An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either continuous physiological homeostasis or evolutionary adaptation in biology.
Feedback loops represent a key feature of adaptive systems, such as ecosystems and individual organisms; or in the human world, communities, organizations, and families.
Artificial adaptive systems include robots with control systems that utilize negative feedback to maintain desired states.
The law of adaptation may be stated informally as: Every adaptive system converges to a state in which all kind of stimulation ceases.
that the system suffers a change or be perturbed (in its elements or in its processes) when the event
occurs is strictly greater than the prior probability that
be an arbitrary system subject to changes in time
is equal to the probability that the system change its behavior independently of the occurrence of the event
such that: In an adaptive system, a parameter changes slowly and has no preferred value.
One of the most important qualities of self-adjusting systems is its “adaptation to the edge of chaos” or ability to avoid chaos.
Practically speaking, by heading to the edge of chaos without going further, a leader may act spontaneously yet without disaster.
A March/April 2009 Complexity article further explains the self-adjusting systems used and the realistic implications.
[2] Physicists have shown that adaptation to the edge of chaos occurs in almost all systems with feedback.