DESCRIPTIONS (State and Process)
Charles François (2004). DESCRIPTIONS (State and Process), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(1): 866.
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 866 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
H. SIMON makes the following point: “A circle is the locus of all points equidistant from a given point… To construct a circle, rotate a compass with one arm fixed until the other arm has returned to it starting point. It is implicit in EUCLID that if you carry out the process specified in the second sentence, you will produce an object that satisfies the definition of the first. The first description is a state description of the circle, the second one a process description” (1965, p.73).
While this is well known, it is quite frequently forgotten in practical management of complex systems: Many costly errors result from actions on a dynamic system made on base of a static state description.