Patterns of systemic behavior provide a history of what a system has produced in the past.

Based on the assumption that the system will produce in the future results similar to that which it produced in the past helps us to predict future events (or results.) Patterns of behavior do not help us to understand why a system produces the results that it does.

The Theory of Variation can help us understand whether the system has produced a particular event, or whether an outside influence has caused a variance in behavior.