| Description |
Dynamical-systems analysis is nowadays ubiquitous. From engineering (its point of origin and natural home) to physiology, and from psychology to ecology, it enjoys surprisingly wide application. Sometimes the analysis rings decisively false-as, for example, when adopted in certain treatments of historical narrative;1 other times it is provocative and controversial, as when applied to the phenomena of mind and cognition.2 Dynamical systems analysis (or "Systems" with a capital "S," as I shall sometimes refer to it) is simply a tool of analysis. It mobilizes the language and mathematical technology of differential equations, and brings into play the distinctive concepts of equilibrium and attractor, as well as gain, coupling and neighborhood, that are not obviously proprietary property of any particular domain of objects or regime in the world.3 It is the ecumenical language of engineers, universal in scope. |
