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

FORERUNNER SIGNALS 1)2)5)

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Many unexpected changes in processes and systems could be predicted, or at least detected with a good anticipation, if some specific events could be recognized in due time as early warnings.

The general problem of forecasting is most frequently considered in terms of more or less complex extrapolation of currently running trends, be it at short-, medium- or long-term in some time scale adapted to the process under study.

But some changes may be innovative to the point of ending the current trends or introduce some completely new process. The sudden appearance of AIDS in the 1980's or more generally unexpected new kinds of epidemics (Marburg or Ebola viruses), or market crashes, or volcanic eruptions are good examples.

In the case of AIDS, for example, the forerunner signal was the abnormal number of Kaposi's sarcomas in California at the beginnings of the 1980's.

However, forerunners signals are discovered only by people able to escape their own routinary reactions or even able to react when confronted with some uncommon events, or sequences of events.

Nobody can pick up any forerunner signal if not aware that some unexpected situation could develop. Moreover, forerunner signals are much clearer for trained people than for untrained ones, who even when perceiving some abnormality, are unable to make something out of it.

It is at least partly a matter of reference frames.

→ Change; Cue-Emergence;Forecasting; Power laws; Prospective; Slaving Principle; Term (short, medium, long)

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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