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.

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COMPETITION 2)4)

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A mutually limiting interaction between two or more systems or subsystems.

R.L. ACKOFF and F.E. EMERY, quoting KATZ and SHANK state: "… competition is conflict according to rules and hence is constrained conflict" (1972, p.199).

"Repulsive interaction between a pair of functions decreasing the probability that they follow each other in space or time" (R. FIVAZ, 1996, p. 143)

Competition is basically caused by the scarcity of some resource needed by the various intervening systems, as for example energy, space, raw materials and information.

Competition leads easily to open aggression and conflict, but may also induce a negociation process which, in turn, may be conducive to the establishment of a regulator or control device accepted by the competing systems.

In case of such agreement or enforced mutual limitation, the regulator becomes a basic element of a higher level of organization. Competition for resources then becomes a regulated zero-sum game between the systems or subsystems.

The cost of regulation is generally quite inferior to the cost of unbridled competition.

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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