BEHAVIOR (Chaotic) 2)
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I. PRIGOGINE and I. STENGERS write: "A behavior is chaotic if trajectories outcoming from points as close as possible in the phases space, stray from each other in time in an exponential way". (1992, p.77)
This implies that, after a sufficiently long span of time, it becomes impossible to predict future behavior relying solely on the initial conditions. The authors explain that only a more accurate knowledge of these may better the predictability of behavior, but that such knowledge will rapidly become prohibitive in costs and in time.
While this is an abstract view, it corresponds to our practical situation in front of complex systems and it strongly limits our possibilities to govern them.
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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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