COMPLEXIFICATION
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 541 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Human sciences |
Growing diversification in a system's complexity.
To become more complex, a system needs to enhance its internal variety. This is possible only by obtaining a richer internal combinatorics.
This can be obtained only by an increase of the number of elements, allowing for a factorial growth of possible combinations (if no new constraints are introduced).
It is debatable if all classes of systems are able to do this.
Only complex social systems, when still endowed with many “open ends”, can conceivably become more complex, because they are more open and less integrated than biological systems for example, which are strictly submitted to organizational closure. In social systems, writes P.M. ALLEN “Complexification feeds on itself because it creates new situations and dimensions… Fluctuations, both in normal behavior in the real world, and in the mental maps of actors, explore situations which are richer then the reduced description of the world given by any solution of the model. These explorations can lead to amplification by the non-linearities in the system and hence to its structural evolution” (1982, p.59).