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Proposal: Systems Science

Please keep this proposal open. I don't think Systems Science is a duplicate of Mathematics.

For instance, for systems theory, "Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems in all fields of research. The term does not yet have a well-established, precise meaning, but systems theory can reasonably be considered a specialization of systems thinking and a generalization of systems science. The term originates from Bertalanffy's General System Theory (GST) and is used in later efforts in other fields, such as the action theory of Talcott Parsons and the system-theory of Niklas Luhmann."

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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

How about expanding the title to "Systems science and control theory"? This would explicitly broaden the scope to cover work of systems science in engineering, as well, and so reduce the risk that the proposal is seen as a duplicate of mathematics.

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Systems Science itself is a recognized discipline separate from Control Theory and much broader, so I think it would muddy the water to combine the two subjects. – Kent Palmer Mar 19 '11 at 16:58
Systems science is definitely not a duplicate of mathematics. Systems and control should be combined. Both are used, educated and studied a lot together. Every control scientist knows at least systems basics and vice versa. Running a separate control stackexchange site is difficult, because many control topics involve proper understanding of systems theory. – i.amniels Oct 4 '11 at 22:00
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up vote -2 down vote

I think that this is a very important topic that should be represented on StackExchange, but it is probably too focused, and not enough applied. I try to push for a proposal for distributed systems at large: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/30047/distributed-systems.

I explain the motivation for such a venue there: Motivation for the proposal Distributed Systems

Wha do you think of merging Systems Science with this new group, and pushing for this one.

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Systems Science is very broad, and so I don't understand why you say it is too focused. Systems Theory is more broad than distributed systems. But distributed systems is a subject within computer science and so it seems to me more narrow than systems science. If however you mean any kind of system that is distributed not just those created by computer science, then I would say that those kinds of distributed systems that are not software and hardware are covered by systems science which is a broader topic that distributed systems in that sense. – Kent Palmer Mar 19 '11 at 17:01
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