Patterns of structural - qualitative changes in the development of complex systems

This paper is an attempt to outline, in an emancipatory fashion, a framework of thinking to deal with the general patterns of development. As decision problems in society are increasingly of a developmental nature compared with simple performance in equilibrium systems, the author pleads in favour of an operational approach centred on 'the algebra' of structural change. It is argued that for describing and understanding development patterns better we need a proper 'structural' and 'ontological' language. Such a language is thought to be Atkin's <I>Q-analysis, </I>which is used in this paper to study some fundamental patterns of development, common to wide classes of different systems.In Atkin's terminology this paper addresses a fundamental question: how does the backcloth structure come into being and how does it change through time?