UBIQUITY (Conceptual)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3664 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
The very general validity attributed to some concepts and models .
This new meaning for the term “ubiquity” has been proposed by M. BUCHANAN in a recent book (2000). He thus described the application of some concepts and models to a very wide variety of situations or processes .
He gives as an example the self-organized criticality model . This model has been used in many types of situations where a system is on the brink of some considerable sudden change or catastrophic crisis .
Examples are:
- the distribution of forest fires in Australia and the U.S.
- the distribution of measles epidemics on the Faroe Island in the North Atlantic
- the unstable situation in Europe in 1914 and the assessination of Arch.Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg which triggered World War I (Per BAK, 2000, p. 56-57)
Self organized criticality is only one of the new models of systemic character that appeared during the second half of the 20th$^{}$ C. in the course of a deep change of the basic paradigm about what scientific research does, and what is meant by “explanation ”
It should be noted that in former centuries other concepts or models have also been ubiquitous, as for example mechanistic determinism in the 19th C. and first half of the 20th C.
Moreover, old concepts and models are not necessarily abandoned, but only reconsidered and put in a different perspective when new ones are introduced.
See also
Catastrophe theory, Chaos, Cycle, Cyclogenesis, Discontinuity, Powerlaws, Stability (Dynamic)