MEDIUM
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 2059 ▶ |
| Object type | General information |
A region in space-time endowed with relative permanence where observable events take place.
- “Observable” events are such for living systems endowed with specific capacity of perception. As observed by J.J. GIBSON, each medium induces a defined potential specifically adapted to possible behavior for a specific living system.
See: “Affordance”.
Water induces specific behavior in a fish, and different ones in a swimming terrestrial mammal, or in a marine bird, like a penguin. And air induces a type of behavior in a flying bird, another in a butterfly, and another still in an aircraft's pilot. (1986, p.16-19).
A medium should be distinguished from an environment, which already implies a clear partition between some system and the non-system which whom it interrelates: such environment does not necessarily includes the whole medium.
Besides, as noted by E. MORIN: “The medium is not a stable setting, but a region where events surge”(1972, p.9).
A dynamically structured medium would be a field (see Ch. LAVILLE describing biological mechanisms considered from the atom to the living systems, 1950).