4 ms·

Is there a better introduction to these ideas than Wikipedia? It makes intuitive sense, but I'd like to see the proof of this statement. Wikipedia mentions a "g

Is there a better introduction to these ideas than Wikipedia? It makes intuitive sense, but I'd like to see the proof of this statement. Wikipedia mentions a "good regulator theorem", but the citation is pretty bad: "Conant 1970". Edit: The paper must be this: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207727008920220 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0020772700892022... But I'm still interested if there's a better introduction. Edit #2: Looks like Ashby's 1956 book around page 207 has an argument based on information entropy. I haven't read it, just skimmed it. I'll look more closely later. You can download the book here: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html

sgillen 8y ago
The whole "cybernetics" field is pretty weird to me, I think the notation and lingo have sort of moved on (I could easily be wrong and biased without realizing). However the theorems you are talking about have useful, well studied analogs in the field of control theory. For example the Law of Requisite Variety is very much related to the concept of under-actuation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underactuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underactuation). The good regulator theorem becomes the internal model principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_model_(motor_control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_model_(motor_control) I think you'll have much better luck finding good introductions to these topics in control theory than in trying to learn more about cybernetics.