Systems with variety dynamics do not necessarily have closed boundaries and outcomes and processes are only reversible in special instances.
This axiom establishes two fundamental characteristics that distinguish variety dynamic systems from classical reversible systems:
- boundary openness
- irreversibility as the general case, with reversibility occurring only under special restricted conditions.
In real systems—living, cognitive, social, technological, economic—irreversibility is the rule.
Variety, once created or destroyed, permanently changes the landscape of possibilities. The system cannot return to its previous state because even the meaning of "previous state" has transformed (one cannot cross the same river twice).
The "special instances" where reversibility occurs are exactly those where we've artificially suppressed the general conditions of variety dynamics—isolated the system, prevented emergence, blocked boundary crossing, or frozen organizational structure.
This has implications for understanding differences in time in Variety Dynamics between:
- Potentially reversible time
- Historical time