FILTER
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1277 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
Any device that selects inputs in a system.
No system could ever cope with the totality of the potential stimuli it could receive from the global environment: its “fuses” would immediately “blow out”. Its functional characteristics depend precisely on the more specific environment whose inputs are significant for it.
Any system is however shaped from its genesis by a set of rules that will first define with precision what is acceptable for it and next, in a progressive way establish which classes of inputs it will finally accept, within the range of the acceptable ones.
This process of constrainment requires and produces the construction of the selective devices called filters.
Filters can be adaptive to different values of stimuli: it is for example the case of the eye's pupil, which may contract or expand within an acceptability range, according to the intensity of light.
Any communication which is not merely a blind interaction is based on filters (or constraints) that define a language of shared meanings (K. BERRIEN, 1968, p.113).