BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

ADAPTATION (Reciprocal) 1)

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The process through which two or more systems or populations adapt to each other.

The systems must be compatible and more or less complementary in order to allow for a process of reciprocal adaptation.

For example, some plants, when attacked by a parasite, produce terpenes, which in turn attract parasites of the parasite. As a result, a global fluctuating equilibrium (even if frequently chaotic) tends to become established.

This process has been called "rivalrous adaptability" by H.G. BURGER, who sees it as a requirement for complexity (1967, p.211)

The stability of reciprocal adaptation can be altered among interacting populations if one of the partners starts to evolve. In such a case, reciprocal adaptation can still be maintained if the other partners succeed in turn in producing workable evolutive ways to respond to the change. We then have co-evolution.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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