These are public posts tagged with #WR_Ashby. You can interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
Nothing is perfect. The #system (and consequently the #model built upon it) is always a selected subset of all the #variables available for the #control of the #machine.
#WR_Ashby in "Design for a Brain" (chapter 2/5) explains in more detail the meaning of the word "system":
>Because any real 'machine' has an infinity of variables, from which different observers (with different aims) may reasonably make an infinity of different selections, there must first be given an observer (or experimenter); a system is then defined as any set of variables that he selects from those available on the real ‘machine’. It is thus a list, nominated by the observer, and is quite different in nature from the real ‘machine’. Throughout the book, ‘the system’ will always refer to this abstraction, not to the real material ‘machine’.
As you can never control **all** the variables of any given "machine", there is always the possibility that the variables that you don't control will generate some unforeseen consequences.
>"#N_Wiener’s preoccupation with mathematics, echoed in #WR_Ashby’s commitment to mechanical models and #Hv_Foerster’s conception of formal descriptions, largely excluded social phenomena in which cybernetics was practiced."
#K_Krippendorff's last paper
Context: Much of early cybernetics and most systems…
constructivist.infoA few "gems" from #WR_Ashby on the "accumulation of adaptations":
>"A compound event that is impossible if the components have to occur simultaneously may be readily achievable if they can occur in sequence or independently...
Thus, for the accumulation of adaptations to be possible, **the system must not be fully joined**.
>The idea so often implicit in physiological writings, that all will be well if only sufficient cross-connexions are available, is, in this context, quite wrong."
I recommend reading the whole book ($20 on Amazon) but if not, here is a good overview of some interesting parts:
#WR_Ashby in his "Design for a Brain" writes about the importance of the #preservation of #adaptations. Following his ideas I've made this little experiment using a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet that shows three different scenarios:
When re-tossing all of the 10 coins every time like in the first case there is no preservation of "1s" whatsoever. Every new toss starts from scratch.
In the second case, each coin is tossed separately until it shows "1" when the tosser moves on tossing the next coin until all 10 show "1" which usually happens around the 10th tossing.
In case #3 only the remaining "0s" of the previous toss are re-thrown until all coins show a "1" which is by far the most efficient way of preservation, needing less than half of the time and ending in about 4 tosses.
>#Cybernetics stands to the real machine - electronic, mechanical, neural, or economic - much as geometry stands to a real object
in our terrestrial space.
>It takes as its subject matter the domain of *all possible machines*,
and is only secondarily interested if informed that some of them have not yet been made, either by Man or by Nature.
#WR_Ashby (1956) - *An Introduction to Cybernetics*