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

BOUNDARY OF EQUAL ADVANTAGE 1)2)4)

In K. BOULDING's words: "… any organization in competition with others will find that its advantage in the interaction diminishes as it goes away from some kind of "home base", so that at some point the advantages of any further expansion fall to zero".

BOULDING adds: "… the concept could easily be generalized. It is these boundaries of equal advantage which really define the niches of an ecological system" (1972, p.69-70).

The respective boundary of equal advantage tends to be more or less geometrically regular for competing or cooperating systems, as shown by W. CHRISTALLER and A. LÖSCH (see hexagonal space filling).

This seems to be a rather general result of structuration by dissipation.

It is also probably related to a problem of length of lines of communication, as the distance from the center of the system increases: the possible expansion of political or economic systems must submit to BOULDING's boundaries of equal advantage.

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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