Readings List of Readings von Bertalanffy - General System Theory | von Bertalanffy - General System Theory |
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| Sunday, 07 May 2006 | |
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This is the revised edition of von Bertalanffy recollection of thoughts on General Systems Theory. This book gathers a collection of previous publications on the topic of GST. These publications address the potentiality of such a theory in science at large but, specifically, it is more focused on the role it can play in the biological sciences.
General Systems Theory Revised EditionFoundations, Development, ApplicationsLodwig von Bertalanffy
George Braziller
The book describes the motivations and main topics of GST and addresses the role it can play in a collection of domains as a general scaffolding for unification and holism. This is a very readable and interesting book that must be put in the historical perspective to understand its motivations and the reasons behind its limited impact beyond the small circles of biological cybernetics. The book does not provide a GST -at least understood in the engineering sense of "theory"- but just discuss, repetitively, some of the core topics of such a theory. While the book includes concrete mathematical examples of systems models, they are limited to small biological phenomena. Precision is lacking at the level of the high abstractions that would constitute the basement of a GST. The book shall be read for its motivational value and for setting an opening into a roadmap towards a true GST.
Value for time: 7Main value: Research, Motivational
Related readingsUML basic reference book The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual
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