BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

MEANING OF A MESSAGE 3)

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"Its selective function on the range of the recipient's states of conditional readiness for goal-directed activity" (D. Mac KAY, 1969, p.24).

By "conditional readiness" Mac KAY understand the number of possible states of the subject, some of which may or may not be actualized by the message. He writes: "It is not until we consider the range of other states, that might have been selected but were'nt, that the notion of meaning comes into its own. A change in meaning (in the message) implies a different selection from the range of states of readiness" (Ibid).

In other words, the message is an activator of behavior, but then only within the limits of the possible states of the subject.

The concept is akin to:

1. VENDRYES' concepts of autonomy and subjective probability

2. MATURANA and VARELA's concept of autopoiesis

It does not however clarify the mechanism of the acquisition of the "range of the recipient's (possible) states of conditional readiness".

In any case, Mac KAY concludes "… meaning is clearly a relationship between message and recipient rather than a unique property of the message alone" (Ibid.).

This is why the same message may very well convey different and even opposed meanings for different recipients.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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