"A deterministic system is one in which the parts interact in a perfectly predictable way. There is never any room for doubt: given a last state of the system and the programme of information by defining its dynamic network, it is always possible to predict, without any risk of error, its succeeding state. A probabilistic system, on the other hand, is one about which no precisely detailed prediction can be given. The system may be studied intently, and it may become more and more possible to say what it is likely to do in any given circumstances. But the system simply is not predetermined, and a prediction affecting it can never escape from the logical limitations of the probabilities in which terms alone its behaviour can be described." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"But in addition to what we decide to do by way of transformation, there are certain tendencies in the way systems behave of their own volition when left to their own devices. The convenient analogy for one of these processes is found in the second law of thermodynamics: an 'ordering' process goes on, for which the name is entropy. This can be explained without technicalities as the tendency of a system to settle down to a uniform distribution of its energy. The dissipation of local pockets of high energy is measured by an increase in entropy, until at maximum entropy all is uniform. According to this model, order is more 'natural' than chaos. This is the reason why it is convenient to discuss cybernetic systems, with their self-regulating tendency to attain stability or orderliness, in terms of entropy - a term which has been taken over to name a key tool of cybernetics." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"Control is an attribute of a system. This word is not used in the way in which either an office manager or a gambler might use it; it is used as a name for connectiveness. That is, anything that consists of parts connected together will be called a system." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"A system in a dynamic state, that is to say, one which is operating, may pass quite rapidly from one state to another for an indefinite period, and accounting for this behaviour will obviously require a vast investigation." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"If a machine is a purposive system, then the machine's description will be given by an account of the successive states of the system as its purpose unfolds. This succession of states is given by a set of transitions of one item to another, and this set is known technically as a transformation. When the transforms obtained from a transformation include no fresh item, but are concerned with re-arranging the items that are there already, we speak of a closed system." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"It will be useful if we base the arbitrary classification of systems on two distinct criteria. One obviously valuable criterion is that of the system's complexity. Adopting this criterion, it will be possible to discuss systems according to a three-fold scheme. The least complex with which we shall be concerned may be called: simple but dynamic. A system which is not simple, but which has become highly elaborate and is richly interconnected, will be called: complex but describable. Thirdly, we may discuss systems which have be- come so complicated that, while they may still be designated as complex, they cannot be described in a precise and detailed fashion. Such systems will be called: exceedingly complex." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"There are many kinds of effective control inside deterministic systems, and feedback is only one of them. The most reliable control method is, after all, direct coupling - which can be used in the absence of natural variation in what is connected. In the probabilistic category, however, feedback offers the only really effective mechanism for controlling endemic variation." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"[...] there can be such a thing as a simple probabilistic system. For example, consider the tossing of a penny. Here is a perfectly simple system, but one which is notoriously unpredictable. It maybe described in terms of a binary decision process, with a built-in even probability between the two possible outcomes." (Stafford Beer, "Cybernetics and Management", 1959)
"[…] cybernetics studies the flow of information round a system, and the way in which this information is used by the system as a means of controlling itself: it does this for animate and inanimate systems indifferently. For cybernetics is an interdisciplinary science, owing as much to biology as to physics, as much to the study of the brain as to the study of computers, and owing also a great deal to the formal languages of science for providing tools with which the behaviour of all these systems can be objectively described." (A Stafford Beer, 1966)
"For cybernetics is an interdisciplinary science, owing as much to biology as to physics, as much to the study of the brain as to the study of computers, and owing also a great deal to the formal languages of science for providing tools with which the behaviour of all these systems can be objectively described." (A Stafford Beer, 1966)
"Probably the first clear insight into the deep nature of control […] was that it is not about pulling levers to produce intended and inexorable results. This notion of control applies only to trivial machines. It never applies to a total system that includes any kind of probabilistic element - from the weather, to people; from markets, to the political economy. No: the characteristic of a non-trivial system that is under control, is that despite dealing with variables too many to count, too uncertain to express, and too difficult even to understand, something can be done to generate a predictable goal. Wiener found just the word he wanted in the operation of the long ships of ancient Greece. At sea, the long ships battled with rain, wind and tides - matters in no way predictable. However, if the man operating the rudder kept his eye on a distant lighthouse, he could manipulate the tiller, adjusting continuously in real-time towards the light. This is the function of steersmanship. As far back as Homer, the Greek word for steersman was kubernetes, which transliterates into English as cybernetes." (Stafford Beer, "What is cybernetics?", Kybernetes, 2002)
"The shocking thing is that there is truth in every one of these notions, and the reason is because cybernetics is an interdisciplinary subject. It must be complicated." (Stafford Beer, "What is cybernetics?", Kybernetes, 2002)
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