Bifurcation

a bifurcation is the appearance of an additional pattern of behavior or sequence of states for a system. Generally we have successive bifurcations where we increase the value of some characteristic parameter. One can think of a per-son traveling down a road. The farther the traveler goes, the more side streets or alternative routes appear. In a sense the bifurcation introduces history. To know the state of a system at any time implies a knowledge of the paths taken or not taken. (Umpleby after Prigogine, 1980, pp. 105-6)