FRACTIONATION
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1331 ▶ |
| Object type | Human sciences, Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
The break-up of a system “into a spectrum of simpler subsystems” (R. ROSEN, 1972, p.53).
This term is used by ROSEN, in correspondence with the reductionist methodology. He rightly states: “Implicit in this are two crucial hypothesis, of a system-theoric character: namely, that any physicochemical system, however complex, can be resolved into a spectrum of fractions such that a) each of the fractions, in isolation, is capable of being completely understood, and, most important, that b) any property of the original system can be reconstructed from the relevant properties of the fractional subsystems. This last hypothesis is demonstrably false for many systems, including most of those of biological interest. A simple physical counterexample is a system of three gravitating masses in space (three-body problem)” (Ibid).
Since ROSEN wrote these lines, new complex models (Catastrophes, hypercycles, deterministic chaos), better adapted to the global study of complex systems, have appeared.