IMMUNITY
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1619 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, General information, Human sciences |
The condition of a system able to resist some specific aggressions from other systems in its environment.
This is a generalization of the biological concept of immunity. This condition is a result from a first successful reaction of the system to the aggression, throught some internal adaptation.
Immunity results in general terms from the emergence of a countervailing feedback that becomes stabilized, generally in an implicit way.
In a somewhat metaphorical way, social and cultural systems may become more or less immune to foreign influences by developing defense mechanisms. This is probably the unconscious aim of what is generally known as fundamentalism, as an adaptive reaction to psycho-cultural suffering, induced by some imposed transformation.
See also
Resilience.