LEVEL (Phenomenological)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1907 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
An observation level directed at a complex system, corresponding to a clearly identifiable organizational level.
Even the global study of a system as a whole requires a certain degree of analytical decomposition, without which only tautological pronouncements of the type “The system is what it is or does what it does” could be produced.
The determination of any phenomenological level is unavoidedly a complex compromise between the postulate of the existence of a “concrete system”, the perceptive ability of the observer (with or without instrumental implements), his/her viewpoint, conceptual postulates and the practical goals pursued.
The phenomenological level is however by necessity the one of “direct experience, encompassing perception of outside things”, according to J.W. SUTHERLAND, who adds, perhaps somewhat more questionably “feeling, thinking, willing, etc. (1973, p.55).
This last perceptive setting may possibly be somewhat too subjective, but is partially compensated by debate among observers and by the resulting process of consensus, still subject, of course, to the possibility of errors, collective biases or illusions.