Glossary

The terms used throughout this book should be understood in the sense of the definitions presented here so as to create a uniform basis for understanding.

abstraction: the search for general structural features. Upon imaging the structure of an object, an abstract model of that object is created.

action: an evolutionary process in which a cybernetic system will set the criterion with which it adapts the environment to itself. The flow of information starts to run in reverse.

adaption: the optimization of the overall system/environment relationship in the sense of a criterion.

amplifiers: physical processes which release large amounts of stored energy triggered or influenced by smaller amounts of energy.

autonomization: the process of internalization of the criterion in a cybernetic system. The increasing autonomy and independence from the existential conditions allows the system to determine its further course of evolution. The principle will determine that course. The system stabilizes itself and displays its full character. Autonomization of the criterion = build-up of the system; autonomization of the principle = uncoupling from the original creative criterion.

consciousness: the advancement and integration of realizations about the system/environment relationships into the theory of the system.

construction: an evolutionary process in which the adaption of an object to its evolutionary criterion is consciously realized by a cybernetic system.

control mechanism: the sum total of all processes of a system which process information.

(evolutionary) criterion: the sum total of all requirements a system has to adapt to. Structure of the environment. Source of information during evolutionary processes.

disinformation: information deliberately put out by a system so as to evoke a reaction in another system which is not suitable to the situation and therefore harmful to that system. It is an important means in dealing with systems.

element: the sub-unit of a cybernetic system.

environment: the sum total of physical reality and cybernetic systems outside the system examined.

evolution: the general trend of changes in a physical/cybernetic system.

evolutionary process: the type of information transport from criterion to object.

fight/battle: an evolutionary process in which the optimization of the overall system takes place via physical and informational contest/conflict of the sub-systems´ working principles.

filtering: the selection of elements or systems with specific properties. If filtering is done by a cybernetic system, then the selective criterion is already active, it became the selective principle.

freedom: a gauge for the field of the state space which the system can actively use.

information: structure which is separated from the source, transported, and memory stored. Also see > Shannon – concept of information.

intelligence: the ability of a system to actively adapt its own control structures to changed conditions.

language: for the purpose of exchanging information with the environment, a cybernetic system and/or a hierarchy level requires a set of signals/characters. This set is used to impart communications (intelligence) and describe coherences. The more general the coherences and/or communications described are, the more general are the concepts which can be described with that particular set of signals/characters.

Laplace´s Demon: an all-embracive demon capable of calculating all world events in past, present, and future.

object: the target of the flow of information in evolutionary processes.

optimization process: the particular type of improvement/enhancement of the overall system (relating to a requirement, function).

orientation: an optimization process in which the information is directly transferred to the object via an active criterion, targeted change.

principle: working principle: the sum total of all expressions with which a system confronts its environment. It reflects the criterion which came into existence under the system. It is the structure of the system, the information source of all expressions on the part of the system.

(sample) scanning: the structure of a spatial/temporal field is superimposed by another energy form, another structure. The inevitable result is an encryption as no copy of the original field is possible.

selection: 1) an evolutionary process enabling an object to passively receive and assimilate information and thus to passively adapt by choosing a criterion existing externally in the physical system “environment”. It is capable of self-starting. 2) an optimization process in which the information is indirectly transferred to the object by choosing random changes.

self-organization: an evolutionary process in which the object actively uses information received/assimilated so as to adapt to the passive criterion.

self-start: the autonomous beginning of an evolutionary process originating from inanimate matter. It implies that minor system changes can be selected from a source of information.

Shannon - information theory: a sender transmits signals to a receiver via a transmission channel. Shannon examines the information with respect to its properties in a transmission channel. Its receiver is capable of understanding the sender´s signals in their entirety; it is able to completely decrypt the information offered. The redundancy only refers to the excess of information within a transmission. This view of information does not make any statements as to the significance of the information transmitted. It does not make any statements about the state of knowledge of sender and receiver. It does not take the increase in knowledge on the part of the receiver due to information received and assimilated into consideration, and thus does not explore and embrace the nature/character of the information.

state space: a mathematical space, the number of dimensions of which corresponds to the number of parameters in which system changes are possible. System changes are detectable as motions in the state space.

structure: 1. spatial and temporal extension of physical fields. 2. the construction of a system in its most general expression.

system: cybernetic system. A unit consisting of processes handling information. These processes are bound to a physical basis.

work: the transformation of various kinds of negentropy by a cybernetic system. Negentropy will be stored.