References for CHAPTER 4, The ECCO System

1 Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1948), p. 1.

2 William Ross Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics. (New York: Methuen, 1956), pp. 1-6.

3 See William Ross Ashby, Design for a Brain (NY: Methuen, 1956). For a different perspective on the phenomenon, see also Jay Forrester, Industrial Dynamics (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1961) for a discussion of the effects of information delays on system behavior.

4 A complete description of the Homeostat can be found in Ashby's Design for a Brain.

5 A. Y. Aulin-Ahmavaara, "The Law of Requisite Hierarchy", Kybernetes, Vol. 8 (1979), p. 266.

6 It is assumed by Ashby that a column contains no repetitions--that is, that a discrete disturbance D (by definition) requires a different move on the part of R.

7 Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics.

8 Ibid.

9 Aulin-Ahmavaara, "Law of Requisite Hierarchy".

10 Ibid., p. 259.

11 Ibid., p. 260.

12 Ibid., p. 260.

13 Ibid., p. 262.

14 For a complete exposition of the theory and application of Aulin's work, on requisite hierarchy, see Arvid Aulin's Foundations of Mathematical Systems Dynamics: The Fundamental Theory of Causal Recursion and its Application to Social Science and Economics (Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1989); and his earlier work The Cybernetic Laws of Social Progress (Elmsford NY: Pergamon Press, 1982).

15 Ibid., p. 260.

16 See Ashby's reference to the team as a regulator in his article, "Requisite Variety and Its Implications for the Control of Complex Systems" reprinted in Mechanisms of Intelligence: Ashby's Writings on Cybernetics, Roger Conant, ed. (Seaside, CA: Intersystems Publications, 1981).

17 A conclusion with which Aulin would perhaps agree. He states that "with increasing self regulation of [first line regulators] productive forces the gain obtainable by social hierarchy decreases until it entirely disappears when the productive forces reach full self-regulation." Aulin-Ahmavaara, "Law of Requisite Hierarchy", p. 266.

18 Roger C. Conant and W. Ross Ashby, "Every Good Regulator of a System Must be a Model of that System", originally published in International Journal of Systems Science, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1970), reprinted in Roger Conant, ed., Mechanisms of Intelligence, pp. 205-214.

19 Ibid., p. 212.

20 Ibid., pp. 212-214.

21 See also Ashby's article "The Effects of Controls on Stability" in Conant, Mechanisms of Intelligence, pp. 7-9.

22 See Ashby's Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapter 14, "Amplifying Regulation".

23 Ibid., pp. 270-1.

24 Ibid., p. 271.

25 W. Ross Ashby, "Principles of the Self-Organizing System" in Walter Buckley, ed., Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), p. 111.

26 William Ross Ashby, Design for a Brain (New York: Methuen, 1960), p. 83.

27 Ibid., p. 84.

28 William T. Powers, "Control Theory: A Model of Organisms", System Dynamics Review 6 (no. 1, Winter 1990): 1-20. For a more detailed discussion see William T. Powers, Behavior: The Control of Perception (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine/DeGruyter, 1973).