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>From singa@cc.emu.edu.tr Thu Jan 29 10:17:54 1998
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Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:23:05 +1100
From: singa <singa@cc.emu.edu.tr>
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Ciff,
Sorry for this direct approach. I tried to subscribe to Prncyb-L but got
a reject from the Binhamton server. Find below my appplication. Can you
send it in or whatever? Thanks in advance.
Subject:=20
subscription to Prncyb-l
Date: Thursday 29 Jan 1998=20
From: singa <singa@cc.emu.edu.tr>
To: cjoslyn@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu
Name: Alexander Brown
Email address: singa@cc.emu.edu.tr
URL of home page:
Postal address: International American University, T.R.N.C, Kyrenia, PO
Box 292, Mersin 10, Turkey
Phone: =20
Affiliations: Chairman of the Department of Architecture and Design
How did you hear about PCP? Have been subscriber before from Singapore
Please take at least one page to describe your work
and how it might relate to PCP:
My work involves the application of Meta-system Theory to Cultural
systems. The following extract from a paper in preparation gives an idea
of my approach:
The Meta-system
The emergence of a dominant paradigm through processes of communication
and exchange between the agents of a cultural system may be defined as
the formation of a meta-system.
An operational definition of a meta-system would be: the formation of a
single behavioural set out of a larger number of actual and diverse
behaviours which existed in the antecedent system. That is the emergence
of a new level of organisation. The relationship between these two
levels of the same system is one of representation in the same sense
that each paradigm represents the cumulative experience of many
individual acts of selection and combination. The meta-system represents
the cumulative experience and essential characteristics of the several
paradigms that existed in the antecedent state. Given the existence of
several paradigms within a cultural system, purely systemic processes
will produce the meta-system state by collective selection and
combination of the diverse behavioural elements available to the system.
That is,classification and re-classification of the characteristics of
the constituent paradigms. While individual paradigms reflect the
experience of different groups of agents or constituencies within the
cultural system, the meta-system theoretically reflects the experience
of the cultural system as a whole. The concrete reality of the emergence
of a meta-system is that it produces a decisive convergence of
characteristics in products and behaviour throughout the cultural
system. Based on the concept that a meta-system is a single behavioural
set abstracted from the diversity of behavioural sets of its constituent
systems.=20
The various paradigms in the antecedent state can be regarded as
self-contained systems relative to the emergent meta-system. Through
communication and exchange between many individuals, the most probable
or recurrent characteristics of these constituent or antecedent systems
are assimilated into the Meta-System state. These systems, which
represent 'various different ways of doing the same thing' are subject
to selection and combination. The various elements of the paradigms are
classified in terms of their fundamental similarities and differences.
The =91almost similar=92 becomes the =91similar=92 in an essentially econom=
ic
typological process where the most representative and TYPICAL routines
which underlie any circumstantial differences become the single
behavioural set which one can call the Meta-system. By definition, these
circumstantial differences of form or behaviour are a result of a
system=92s adaptation to very particular contexts. It is this contextual
aspect of form which is reduced in the process of selection and
classification of the typical. The resulting meta-system or dominant
paradigm is thus able to represent a large number of different contexts
with a fewer number of more essential elements.
A meta-system is the unforseen result of impartial selective processes