GROWTH
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1474 ▶ |
| Object type | General information |
Functional and structural increase in an individual system or a population.
K. BERRIEN stated: “Growth may be viewed as structural modifications initiated by some ”foreign“ input permitting the acceptance of (more) maintenance inputs”.
Accordingly:
- “a. Emergent characteristics of systems are the necessary consequences of growth and attendant modifications.
- “b. Because growth modifications are such as to permit the system to be maintained more efficiently, they can be viewed as adaptations.
- “c. Growth is limited by adaptation limits and memories.
- “d. Growth follows a ”plan“ embedded in substructures of the initial system modified by localized specialization” (1968, p.87).
According to K. BOULDING: “Some growth phenomena can be dealt within terms of relatively simple population models, the solution of which yields growth curves of single variables. At the more complex levels structural problems become dominant and the complex interelationships between growth and form are the focus of interest. All growth phenomena are sufficiently alike however to suggest that a general theory of growth is by no means an impossibility”. (1956, p.13).
Forty years later, we still lack such a systemic theory!