A SYSTEMIC VIEW OF SYSTEMIC-CYBERNETIC LANGUAGE

Abstract: Systems Weltanschauung emphasizes complex vertical as well as horizontal interconnections between elements and clusters of elements in wholes. The main characteristics of such systems are best understood through network models. Languages, as well as their human carriers, could seemingly be modelized in such a way. This can be fully applied to the systemic cybernetic language.
It must however be admitted that, while we permanently need to clarify our semantics, we also need to allow for the permanent evolution of concepts and their human and linguistic carriers.

published in: CYBERNETICA, Vol. XL, N° 4-1997.

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AN EXPLORATION OF THE HISTORICAL MEANING OF SYSTEMICS IN WESTERN THOUGHT

Abstract: Cybernetics and Systemics as new scientific tools for the study of complex issues and systems appeared and evolved during the 2nd half of the 20th. Century. This marks probably the be- ginning of a new phase in human mind's struggle to understand and if possible manage the world as it has been transformed by mankind itself during the 2nd Millenium.
To discover the deeper meaning of the mental, psychical and social mutation in course, it seems important to reflect on the former evolution of western thought and its practical conse- quences.
The historical period hereafter considered sketchily covers three main phases from the 11th to the 20th Century.

published in: SYSTEMS, 2000, VOL. 5, No. 1-2

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AN INTEGRATIVE VIEW OF META-SYSTEM TRANSITION

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to try to organize a synthesis of distinct cybernetic and systemic concepts around the Meta-System Transition (MST) concept. Such a synthesis is deemed both necessary and possible. It would include various quite basic models that appeared from 1960 on, as well as some older ones. A tentative application to the human MST seemingly in progress is proposed.

Keywords: chaos (deterministic), deviation-amplification process, dissymmetries, dissipative structuration, games of life, organizational closure, percolation, random drift, runaway process

MST may probably be interpreted as a cyclical process of emergence of ever more complex types of associative systems (Bresch, 1987). This paper's aim is to inscribe a number of already existing models of cybernetic-systemic processes within the MST concept, or at least to describe their relation to the same.

published in: World Futures Vol. 45., 1996, pp.173-179

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HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE SYSTEMS SCIENCES

Introduction: Western thought evolved slowly from the beginning of the Middle Ages in Western Europe. This evolution signals the progressive shift from a naive religious to an elaborated theological worldview and later on, toward the complete separation from theology of a growingly rationalist and scientific approach. The first steps of this transformation are merely briefly sketched hereafter. They would however warrant a much more eiaborated study, in view of their meaning as background to the complete laicization wich became later the hallmark of scientific Western thought. This aspect is very important in order to appreciate the significance of the dynamic interplay of empiricism and abstraction that characterizes it and led recently to a very deep revision on its fundamental concepts. Systemics and cybernetics are vital parts of this renewal, in view of the new possibilities they do offer for the study of complex situations.

written in: 2000

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LA SYSTÉMIQUE : UN MÉTA-LANGAGE CONNECTIF

Résumé: La systémique, associée à la cybernétique, est devenue au fil des 40 der- nières années un méta-langage connectif, dont l'évolution se poursuit encore.
Cette transformation était indispensable à la réalisation du programme initial des fondateurs. Il est utile de tenter de comprendre comment elle s'est produite et ce qu'elle signifie tant du point de vue pratique que théo- rique.
Ceci ouvre la voie à une meilleure utilisation de la systémique pour l'étude des systèmes complexes, des possibilités de prévoir leurs adapta- tions et leur évolution et donc, améliorer leur gouvernance.

Abstract: Systemics, as associated to cybernetics, became along the last 40 years a connective metalanguage, whose evolution is still progressing.
Such a transformation was necessary, if the original program of the foun- ders was to bear any results. It is useful to try to understand how it came about and which theoretical as well as practical significance it implies.
Moreover such an understanding opens the way toward a better use of systemics for the study of complex systems, for the possibilities of fore- casting their adaptations and evolution and, consequently, their gover- nance.

published in: REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE SYSTÉMIQUE, Vol. 12, N° 4-5,1998

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SYTEMICS AND CYBERNETICS IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract: Systemics and cybernetics can be viewed as a metalanguage of concepts and models for transdisciplinarian use, still now evolving and far from being stabilized. This is the result of a slow process of accretion through inclusion and interconnection of many notions, which came and are still coming from very different disciplines. The process started more than a century ago, but has gathered momentum since 1948 through the pioneering work of Wiener, von Neumann, von Bertalanffy, von Förster and Ashby, among many others. This paper tries to retrace the history of the accretion process and to show that our systemic and cybernetic language is an evolving conceptual network. This is of course only a first and quite incomplete attempt, merely destined to give the 'feel' of the process. Systemic concepts and models are underlined in order to enhance the perception of the process, as well as its systemic significance.

published in: Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Syst Res. 16 (1999)

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TRANSDISCIPLINARY UNIFIED THEORY

Summary: Numerous complex issues of the most varied kinds are energing in our evermore interconnected man-planet settings. Such situations cannot be anymore managed by the piecemal and incoordinated interventions that result from growing chasms between multiple specialized disciplines. Accordingly, interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity should be complemented or, in cases, replaced by transdisciplinarity. Transdisciplinarity in turn supposes the existence of a specific language of concepts and models, which should be understandable and usable by any specialist in need to collaborate with a variety of colleagues of other fields. Such a language has emerged since 1950 as cybernetics and systemics (or so-called systems sciences or sciences of complexity). It is still becoming richer and better connected internally as it steadily acquires new conceptual tools adequated to the study of dynamic, simultaneous, multiple and interdependent interactions in complex issues.

written in: 2000

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