On 27. and 28.10.2011 the kick-off meeting of the research project Systems in Biology – How can early theoretical approaches contribute to current versions of Systems Biology? was held at the Department of Theoretical Biology / University of Vienna.

The aim of the research project — which is performed in co-operation with the BCSSS — is to compare earlier and modern system approaches in biology in order to establish a basis for integration. In the kick-off meeting the components for such an integration were explored. Accordingly, the major issues and ideas of earlier and recent accounts were discussed in detail. For comparison of the different system approaches, the primary goal was to set up lists of aims, motivations, domains, problems, open questions, concepts, methods, and assumptions.

Participants: Tobias Breidenmoser (University of Rostock), Manfred Drack (University of Vienna), Wolfgang Hofkirchner (Vienna University of Technology), Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr (Stellenbosch University), Gerd Müller (University of Vienna), Carlos Sonnenschein (Tufts University), Ana Soto (Tufts University), Anders Strand (University of Oslo), Olaf Wolkenhauer (University of Rostock).

The BCSSS has organised two events on the occasion of the anniversary of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s birthday.

• Public Lecture

David Pouvreau, author of “The Dialectical Tragedy of the Concept of Wholeness – Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s Biography Revisited” (2009), speaks about

General systemology as founded and developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
An hermeneutical system

on Wednesday, 9 November 2011, 18.00 c.t.,

in the historical lecture hall used by Ludwig von Bertalanffy himself:

Lecture Hall 42 (last floor, staircase 7, entrance at the arcade in the Arcade Court), Main Building, University of Vienna, Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring 1, 1010 Vienna

• Symposium
Systems thinking: what’s it for?

Ten years after BAC 2001 – Bertalanffy’s Anniversary Conference – which was organised by Wolfgang Hofkirchner and Elohim Jiménez-López at the Vienna University of Technology and which prepared the ground for the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, the BCSSS invited distinguished systems theorists to reflect on the development of systems theory – its history and future.

Today, multiple crises challenge the sustainable development of civilised life on earth. What are the foundations of systems thinking that are required for succesfully intervening in the course of evolution of humanity?

Programme

• Presentations by

Elohim Jiménez-López, Vice-President, BCSSS (Austria)
Renewed Bertalanffian systems may overcome the perversity of the civilized (?) homosphere generated by the crisis of human values

Alexander László, Giordano Bruno Globalshift University (USA)
The Humanistic Bases of Systems Thinking

Magnus Ramage, The Open University, Milton Keynes (UK)
Bertalanffy amid the seven schools: multiple traditions within systems thinking

Helena Knyazeva, Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia)
The Contribution of the Russian Scientific Schools to the Development of Systems Thinking

Rainer E. Zimmermann, Munich University of Applied Sciences (Germany)
Ground & Existence Revisited: On Morin’s Approach to Systems

Joseph Brenner, International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (Switzerland)
Of Logic and Systems: Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Stéphane Lupasco

Birgit Zehetmayer, University of Vienna (Austria)
Bertalanffy’s anthropological vision today

Matjaž Mulej, President, International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (Slovenia)
Promotion of systemic/cybernetic behavior by ISO 26000 on social responsibility

• Discussion involving (alongside the presenters)

Manfred Blachfellner, Internationaler Controller Verein (Austria)
Stefan Blachfellner, B original Business and Communication Design (Austria)
Rainer Born, Johannes Kepler University of Linz (Austria)
Ockie Bosch, The University of Queensland (Australia)
Pierre Bricage, General Secretary, International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (France)
John Collier, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (South Africa)
Yagmur Denizhan, Boğaziçi University (Turkey)
José María Díaz Nafría, University of León (Spain)
Iryna Dobronravova, Kiev Shevchenko National University (Ukraine)
Raúl Espejo, Director-General, World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (UK)
Manfred Füllsack, University of Vienna (Austria)
Andreas Hieronymi, Training, Beratung und Coaching (Switzerland)
Helmut Löckenhoff, independent (Germany)
David Pouvreau, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (France)
John Raven, independent (UK)
Michel Saint-Germain, Université d’Ottawa (Canada)
Pamela Vesterby, independent (USA)
Vince Vesterby, independent (USA)

as well as BCSSS Board Members and other members of the Center

• Video: Interview with Gisèle Bertalanffy (interviewer: Michel Saint-Germain)

Date

10 November 2011, 9.00- (open end)

Venue

Lounge, Weingut am Reisenberg, Oberer Reisenbergweg 15, 1190 Wien (two coffee breaks, lunch and dinner as well as refreshments included): http://www.weingutamreisenberg.at/

Bus transfer

Will be organised from and to the Hotel de France, Schottenring 3, 1010 Wien (departure at the hotel at 8.30, departure from the venue at 22.00).

Registration

The symposium open to members of the Center is fully booked and cannot offer any more places.

Robert Trappl, Professor emeritus at the Department of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence at the Medical University of Vienna, was the convenor and chief organiser of the EMCSR held in Vienna every 2 years since 1972. After 20 conferences he handed over the chair to Wolfgang Hofkirchner who stepped in on behalf of the BCSSS.

A task force was built up including besides the President, the Secretary and the Treasurer of the Center, Günther Ossimitz and Franz Ofner. The next conference will be held, as always, in the week after Easter according to the Austrian calendar. A new website was set up. See emcsr.net.

The Board of the BCSSS has nominated another four distinguished researchers as members of the Scientific Council. In alphabetic order these academics are:

• Prof. emeritus Mario Augusto Bunge from McGill University in Montreal, Canada; he was born in Argentine and recently held a remarkable speech at the 4th Regional Congress of the Latin American Association of Systemics (ALAS) in Buenos Aires; he is a philosopher of science and system theorist dealing with a broad range of topics in a broad range of domains; he is a famous proponent of the systemic emergent materialism which need not only be applied to the mind-body problem; he is known as a severe critic of both reductionism and holism
• Prof. emeritus Klaus Kornwachs; he is a philosopher of technology who had been working at the Brandenburg University of Cottbus, Germany; educated in physics, mathematics and philosophy, he taught cybernetics beginning in 1974, did research in open systems and information and founded in 1988 the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Systemforschung e.V.; currently he is teaching at Ulm University
• Prof. Gerald Midgley; after spending some time as Science Leader for the Systems Thinking, Action Research and Social Science group at the Christchurch Science Center in New Zealand, he is back to UK and serves as Director of the Centre for Systems Studies at the Business School of the University of Hull; besides other publications he authors, he is editor of a four volume anthology of “Systems Thinking” with Sage
• Prof. Rainer E. Zimmermann; educated as physicist and philosopher, he taught many years philosophy at the University of Kassel and is still teaching philosophy at the Munich University of Applied Sciences; he is Life Member of Clare Hall at Cambridge; he is famous for representing onto-epistemology, has been working on self-organisation and evolutionary systems; since 2006 he has been concerned with the systems thinking of Edgar Morin

Bunge, Kornwachs, Midgley and Zimmermann consort with László and Morin who have been the first members elected by the Board. The Scientific Council gives the Bord advice in matters of activities of the Center.

Professor John Collier (Philosophy and Ethics) informed us about a Post-Doctoral Research Scholarships at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) open to a broad range of proposals in information theory, complex adaptive systems, related areas in biology, cognitive science and language.

Applications are invited for Post-Doctoral Research Scholarships for 2012. The successful applicants will be expected to engage in full-time post-doctoral studies on an approved research programme under the supervision of a member of the academic staff in one of the Schools of the University.

Call open until 30 September 2011.

Further information:

John Collier: Collierj [at] ukzn.ac.za