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

VARIETY (Distributed) 1)2)

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In a population, the scattering of basic characters among numerous individuals.

H.G. BURGER describes this situation as follows: "Instead of reserve being latent, as in plasticity, it can be ready-formed, manifested in diversity. Each individual can then specialize and utilize all his talents without the overhead burden. Such a scheme provides multiple, variant individuals within a species. Each specimen need incorporate a random part of the potential range…

"Should emergency arise, those individuals with the appropriate talents survive. The others perish" (1967, p.210).

This concept is useful in sociology and economy as well as in biology and ecology.

Incidentally, BURGER uses the term "reserve" instead of variety. His description thus links variety with the existence of reserves. This is a bridge between VENDRYES's concept of the counter-aleatory role of reserves and ASHBY's concept of requisite variety.

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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