BERNEVAL

It is fun to find traces of the French text (spelling Zhabotinski with a terminal ‘i’ in the caption to Figure 16 p. 168 and ‘échelle’ in the legend to Figure F p. 185). Fun because they illustrate marvellously bedevilling details still there after 4 printings and they have absolutely no bearing on comprehension and show a reader-tolerance for variation [fluctuation?].

The question of the limits of complexity has often been raised. Indeed, the more complex a system is, the more numerous are the types of fluctuations that threaten its stability. How then, it has been asked, can systems as complex as ecological or human organizations possibly exist? How do they manage to avoid permanent chaos? the stabilizing effect of communication, of diffusion processes, could be a partial answer to these questions. In complex systems, where species and individuals interact in many different ways, diffusion and communication among various parts of the system are likely to be efficient. There is competition between stabilization through communication and instability through fluctuations. The outcome of that competition determines the threshold of stability.

From Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of chaos: man’s new dialogue with nature based on the author’s La nouvelle alliance.

Sign of another competition: the publication information claims trademark protection.

Bantam New Age and the accompanying figure design as well as the statement “the search for meaning, growth and change” are trademarks of […]

Funny. The statement that accompanies the logo [figure design] reads “A Search for Meaning, Growth and Change” Does capitalization count?

No eluding the fluctuations.

And so for day 197
29.06.2007