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

UNPREDICTABILITY 1)3)

A total or relative impossibility to predict the future behavior of a complex system.

Most importantly, I. PRIGOGINE and I. STENGERS observe that "… the existence of chaotic systems transforms the notion of unpredictability, frees it from the idea of a contingent ignorance, that a better knowledge would surmount, and gives it an intrinsic meaning"(1992, p.81).

While singled out processes within a stable environment are generally linear or reducible to linearity, complex systems exhibit normally a chaotic behavior, which makes them more or less unpredictable, due to constant interferences between processes of different periods resulting for a multiplicity of simultaneous initial conditions.

R. JENSEN states: "Another manifestation of the unpredictability of chaotic dynamical systems is that the time-evolution is computationally irreducible… There is no faster way of finding out how a chaotic system will evolve than to watch its evolution. The dynamical system itself is its own fastest computer" (1987, p.179).

While this is true in theory, imperfect predictability is feasible: most systems have some characterized dominant periods which remain more or less observable, even if they are to some measure deformed and obscured by chaotic ripples brought about by various or even numerous other cycles of lesser weight, as well as subject to sudden and massive trend variations. In short, some patterns remain more or less visible.

Action (ecology of); Forecasts (limits to)

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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