EVENT AND ELEMENT
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1187 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
E. MORIN writes: “a) The notion of element relates to a spatial ontology. The notion of event relates to a temporal ontology. Now, any element may be considered as an event if viewed within temporal irreversibility, as a manifestation or actualization, or in function of its singularity. Time impose an ”eventiality“ coefficient to anything”.
b) In other words, ambivalence reigns always between event and element “while there is no ”pure“ element (i.e. any element is time-binded), there is also no ”pure“ event (it always relates to a system) and the notion of event is relative”.
c) Still in other words, “… the accidental, aleatory, unlikely, singular, concrete, historical nature of any event depends from the system under which it is viewed. A same phenomenon is event within some system and element within another. Example: traffic deaths during week-ends are predictable and probable elements within a demographic-statistical system, which obeys strict laws. But each one of these deaths is, for the members of the family, an unexpected accident, a misfortune, a concrete catastrophe” (1972, p. 17).