8. SIMULATION

Methodical approach

With this tool you can simulate the dynamics of the network of variables that are presented in a PARTIAL SCENARIO and study this under most different preconditions.

This is possible with a complete scenario as well as with parts of it, for example to examine the course of a certain feedback cycle.

Click with the right mouse key the questioned variable. Now you scale and describe - if not already done in the tool VARIABLE SET - the steps in between it moves. Put the cursor of the scale to the desired initial position.

Click with the right mouse key the arrows in order to draw the exerted effect step by step from one variable towards the other creating a sort of table function. Explain the reason for this in the field next to the scale function.

By clicking the buttons COURSE and START you can now follow the happenings - with or without intervention (as policy tests) - by as many runs as you like.

Background Information

Where as the feedback cycles reveal certain risks and chances of the systems cybernetics, the tool SIMULATION should give an insite into the dynamic development and its possibilities of control.

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Because of its unique transparency and the application of the fuzzy logic the building up and interpretation of this tool is especially suited for the working in groups and can even be carried out by layman in mathematics.

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The algorithm is based on table functions that allow non-linear relations. This way limit and threshold values as they occur in reality will be recognized as well as mechanisms of stabilization or time delay.

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The tool SIMULATION however, doesn't serve at all as an instrument of prognosis but mainly for policy-tests and 'if-then'-analyses in order to test different strategies for a selected group of interlinked variables.

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To avoid a 'misuse' for deterministic prognosis which are illusionary for open complex systems the tool has not been linked to the main effect system but limited to the PARTIAL SCENARIOS..