unwarranted simplifications and, at times, very costly errors.
See: "Underconceptualization"; "Invisibility"
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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The process of piling up of some class of elements in a system due to a positive feedback in its production.
When this process turns exponential, for the lack of a countervailing negative feedback, it may easily destroy the affected system, as for example in run-away population explosions. This is due to a double cause:
- internal clogging of the system, whose functions become impaired, due to its excessive density;
- starvation of the elements, deprived of a sufficient environmental flux of resources to maintain themselves. The death of the starving elements within the system, poisons it.
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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"Any structure has a minimum size, which is its "nucleus" (K.BOULDING,.1956, p.70) … and "which results of a "mysterious initial act of nucleation" (p.71)
BOULDING states that the term comes originally from physics, but has a quite wider sense. He writes: "Once a nucleus has been formed, it is not too difficult to understand how additions to the structure are made. The formation of the nucleus itself, however, presents many problems which are quite different from those involved in the growth of an already established structure".
He gives the example of the crystal, whose minimal nucleus is, by necessity, an ordering of atoms which, as individuals are not crystals and cannot be a nucleus. He adds: "In the case of the cell the problem of nucleation is almost completely unsolved" (Ibid).
On this matter, some important progress has been made since 1956. See "Autogenetic system precursor"; "Morphogenesis".
BOULDING also points out that the same phenomenon appears under the guise of social innovators "those mysterious individuals who establish religions, cultures, nations techniques and ideas" (Ibid)
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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Anyone who transmits information to other people. A.LOTKA, taking up an idea also emitted by A.KORZYBSKI (1933, 1950), writes: "Man is the only animal who in any considerable measure bequeaths to his descendants the accumulated wisdom of past generations. Evolution in this case proceeds not merely by the slow process of selection, but is immensely hastened by the cumulative and continuous growth of a body of knowledge exempt from the law of mortality which sets a term on the life of the individual" (1956, p.379)
To a greater or lesser degree, we are all communi-cators and it is mainly this function which shapes society.
From the viewpoint of evolution, we could speak of a kind of collective lamarckian heredity of acquired mental characters.
The existence of communicators in non-human systems has not be researched to any great extent, save in ethology. However the presence, at the genetic level, for example, of elements, specific bearers of the communication function seems to be essential to explain organizational closure and autopoiesis in living systems. The same question is also latent within the ecological hypothesis of the "planet system" ("Gaia")
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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Any percipient organism able to acquire a degree of awareness and obtain some understanding of its environment and invironment.
The first who emphasized the peculiar situation of the observer was R.J.BOSCOVICH in his "De Spatio et Tempore" (1758). In R.FISCHER's words: "BOSCOVICH claimed that the observer can never observe the world as it is - only the interface (or difference) between him and the world … the observer does not see the world as it is: only a "transform", that depends of his own state of internal motions, will be accessible to him in principle" (1991, p.96). Basing himself on experiences on sensory attenuation, FISCHER ends up with a "principle of neurobiological relativity", according to which "changes in states of consciousness … reflect perceptual-conceptual adjustments, i.e. relativistic transformations to the changing ratio of internal vs. external excitation" (p.99).
An observer always selects some elements from the set of all possible (for him/her) observations. He/she is thus what J.WHEELER (quoted by F.DAVID PEAT, 1988, p.37) calls a "participator". Why and how this selection is made, is a very basic foundation for the ulterior use, reliability and validity of the obtained conclusions. The weight of the "participator" in the observation process depends, under other aspects, on his/her relative size in relation to the observed phenomenon: this explains, for instance, why celestial mechanics look so "objective". But there are also physio- and psychological distortions. These became a serious concern for all the thoughtful systemists and cybernetists.
H. von FOERSTER, and H.MATURANA and F.VARELA developed a systemic-cybernetic concept of the percipient conditions of any observer. According to this viewpoint, an observer perceives basically anything in function of her/his own internal organisation, physical and/or cerebral-mental.
According to von FOERSTER: "Qualities that we believe finding in objects lie within the observer". As an example, he uses: Obscenity: I show a picture to somebody and ask him if it is obscene. He says "Yes". As a result, I now know something about him, but not about the picture" (1992, p.85). we must however start by believing that the picture does exist! in any case, as noted by J.J.GIBSON: "The observer and his environment are complementary. So are the set of observers and their common environment" and "The environment persists in some respects and changes in other respects. The most radical change is going out of existence or coming into existence" (1986,p.15).
Moreover, wee need to find out how these Foersterian "qualities" came in existence within the observer and even how the observer himself came into existence. The autopoiesis and organisational closure concept give merely some inklings into these topics.
Another theory of the observer has been developed by G.JUMARIE (1980). Its basic features are:
- Any system can be defined only in relation to a given observer. Thus the same object would be perceived differently by different observers;
- An observer receiving information from his/her environment uses it to modify his/her internal structure. JUMARIE comments: "This axiom merely systemize the fact that all systems are more or less adaptive".
- To a higher degree of knowledge that an observer has of his/her environment corresponds a higher capacity to extract information from it.
Any universe is blind to itself, i.e. unable to observe its own transformations. According to JUMARIE, this proposition is equivalent to GÖDEL's theorem relative to the incompleteness of the formal systems.
All this, when duly pondered is more or less subtly related to the organizational closure concept.
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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INTEGRATION

1) An operation intended "to make the components of a system increasingly fused and interactive" (B.BANATHY, 1973, p.87).
2) The state of a whole whose components are closely interactive.
W.C.ALLEE et al write: "Division of labour an integration are associated principles. Integration has no function unless there are differentiated parts that must act in relation to the whole. Specialization of function cannot occur unless the specialized parts are coordinated. Efficient homeostasis follows an increase in the special functions of the integrated parts. These principles apply to every organismic level, from the cell to the ecosystem, but are particularly well exhibited by the population of a colony of social insects (Quoted by Ch.H.LAWSON, 1963, p.114).
R.N.ADAMS states: "…when a level is formed it not only receives inputs from its components but also involves self-organization at each emergent higher level" (1988, p.183).
An yprogress towards integration supposes constraints: any integrative operation specifies well defined interactions among parts, generally by preventing other interactions. M.DODDS and G.JAROS write: "Integration … represents pattern and order, it tends towards simplicity and cohesion (morphostatic)" (1994,p.1417).
It also supposes the emergence of a higher level communications network, whose links precisely define the newly instated constraints.
Composite systems are less integrated than complex systems. Complexity is indeed closely related to integration since the better specified and more precise definitions of interactions tend to lead towards more differentiation of the various parts of the system, which thus becomes more heterogeneous.
Integration of very complex systems is more difficult and costly, as the number of components and subsystems increases, since more - and more complex - regulators are necessary to maintain homeostasis.
Integration is, in principle, an irreversible process or state. The break-up of the prescribed interactions - even when crossing quite narrow limits - leads to the systems disintegration.
The integration process is linked to the progressive emergence of constraints within the system: rules of behaviour of the elements, rules for their interactions.
In ASHBY's terminology, an integrated system is more or less richly joined.
There is an optimum level of integration for any specific system, which is, unfortunately, very difficult to perceive and still more so, to specify. Below this level, the system is not as efficient as it could be. Above it, it becomes clogged and slow to react to any inside or environmental disturbance.
In any case, the system retains its adaptability and efficiency only when it still counts with sufficient redundancy.
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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"For whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he has" (Matt. 13.12)
This New Testament quote, remembered by R.MARGALEF, has been translated by him in terms of an ecological principle as follows: "When two systems interact, information increases relatively more in that one which is already more complex, as it seems to feed from the more simple and may assimilate it" (1980, p.28).
Or "The system bigger in terms of acquired information is always able to make better use of information; that is to say to assimilate and multiply it" (p.27).
MARGALEF considers this principle as "… extraordinarily valuable in ecology as well as in General Theory of Systems. It could contribute to sharpen the gradients of any property that may be interpreted as an information carrier" (Ibid).
Indeed, the principle accounts for the progressive evolutive build-up of more complex systems, by integration of simpler ones: Industrial take-over and absorption of archaic tribes by bigger human groups are examples.
SIMON's Hora and Tempus Parable
(c) K. G. Saur 1997

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