CHANGE (Rates of)

Charles François (2004). CHANGE (Rates of), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(1): 400.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(1)
ID	◀ 400 ▶
Object type	General information

Every system and phenomenon has its own rate of change, which may even change with time.

We still lack a good general systemic theory of rates of changes. This is a gap that needs urgently to be closed.

In particular, the non perception of slow change is one of the most dangerous problems for social systems endowed with the power to change practically every aspect of their internal organization and interrelations with their environment.

Slow changes result in large scale effects whose accumulation is slow and insidious and whose reversal may be very difficult. The true importance of this matter is now becoming patent in problems of global climate change or loss of genetic variety, for example.