Wolfgang Hofkirchner

Ludwig von Bertalanffy's theory of laws is applicable to virtually every scientific field. This conceptual approach has had a profound impact on biology, economics, psychology, and demography, with new relevancies today. Gathered here are Ludwig von Bertalanffy's writings on general system theory, selected and edited to show the evolution of systems theory and to present its applications to problem-solving. The new foreword by University of Vienna system theory professor, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, and Centre for Systems Philosophy director, David Rousseau, discusses the theory s contemporary applications.

This book is a scientific basis for understanding the urgent need for a Great Transformation to a third step in social evolution. Already being a community of common destiny, humanity can form an actual unity through diversity to avoid extinction. Social actors can recognise informational imperatives for cognition, communication and co-operation to achieve such a unity. By doing so, they apply a logic that underlies the structuration of any agency, which is a real logic of self-organising systems from the physical to the social. This logic is the Logic of the Third — the Third is a meta-structure that emerges in a leap. The agents interact and when they co-act they are likely to form a real meta-structure of organisational relations. Informational agents anticipate this by generating requisite information in their attempt to cope with complex challenges. Such an information is a meta-structure too. The Third helps achieve synergy effects. This book discusses considerations from philosophy, systems theory, the study of information, social systems, social information, ecology and technology. It addresses ethical issues connected with the long-forgotten arms race in an atomic age, the global warming not yet under control, the pandemic misunderstood, the social question still unanswered.

At the dawn of the information age, a proper understanding of information and how it relates to matter and energy is of utmost importance for the survival of civilisation. Yet, attempts to reconcile information concepts underlying science and technology with those en vogue in social science, humanities, and arts are rather rare. This book offers a new approach, departing from fragmented information concepts. Many academics refrain from undergoing unifications, as most undertakings are reductionistic. This book contends that it is the noble task of an as-yet-to-be-developed science of information to go one step in the direction of a unified theory of information without falling back into neither reduction nor anthropomorphisation. To be able to succeed in an ambitious task like this, the book advocates the application of complex systems theory and its philosophical underpinnings. Information needs to be interpreted in terms of self-organisation to do justice to the richness of its manifestations. The way the book does so will provide the reader with a deep insight into a basic feature of our world. The following are discussed in the volume: A Science of Information; A New Way of Thinking; Praxio-Onto-Epistemology; Evolutionary Systems Design; Evolutionary Systems Ontology; Evolutionary Systems Methodology; Capurro's Information Concept Trilemma; A Multi-Stage Model of Evolutionary Types of Information: Pattern Formation, Code-Making, and Constituting Sense; A Triple-C Model of Systemic Functions of Information: Cognising, Communicating, and Co-Operating; Nine Categories of Information Capabilities: Reflectivity (physical), Psyche (biotic), Consciousness (human); Connectivity (physical), Signalability (biotic), Languageability (human); Cohesiveness (physical), Coherency (biotic), Communitarity (human); Nine Categories of Information: Response (physical), Flexible Response (biotic), Reflexion (human); Correspondences (physical), Signals (biotic), Symbolic Acts (human); Assemblage (physical), Assignment (biotic), Association (human); A Unified Theory of Information for, about, and by means of the Information Society.

Der geborene OEsterreicher Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) gilt als der Begrunder der Allgemeinen Systemtheorie. Die Querschnittswissenschaft Systemtheorie hat damit ihre Grundlage bekommen. Mark Davidson, Schriftsteller, Journalist, ehemaliger Professor fur Kommunikationswissenschaften an der California State University in Dominguez Hills, hat mit diesem Buch Bertalanffy ein Denkmal gesetzt und eine leicht lesbare Einfuhrung in die Systemwissenschaften vorgelegt. Es beschreibt eine Wissenschaftsstroemung, die wie massgeschneidert ist, den Herausforderungen unseres globalen Informationszeitalters zu begegnen, und es mag mithelfen, Bertalanffy den Platz in der oesterreichischen und internationalen Wissenschaftsgeschichte zuzuweisen, der ihm gebuhrt.

Im Fach Informatik und Gesellschaft wird über die Informatik reflektiert mit Mitteln, die aus den Gesellschaftswissenschaften kommen. Das Fachgebiet beschäftigt sich mit den Zusammenhängen und Wechselwirkungen von Informationstechnik und gesellschaftlichen Strukturen und Handlungen. Es umfasst einen Gestaltungs- und einen Wirkungsaspekt: Technikentwicklung wird als gesellschaftlicher Prozess erforscht und die Folgen der Technik in der Gesellschaft werden analysiert. Dieses Buch behandelt wichtige Themen aus Informatik und Gesellschaft wie z. B. den Informationsbegriff, den Medienbegriff, den Technikbegriff, den Gesellschaftsbegriff, Theorien der Informationsgesellschaft, Medien/Informationstechnik und gesellschaftliche Veränderung, den Zusammenhang von Technik und Gesellschaft, Information und Selbstorganisation.