UNIVERSE
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3692 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
The totality of which an observer is aware of.
J. L. DESTOUCHES writes: “Any system is a whole always contained in another whole called ”Universe“ or environment” (1947, p.196).
Of course, the “universe” selected by the observer at one moment is less than the total universe that he/she could observe, and this in turn is less than the total existing universe.
Any observer has “blindspots”. Nobody is capable to observe more than a very small part of reality, of which many aspects remain hidden to any of us.
A very important aspect of systemic training is covering the need to understand our perceptive and conceptual boundaries and to know the permanent “invisibility” (G. de ZEEUW) for us of many features within the real world.
As emphasized by the French economist J. FOURASTIÉ, there is something worse than ignorance and it is ignorance of our ignorance.