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

CHANGE (Forms of) 1)2)

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We do not generally pay much attention to the concept of change and as a result, our evaluations of some changes that we witness are frequently erroneous or out of step with reality.

If we consider change in systems and systemic processes, we may establish the following tentative classification of its different possible modalities.

The correct understanding of the kind of change in a process or a system is of paramount importance for better predictability.

Moreover some specific type of systems or processes change generally depends on the stability or instability of their meta (or supra) system or environment.

Some authors (viz. WILDEN, 1972) seem to understand morphogenetic change as cyclically autopoietic. Others (viz. WADDINGTON) consider homeorhetic growth as morphogenetic. Contrarywise ROBB considers that "unexpected degrees of freedom appear" which may lead to "emergence of order at a higher level… or collapse" (1990, p.140).

The very basic concept of change is now modified by the recent developments of the theory of Self Organized Criticality. P. BAK writes: "Any small change of any event (Note of the editor: or possibly any different small event – or in any case simply any event, even small) will sooner or later affect everything in the system. If the initial event caused a large avalanche, the effect will take place sooner rather than later" (1996, p.159)

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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