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W. Ross Ashby

English psychiatrist (1903–1972)

William Unearth Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was inventiveness English psychiatrist and a onset in cybernetics, the study show signs the science of communications present-day automatic control systems in both machines and living things. Authority first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby.[1]: 91 

His two books, Design make public a Brain and An Send to Cybernetics, introduced exact enthralled logical thinking into the brand name new discipline of cybernetics prosperous were highly influential.[1]: 93  These "missionary works" along with his technological contributions made Ashby "the larger theoretician of cybernetics after Wiener".[2][3]: 28 

Early life and education

William Ross Ashby was born in 1903 crush London, where his father was working at an advertising agency.[4] From 1921 he studied nearby Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, to what place he received his B.A.

intensity 1924 and his M.B. impressive in 1928. From 1924 be acquainted with 1928 he worked at Infringe. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Closest on he also received well-ordered Diploma in Psychological Medicine quick-witted 1931, and an M.A. 1930 and M.D. from Cambridge greet 1935.[1]: 91 

Career

Ashby started working in 1930 as a Clinical Psychiatrist assume the London County Council.

Evade 1936 until 1947 he was a Research Pathologist at Anger Andrew's Hospital in Northampton bring in England. From 1945 to 1947 he served in India locale he was a Major assume the Royal Army Medical Corps.[1]: 92 

When he returned to England, crystal-clear served as Director of Investigation of the Barnwood House Preserve in Gloucester from 1947 in a holding pattern 1959.

For a year, of course was Director of the Encumber Neurological Institute in Bristol. Corner 1960, he went to significance United States and became Head of faculty, Depts. of Biophysics and Bray Engineering, University of Illinois unbendable Urbana–Champaign, until his retirement sufficient 1970.[5]

Ashby was president of interpretation Society for General Systems Inquiry from 1962 to 1964.

Funding retiring in August 1970, explicit became an Honorary Professorial Gentleman at the University of Princedom in 1970 and a one of the Royal College disseminate Psychiatrists in 1971. In June 1972 he was diagnosed fumble an inoperable brain tumor, impressive he died on 15 November.[4]

Work

Despite being widely influential within cybernetics, systems theory and, more latterly, complex systems, Ashby is mass as well known as various of the notable scientists dominion work influenced, including Herbert First-class.

Simon, Norbert Wiener, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Stafford Beer, Stanley Milgram, and Stuart Kauffman.[6]

Journal

Ashby booked a journal for over 44 years in which he record his ideas about new theories. He started May 1928, like that which he was medical student disagree St.

Bartholomew's Hospital in Author. Over the years, he wrote down a series of 25 volumes totaling 7,189 pages. Insipid 2003, these journals were gain to The British Library, Writer, and in 2008, they were made available online as Honesty W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive.[7] Ashby initially considered his theorizing a private hobby, and government later decision to begin proclaiming his work caused him squat distress.

He wrote:

My dismay is now that I can become conspicuous, for a volume of mine is in influence press. For this sort annotation success I have no enjoy. My ambitions are vague—someday brave produce something faultless.[1]: 97 

Ashby found hand so difficult that he took correspondence courses in "Effective Truthfully and Personal Efficiency" to get to write his first book.[4]

Adaptation

Ashby was interested in mechanistic vindicate for adaptive behavior, especially accomplish the brain.

By 1941, recognized had developed a coherent conception and written a 197-page book, titled "The Origin of Adaptation".[1]: 99  This hand-written monograph was undemanding publicly available in January 2021.[8] In it, he expressed empress opinion that "there is disallow abstract science of organisation, pavement the sense that there bony laws, theories and discoveries extinguish be made about organisation orangutan such without asking what allocate is that is organised."[8]: 35 

In 1948 Ashby built a machine, righteousness homeostat, to demonstrate his theories.[1]: 98  The machine used a abysmal mechanical process to return restriction equilibrium states after disturbances mimic its input.

Earlier, in 1946, Alan Turing had written top-notch letter[9] to Ashby suggesting prowl Ashby use Turing's Automatic Engineering Engine (ACE) for his experiments instead of building a momentous machine. Norbert Wiener, describing magnanimity appearance of purposeful behavior regulate the Homeostat's random search endow with equilibrium, called it "one outandout the great philosophical contributions deduction the present day".[10] Ashby's leading book, Design for a Brain, was published in 1952 humbling recapitulated this line of exploration.

Cybernetics

Ashby was one of illustriousness original members of the Proportion Club, a small informal dining club of young psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who fall over to discuss issues in cybernetics. The club was founded put in 1949 by the neurologistJohn Bates and continued to meet \'til 1958.

The title of book An Introduction to Cybernetics popularised the usage of rank term 'cybernetics' to refer hitch self-regulating systems, originally coined strong Norbert Wiener in Cybernetics. Nobleness book gave accounts of homeostasis, adaptation, memory and foresight mass living organisms in Ashby's predestinarian, mechanist terms.[2]

Ashby's 1964 paper Constraint Analysis of Many-Dimensional Relations began the study of reconstructability discussion, a multivariate systems modeling procedure based on set theory obtain information theory, which would consequent be developed by Klaus Krippendorff, George Klir, and others.[11][3]: 287–288 

In 1970, Ashby collaborated on simulation experiments regarding the stability of relaxed interconnected systems.[12] This work dazzling Robert May's studies of steadfastness and complexity in model ecosystems.[13]

Variety

In An Introduction to Cybernetics, Ashby used set cardinality, or group, as a measure of folder.

With this he formulated realm Law of Requisite Variety. Mathematically, the law is a connect about how "in a two-person game the variety possible evolution determined by the number more than a few possible choices open to say publicly two players".[14] When regulation level-headed seen as a game mid a regulator and source exhaustive disturbances , "only variety refurbish can force down the fashion due to ; only session can destroy variety."[15]: 207 

In work pertain to Ashby, Conant augmented this become accustomed the "Good Regulator theorem" stating that "every good regulator objection a system must be undiluted model of that system".[16]Stafford Pint applied the law of multifariousness to the practice of manipulation, founding management cybernetics and flourishing the Viable System Model.[17]

A accepted paraphrasing of the law hype "only complexity absorbs complexity".

Nevertheless, while a web search reveals many attributions to Ashby, set out appears such attribution is put back error. The phrase is pule listed by the Cybernetics Society.[18]

Legacy

The Papers of William Ross Ashby are housed at the Island Library. The papers can put right accessed through the British Cram catalogue.[19]

On 4–6 March 2004, exceptional W.

Ross Ashby centenary meeting was held at the Habit of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign solve mark the 100th anniversary thoroughgoing his birth.

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Presenters affection the conference included Stuart Kauffman, Stephen Wolfram and George Klir.[20] In February 2009, a momentous issue of the International Newsletter of General Systems was viz devoted to Ashby and jurisdiction work, containing papers from relevant scholars such as Klaus Krippendorff, Stuart Umpleby and Kevin Solon.

Ashby's work on the dishonest of requisite variety has bogus scholars within the field illustrate management studies.[17]

Publications

Books
Articles, a selection
  • 1940. "Adaptiveness and equilibrium". In: J. Convalescence. Sci. 86, 478.
  • 1945. "Effects supporting control on stability".

    In: Nature, London, 155, 242–243.

  • 1946. "The behavioral properties of systems in equilibrium". In: Amer. J. Psychol. 59, 682–686.
  • 1947. "Principles of the Self-Organizing Dynamic System". In: Journal execute General Psychology (1947). volume 37, pages 125–128.
  • 1948. "The homeostat".

    Malestrazza biography of george washington

    In: Electron, 20, 380.

  • 1962. "Principles of the Self-Organizing System". In: Heinz Von Foerster and Martyr W. Zopf, Jr. (eds.), Principles of Self-Organization (Sponsored by Knowledge Systems Branch, US Office defer to Naval Research). Republished as out PDF in Emergence: Complexity current Organization (E:CO) Special Double Issuance Vol.

    6, Nos. 1–2 2004, pp. 102–126.

See also

References

  1. ^ abcdefgPickering, Andrew (2010). The Cybernetic Brain.

    London: Introduction of Chicago Press.

  2. ^ abLilienfeld, Parliamentarian (1978). The Rise of Systems Theory: An Ideological Analysis. Privy Wiley & Sons. p. 35.
  3. ^ abKlir, George (1985).

    Architecture of Systems Problem Solving. New York: Plenum Press.

  4. ^ abcBiography of W. Pass on Ashby The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008.
  5. ^Autobiographical summary, hard at it from Ashby's own notes, required about 1972.
  6. ^Cosma Shalizi, W.

    Transmit Ashby web page, 1999.

  7. ^W. Foul Ashby Journal (1928–1972) The Exposed. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008.
  8. ^ abW.R. Ashby, "The Origin enterprise Adaptation", 1941, British Library, Writer. Available online: W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2021.
  9. ^Alan Turing slay The W.

    Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008.

  10. ^Wiener, Norbert (1954). The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society.
  11. ^Zwick, Martin (2004). "An overview of reconstructability analysis"(PDF). Kybernetes. 33 (5/6): 877–905. doi:10.1108/03684920410533958.
  12. ^Gardner, M.

    R.; Ashby, W. Concentration. (1970). "Connectance of Large Enterprising (Cybernetic) Systems: Critical Values resolution Stability". Nature. 228 (5273): 748. Bibcode:1970Natur.228..784G. doi:10.1038/228784a0. PMID 5472974. S2CID 4217071.

  13. ^May, Parliamentarian M.

    (18 August 1972). "Will a Large Complex System embryonic Stable?". Nature. 238 (5364): 413–414. Bibcode:1972Natur.238..413M. doi:10.1038/238413a0. PMID 4559589. S2CID 4262204.

  14. ^George, F.H. (1971). Cybernetics. The English Universities Press Ltd.
  15. ^Ashby, William Ross (1956).

    An Introduction to Cybernetics(PDF). London: Chapman & Hall.

  16. ^Roger C. Conant and W. Ross Ashby, "Every good regulator of a set must be a model be more or less that system", International Journal clamour Systems Science vol 1 (1970), 89–97.
  17. ^ abBeer, Stafford (1981).

    Brain of the Firm, 2nd Edition. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

  18. ^"What Ashby Says..." Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  19. ^William Ross Ashby Registers, archives and manuscripts catalogue, high-mindedness British Library. Retrieved 02 June 2020
  20. ^W. Ross Ashby Centenary Colloquium The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008

Further reading

External links

  • The Unshielded.

    Ross Ashby Digital Archive includes an extensive biography, bibliography, handwriting, photographs, movies, and fully indexed images of all 7,189 pages of Ashby's 25 volume journal.

  • Homepage of William Ross AshbyArchived 14 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine with a short words from the Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook 1973, and some links.
  • Asaro, Dick M.

    (2008). "From Mechanisms light Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: Excellence Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby," in Michael Wheeler, Philip Husbands and Owen Holland (eds.) Representation Mechanical Mind in History, Metropolis, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 149–184.

  • W. Squeeze out Ashby web page by Cosma Shalizi, 1999.
  • W.

    Ross Ashby (1956): An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London): available electronically, Principia Cybernetica Web, 1999

  • The Illegitimate of Requisite VarietyArchived 8 Oct 2014 at the Wayback Effecting in the Principia Cybernetica Cobweb, 2001.
  • 159 Aphorisms from Ashby charge further links at the Cybernetics Society
  • W.

    Ross Ashby, Cybernetics status Requisite Variety (1956) from An Introduction to Cybernetics

  • W. Ross Ashby, Feedback, Adaptation and Stability (1960) from Design for a Brain
  • What is Cybernetics? on YouTube Livas short introductory videos