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| Complex systems approach |
Systems are sets of entities, physical or abstract, comprising a whole where each component interacts with or is related to at least one other component and they all serve a common objective. The scientific research field which is engaged in the interdisciplinary study of universal system-based properties of the world is general system theory, systems science and recently systemics. They investigate the abstract properties of the matter and mind, their organization, searching concepts and principles which are independent of the specific domain, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scales of existence.
Systems science can be viewed as ... "a metalanguage of concepts and models for interdisciplinary 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 Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Heinz von Foerster and W. Ross Ashby, among many others" (Charles François, 1999).
In mathematics and physics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.
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This fractal illustrates part of the magification of the phoenix set.
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894, Columbia, Missouri – March 18, 1964, Stockholm Sweden) was an American theoretical and applied mathematician. He was a pioneer in the study of stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.
Wiener also founded cybernetics, a field that formalizes the notion of feedback and has implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society.
- ...that systems art (picture) is an art movement from the 1960s influenced by systems theory, which reflects on natural systems, social systems and social signs of the art world itself?
- ...that a successful experimental system must be stable and reproducible enough for scientists to make sense of the system's behavior, but unpredictable enough that it can produce useful results?
- ... that the anthropologist, linguist, and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson most noted writings are Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1980).
- ... that a multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents, which can be used to solve problems which are impossible for monolithic system to solve.
- ... that the American systems scientist John Nelson Warfield found systems science to consist of a hierarchy of sciences.
- Beginning at the base, with a science of description,
- continuing vertically with a science of design,
- then a science of complexity,
- and next a science of action, called "Interactive management".
- ...that British Columbians will get a second chance to vote on replacing the winner-takes-all election system with a single-transferable-vote system?
- ... that self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.
- Systems: Astronomical | Biological | Classification | Conceptual | Dynamical | Economic | Information | Legal | Management | Physical | Political | Social | Software | Technology | Writing
- Systems science: Systems biology | Chaos theory | Cybernetics | Systems engineering | Systems theory
- Systems scientists: Chaos theorists | Complex systems scientists | Cyberneticists | Systems engineers
- Related fields: History of Ideas | History of Science | History of Technology | Philosophy of Science
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- This page was last modified on 11 September 2008, at 11:33.
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