Dialogue about Systems214 pages | Polimetrica, International Scientific Publisher (December 14, 2007) | 8876990615 | PDF | 2,6 Mb
The word system is widely used in everyday language with different meanings often making it difficult to understand what a system is and what it is not. The concept is apparently easy to understand and its usage is based on general intuition rather than on solid theory. This Dialogue is not for popularizing or introducing the concept. The Dialogue is about some current, crucial issues related to systems in science, such as emergence, self-organization, theoretical role of the observer, cognitive science, pattern recognition and image understanding. The general framework of the Dialogue relates to epistemological issues. The reader is invited to participate in the dialogue, that is to identify and elaborate his/her questions and answers in those of the authors.