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

GROWTH (Limits to) 1)4)

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1. This is the title of the famous first report to the Club of Rome (1972), which concluded that the limitless demographic and economic growth of mankind was an impossiblity and would necessarily lead to a crash within a (historically) very short time. (D.H. MEADOWS et al., 1972).

This work led to massive controversy, for a number of quite different technical, conceptual and political reasons. The technical ones were related to the construction of the model, based on the specific ways of use of FORRESTER's systems dynamics. More than 20 years later, this debate is still not settled (See D. MEADOWS et al: "Groping in the Dark", 1982, and subsequent comments).

The conceptual reasons are principally about the real possibilities to define which data are relevant, to obtain sufficiently reliable ones on a sufficient time span, and even the possibility to construct any such complex model with a real predictive power.

The political reasons are related to the premises selected by the authors of this model (and the subsequent ones) referring to the needs and hopes of different human groups in the world.

In any case, the basic concept is about the impossibility to pursue an illimited (and nowadays exponential) demographic and economic growth. MALTHUS may have been mistaken for two centuries, but he probably won't be forever.

See "Growth (explosive)"; "Growth (Logistic); "Growth and stabilization"; "Growth (Rate of)".

2. A deeper interpretation of limits to growth has been proposed by K. BERRIEN: "… systems… are limited in their variability; hence, adaptations also are limited. It is not possible for a system to adapt to everything. It is this limitation in adaptability that prevents a system from growing to infinite size. Thus, institutions as they grow, face, among other problems, one of internal communication… The system ceases to grow, partly because it is unable to adapt to the internal integration problems of further growth" (1968, p.80).

This may be the deepest available explanation for hierarchy in sociality: beyond some limits at a defined level of complexity, growth becomes impossible. It can however be resumed if a number of systems at that level integrate themselves into a system of higher level of complexity.

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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