This report summarizes ten levels of abstraction that together span the continuum from the most elementary to the most general levels when modeling biological systems. It is shown how the neocybernetic principles can be seen as the key to reaching a holistic view of complex processes in general. Preface Concrete examples help to understand complex systems. In this report, the key point is to illustrate the basic mechanisms and properties of neocybernetic system models. Good visualizations are certainly needed. It is biological systems, or living systems, that are perhaps the most characteristic examples of cybernetic systems. This intuition is extended here to natural systems in general — indeed, it is all other than man-made ones that seem to be cybernetic. The word “biological ” in the title should be interpreted as “bio-logical ” — referring to general studies of any living systems, independent of the phenosphere. Starting from the concrete examples, connections to more abstract systems are found, and the discussions become more and more all-embracing in this text. However, the neocybernetic model framework still makes it possible to conceptually master the complexity. There is more information about neocybernetics available in Internet — also this report is available there in electronic form:

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this article was written with the intent of naming some of the aspects of the corporate citizenship debate that are routinely missing. I will argue that scholarship in this area is at an early stage of development and is, as yet, practical rather than theoretical. I suggest that corporate citizenship is concerned with bringing about change and, if those working within it intend to be effective in this regard, a greater level of ‘reflexivity ’ is required: an awareness of their own social practice and an ability to see themselves both as challenging social patterns and, at the same time, as part of them.

Economic Perspectives call attention to a problem which has plagued economics from the very beginning: Does human sociality play a role in economic behavior or is it strictly human individuality which is the proper domain of economic science? Indeed, Wealth of Nations embraces human individuality while Theory of Moral Sentiments opts for human sociality. The placement of these articles back to back strongly suggests that the board of editors of the Journal of Economic Perspectives share some concern that perhaps all is not right in mainstream economics. Fehr and Gächter frame the issue in terms of the adequacy of a pure self-interest model. We believe that for important questions in these areas [such as labor market interactions, public goods, and social norms] progress will not come from additional tweaking of a pure self-interest model, but rather from recognizing that a sizable proportion of economic actors act on considerations of reciprocity [Fehr and Gächter, p. 178]. Ostrom phrases the question in terms of the cogency of the self-interested agent. It is possible that past policy initiatives to encourage collective action that were based primarily on externally changing payoff structures for rational egoists may have been

This paper illustrates that emotion is integral to stakeholders ' perceptions of a key organizational artifact. Emotion-- both emotion toward the artifact and emotion toward the organization-- is shown to inhere in perceptions of three dimensions of artifacts and is thus suggested to be what connects between artifacts and their organizations. Multiple stakeholders were interviewed about an artifact of a large public transportation organization. Perceptions of the artifact, shown to be imbued with emotion, considered three conceptually distinct dimensions: instrumentality, aesthetics and symbolism. Instrumentality relates to the tasks the artifact helps accomplish, aesthetics is the sensory reaction to the artifact, and symbolism regards associations the artifact elicits. Our analysis illustrates these three dimensions and then demonstrates that the unsolicited emotion they entail regards both emotion toward the artifact and emotion toward the organization. In informants ' responses to open ended queries about the artifact there was no separation, but rather much spillover between emotion toward the artifact and emotion

To get right to the heart of the matter, the Roman ideal of pietas which Virgil’s Aeneas embodies means the observance of what is due to the gods and men, and obeying one’s destiny (fatum, fate) or calling. Fatum is associated with the word fari, to speak; thus, destiny is the expressed will of the gods: a vocation, a calling (vocatio, a summons; vocare, to call). In Homer, destiny is the portion allotted each man at birth – the length of his life, blessings, miseries. All things are fixed and determined by Necessity (another idea of Fate or Fortune); the gods decide all things, yet even the gods are subject to Fate. Hence, because of the conditionality of human existence, the individualist Homeric ideal of arêté (personal glory in any agon or contest) and timé (personal honor and esteem among one’s peers). But in Virgil’s Aeneid – where the leitmotif of fatum recurs some 120 times – the gods work through human wills and desires; their interventions are often metaphors for divine promptings within, for good or ill. Certain events are predetermined, but the precise time and circumstances of their fulfillment are flexible; this flexibility allows the free operation of the human will. The speech of Aeneas ’ father, Anchises, in Book 6 shows that Virgil

It was the ancient Greeks who in lyric poetry were the first really to discover what we know today and take for granted as the "self. " It is difficult for us now to imagine how that discovery must have felt like a great revelation. In general, the self as we know it is what the OED says, "a permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness. " The word itself was not established until 1674, emerging from the literature of theology and philosophy. The Greek consciousness of each person's self came about in the early 6 th century B.C., the time of the earliest recorded Greek lyric poets Archilochus and Sappho- long after Homer in the 7th century B.C. Significantly, the lyric poets ' time saw the emergence of the Greek polis or city-state; significant because in the polis, the individual (only male) citizens lived under the same law, were in close contact with one another, and had a vivid sense of sharing/possessing in common certain values, thoughts, feelings. That time was also the period of the shift from oral to literate culture. The Greek sense of self was of the body as one with the soul: the soul as an extension of the body into an inner or spiritual dimension such that the philosopher Heracleitus

history the Myceneans, the first Greek-speaking people to settle Greece. They emigrated about 2000 B.C. from somewhere northwest of the Black Sea, and absorbed and displaced the Minoan civilization in Greece. The Mycenean empire lasted from 1600 to 1100 B.C. The sack of Troy (Ilium) was dated in classical times at 1184 B.C.; modern excavations at Hissarlik in Turkey show the violent destruction of Troy in 1220 B.C. The Mycenean empire in turn collapsed during the Dorian invasion in 1100 B.C. The Dorians, also Greek-speaking, came from the north. During those “dark ages, ” 1200 to 800 B.C. – “dark ” because we have scanty historical informatioin – there arose the polis or city-state, each one proudly independent; yet, the city-states participated in common activities and institutions, so that there emerged a national consciousness: one country, Hellas; one people, the Hellenes. There was the pan-Hellenic games, the Olympiad, 776 B.C.; there was the oracle at Delphi that everyone heeded; there was the spread of the Greek alphabet adapted from the Phoenicians. And then there was Homer of Chios.

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