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

ZERO GROWTH 1)2)4)

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An hypothesis purporting the possibility for human systems to reach a steady state, or dynamic stability after a period of exponential or logistic growth.

Such hypotesis can be applied to populations, industrial sectors, economic development, or human ecosystems. It was very widespread, and controverted, during the seventies.

The general conditions of systems growth seem to support the hypothesis. However, a steady state could be reached after very different growth curves, from a smooth logistic asymptote to dramatic crashes after more or less considerable overshoot resulting from exponential growth.

Moreover, there is a wide variety of human systems at different stages of growth and their evolution is not synchronized. As a result, rivalries do appear and become a source of economic, political and even ideological struggle, which completely obscures the issue, specially in absence of any systemic understanding.

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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