RESERVE
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2858 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Methodology or model |
Some quantity of energy, matter or information stored within a system, which could be eventually used.
The notion of counter-aleatory reserve has been introduced by P. VENDRYES (1942) who understands that the existence of adequate reserves is a sine qua non condition for the autonomy and even the survival of any living or social system, because no regulator has any counteracting power against disturbances if it does not disposes of ad hoc means.
This notion is somehow related to ASHBY's law of requisite variety.
As regulators act in order to maintain the internal organization of the system, it is also clear that the existence of internal reserves is a basic condition for organizational closure and autonomy in the sense proposed by H. MATURANA, admitting of course that the storing of the types of reserves proper to the system is itself conditioned by that same autopoietic property.
However, to store reserves, the system must to begin with, import them (and select them, and transform them), always in accordance with its (autopoietic) nature. The point is made by W.R. WINBURN, who writes: “The internal structure of the system determines its representation of the change such that we say that it is ”closed to information“. Yet the causal process behind this determination requires us to view the system as ”open to matter and energy“. Energy is imported and dissipated, but also stored through internal processes (usually metabolic) defining a negentropic reserve. A sensed change may trigger this reserve into an extended release of energy, thereby producing complex nonlinear behavior” (1991, p.558).