First, the EOLSS is a huge entreprise that has been going on for several
years, but is likely to take many more years before it is finished.
Covering the whole of human knowledge relevant to life support systems,
from the practical applications (e.g. water desalination and energy
conservation) to the theoretical foundations (e.g. cybernetics and quantum
mechanics) in extensive, in-depth articles written by leading specialists
is a formidable task indeed. The biggest difficulty is, first, to divide
that huge domain into an exhaustive and coherent set of topics and
subtopics, second to locate the appropriate experts to write about each
topic.
The preparatory work of EOLSS has consisted mostly in producing a huge,
multilevel outline with all topics to be incorporated. The second step was
to locate editors for each, thus identified, "theme". The theme editors,
finally, are supposed to find the authors. Inevitably, the hierarchical
classification of knowledge in themes and topics will lead to quite some
vagueness, overlap, redundancy and gaps. Even if the choice of a topic is
clear-cut, finding the appropriate expert may not be obvious, since most
people's domain of expertise hangs in between different topics, and
somebody who you know to have written about a certain topic may actually
know more about another topic.
For example, I have been invited to be an editor for the theme "Knowledge,
management, organizations and complexity". The combination of these topics
under one theme already seems strange to me, and although I know quite a
lot about complexity and about knowledge production, I have never really
been into the study of organizations or knowledge "management". Because of
this and general lack of time, I declined the editorship.
I was then asked by the new editor of this theme to write the article on
"The Science of Self-organization and Adaptivity". Again, I found it a
little hard to understand why this topic is listed together with "knowledge
management", and I did not really consider myself a specialist on the
topic. (I'd rather think about people like Stuart Kauffman or John Holland
as the real specialists). But I knew enough about the topic, was really
interested in it, and thought it would be a good exercise to put together
my understanding and present it to a non-specialist public. I therefore
accepted the challenge. In hindsight, I might actually have done a better
job than a real specialist, who might have had a more biased and technical
view of the matter. Read the paper and judge for yourself:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/EOLSS-Self-Organiz.pdf
The same kind of difficulties besiege the editor of the theme "Systems
Science and Cybernetics" (which might actually have fitted me better than
the "Knowledge, management, organizations and complexity" theme). The
description sent by EOLSS to Prof. Parra-Luna is therefore merely a hint of
how to best organize the theme. Just a few comments about it:
>6.46. Systems Science and Cybernetics
>
>System science, sometimes called systems theory or systems analysis, is a
>term used to describe a relatively broad area of studies. Generally, this
>involves the scientific reductionist process of breaking problems under
>study into component problems, solving the component problems, and then
>aggregating the solutions, hopefully, to determine a solution to the
>original problem.
As noted by others, putting the emphasis on reductionism when defining
systems, seems rather off the mark.
>Cybernetics is a term used to describe of the study of control and
>communication in, and, in particular between humans, machines,
>organizations, and society. The word cybernetics comes from the Greek word
>Kybernetes, which means "controller," or "governor," or "steersman." The
>first modern use of the term was due to Norbert Wiener, a professor of
>mathematics at MIT, who made many early and seminal contributions to
>mathematical system theory. The first book formally on this subject was
>titled Cybernetics and published in 1938.
They mean 1948, I assume.
>There were a number of other early influences on cybernetics, including
>much of artificial intelligence.
As noted by Paul Pangaro, it was rather the other way around: cybernetics
influenced AI.
> Systems science tends to be concerned more with the structure of
>systems and structural models of systems. Cybernetics tends to focus more
>on how systems function, in the sense of controlling actions and
>communicating with other systems. Clearly, structure and function are
>related and each contributes to the purpose. Thus, it is meaningful to
>discuss each of these together in this knowledge foundation theme.
This is almost a literal citation from my own characterization of the
domain of cybernetics and systems science (see
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSWHAT.html)
I'm happy to see that our material on Principia Cybernetica Web
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/) is used more and more often as an authoritative
source about anything cybernetic and systemic (if just they would cite the
source more often ;-)
For a more detailed, 5 page article discussing cybernetics (including
second order), you might be interested in the paper that Cliff Joslyn and I
wrote for "The Encyclopedia of Computer Science", edited by D.
Hemmendinger, A. Ralston & E. Reilly (Macmillan Reference Ltd., London).
The article is not yet on the web, but we might send it to interested
people.
>6.46. Systems Science and Cybernetics
>
>6.46.1. System Theories
>6.46.1.1. History and Philosophy of the Systems Sciences
>6.46.1.2. General System Theory
>6.46.1.3. Pansystem Theory and Methodology
>6.46.1.4. Soft Systems Methodology (Checkland)
>6.46.1.5. Viable System Diagnosis (Beer)
>6.46.1.6. Interactive Planning (Ackoff)
>6.46.1.7. Shinayaka System Approach
>6.46.1.8. Total Systems Intervention
>6.46.1.9. Critical Systems Thinking
>6.46.1.10. Gray Systems and Clouds
>6.46.1.11. Inquiring Systems
>
>6.46.2. Catalytic Systems Approaches
>6.46.2.1. Total Systems Intervention
>6.46.2.2. Critical Systems
>6.46.2.3. Socio-technical Systems
>6.46.2.4. Meta-synthetic Systems
>6.46.2.5. Wuli - Shili - Renli Systems
>6.46.2.6. Living Systems
>6.46.2.7. Systems Meta-modeling
>6.46.2.8. Systemology
>6.46.2.9. Evolutionary Complex Systems
>
>6.46.3. Systematic Approaches
>6.46.3.1. Transdisciplinary Unified Theory
>6.46.3.2. Macro-dynamic Approach
>6.46.3.3. Klir Methodology
>6.46.3.4. Fuzzy Sets and Systems
>6.46.3.5. Formal Approach to Systems
>6.46.3.6. Non-linearity, Chaos and Applications
>
>6.46.4. Cybernetics
>6.46.4.1. History of Cybernetics
>6.46.4.2. Existing Cybernetic Foundations
>6.46.4.3. Second Order Cybernetics
>6.46.4.4. Metasystem Transition Theory, Autocatalytic Growth, Autopoesis,
>and Selective Variety
>6.46.4.5. Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence
>6.46.4.6. Cybernetics and the Integration of Knowledge
>
>6.46.5. Computational Intelligence
>6.46.5.1. General Principles and Purposes of Computational Intelligence
>6.46.5.2. Neural Networks
>6.46.5.3. Genetic Algorithms
>6.46.5.4. Simulated Annealing
>6.46.5.5. Adaptive Systems
>6.46.5.6. Biological and Computational Intelligence
This classification of cybernetics and systems topics was probably put
together by a committee with people representing different branches of the
domain. As such, it is relatively wide ranging (I haven't heard myself
about approaches such as "Shinayaka System Approach" or "Gray Systems and
Clouds"), but not always coherent and with some redundancy. Again, I note
overlap with other themes, outside cybernetics and systems. For example,
"Adaptive Systems" seems to overlap with my article on "Self-organization
and adaptivity", while "Genetic Algorithms", or "Simulated Annealing" seem
to fit in better with another, more technical computer methods theme, and
"Non-linearity, Chaos and Applications" perhaps deserves a theme or topic
of its own. I also seem to remember that it is already included under the
"Knowledge management, etc." theme.
Again, I also note the influence of Principia Cybernetica Web: "Cybernetics
and the Integration of Knowledge" is the literal title of a Principia
Cybernetica page: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSINT This is strange, since
that title was chosen basically as a shorthand for "cybernetics and systems
science and the integration of knowledge", since knowledge integration has
been traditionally more the provice of systems theorists, while Principia
Cybernetica for obvious reasons has emphasised the "cybernetics" label.
"Existing Cybernetic Foundations" is also the title of a PCP page:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBFOUND.html.
"Metasystem Transition Theory, Autocatalytic Growth, Autopoesis, and
Selective Variety" is a strange amalgam of three Principia Cybernetica
titles (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MSTT.html,
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/AUTOCAT.html and
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SELVAR.html), with "Autopoiesis". I would never
put such various ideas in one article. First, "Autopoiesis" definitely
deserves an article of its own, as does the theory of "Metasystem
Transitions" (for the latter, the only real experts are V. Turchin, C.
Joslyn or myself). The others, although important ideas, are too limited to
deserve a full article, but they could be discussed in the context of
another article, e.g. "Evolutionary Complex Systems".
>HTEs have ample freedom to redefine their themes to remove any overlap and
>enhance the coherence and integrity of organization and presentation. Thus
>the precise number of contributions in total under the theme is flexible
>and is determined by you as you deem appropriate. The list of contents is
>intended only as a guide to the proposed knowledge content. The number of
>items in the list of contents may be extended or reduced by combining some
>without compromising the comprehensiveness and integrity of the subject
>matter.
Good luck to Prof. Parra-Luna in reorganizing this theme, and hopefully in
getting many useful suggestions from the community!
>Following acceptance of this assignment, you will probably need about two
>months to ratify (i.e. adjust and modify the proposed list of contents) the
>Theme and to select authors.
That seems a much too short period to me, just locating the experts and
inviting them would take at least as much time. And reorganizing the list
of contents, as I suggested, is far from trivial.
_________________________________________________________________________
Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be> -- Center "Leo Apostel"
Free University of Brussels, Krijgskundestr. 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
tel +32-2-6442677; fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html