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 and ADAPTABILITY 1)3)

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1. Adaptation is a supposedly stationary state which implies a minimal strain between the system and its environment.

2. Adaptability is a permanent process, by which the system produces new adapted states whenever necessary.

W. KARGL explains it in the following way: "As ontogenesis must be understood as drift of structural change in organisms and in environment, there are no better or worse adaptation, but numerous possibilities for the organisms' relations with their environment" (1991, p.577).

Adaptation and adaptability are thus quite antinomic. A perfectly adapted system depends on the perfect stability of the environment to which it has adapted. If this adaptation is so absolute that it cannot be modified anymore, the system is in great danger of being destroyed, should its environment start to change. On the contrary, if it has maintained a potential for new adaptations (i.e. adaptability), it is generally able to respond successfully to new changes in its environment.

Adaptability "consumes" redundancy in order to produce successive adaptive states.

→ "Order from noise principle"

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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