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

ADAPTATION 1)

"The process of accomodating to change" (UNESCO – UNEP, 1983, p.5)

K. KRIPPENDORFF distinguishes two kinds of adaptation: "a) Darwinian adaptation… (through which) organisms change their internal structure when their environment makes existing forms no longer viable… e.g. ASHBY's homeostat.

"b) Singerian adaptation, after SINGER, who described how organisms, particularly man, change the nature of their environment so as to eliminate threats to, or prevent the destruction of their own internal organization" (1986, p.1)

For M. BUNGE: "The word "adaptation" is ambiguous, as it designates at least three different concepts, namely the following:

"A1. Suitability of a subsystem… to a function or high value of the subsystem for the entire organism;

"A2. Adjustement of the organism to its environment

"A3. Fertility of a biopopulation" (1979, p. 104)

The three concepts could be easily generalized to sociosystems or technosystems.

If adaptation is considered a state, then the concept is tautological: any organism demonstrates merely by its actual presence that it is adapted. On the contrary, it should not be here.

Adaptation is not possible without a device that reduces the cost of regulation, by modifying the constraints within which the system must function in such a way as to reduce the amplitude of its fluctuations.

As a process, adaptation has been described by D.T. CAMPBELL as successive "increases of fit of systems to environment" (1960, p.380), through selective retention of blind variation.

There could be more to it, since a continuous evolution of the environment takes place precisely through the permanent changes brought about by the various adapting systems within it.

N. BOTNARIUC pointed out that : "Adaptation is a population or species level process (i.e. supraindividual level) and it is different in nature from adequacy; it is the result of the historical action of natural selection" (1966, p.97).

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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