Cybernetics • Regulation In Biological Systems • Discussion 4

Posted on December 27, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: Systems Science (1) (2) • Jack Ring

JR:
I share your appreciation of Ashby’s work.  However it seems to reflect the deductive approach typical of males as contrasted to the inductive approach typical of females.  Make sense?

A tutorial introduction to a scientific subject is necessarily bound by considerations both rhetorical and logical.

  • Rhetoric, classically speaking, concerns those forms of argument which consider the audience, that is, which take into account the receiver’s operating characteristics and prior state of information.
  • Logic, especially the “Logic of Science” conceived in a line of thinking from Aristotle through C.S. Peirce, requires abductive as well as deductive and inductive reasoning and divides their duties in a different way than dualist accounts of scientific inference.

The following project report contains more information about the triadic model of scientific inquiry.

Reference

  • Ashby, W.R. (1956), An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman and Hall, London, UK.  Republished by Methuen and Company, London, UK, 1964.  Online.

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog (1) (2) • Structural Modeling (1) (2) • Systems Science (1) (2)

Posted in Adaptive Systems, Ashby, C.S. Peirce, Communication, Control, Cybernetics, Evolution, Information, Inquiry Driven Systems, Learning, Logic, Mathematics, Peirce, Purpose, Regulation, Survival, Truth Theory, W. Ross Ashby | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

History, Its Arc, Its Tangents • 2

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: Renaissance Mathematicus • Both Sides of History

Are there watersheds in the history of science?  A continental divide between basins of right and wrong ideas?  I was pondering these questions when one of my favorite passages from Leibniz came to mind.

The Present Is Big With The Future

Now that I have proved sufficiently that everything comes to pass according to determinate reasons, there cannot be any more difficulty over these principles of God’s foreknowledge.  Although these determinations do not compel, they cannot but be certain, and they foreshadow what shall happen.

It is true that God sees all at once the whole sequence of this universe, when he chooses it, and that thus he has no need of the connexion of effects and causes in order to foresee these effects.  But since his wisdom causes him to choose a sequence in perfect connexion, he cannot but see one part of the sequence in the other.

It is one of the rules of my system of general harmony, that the present is big with the future, and that he who sees all sees in that which is that which shall be.

What is more, I have proved conclusively that God sees in each portion of the universe the whole universe, owing to the perfect connexion of things.  He is infinitely more discerning than Pythagoras, who judged the height of Hercules by the size of his footprint.  There must therefore be no doubt that effects follow their causes determinately, in spite of contingency and even of freedom, which nevertheless exist together with certainty or determination.

Right or wrong side of history?

On the one hand it envisions a thoroughgoing determinism.  On the other hand it foreshadows latter-day ideas about a holographic universe.  And it does all this while laying out its own theory of history, whose core idea is the germ of the differential calculus.

Reference

Gottfried Wilhelm (Freiherr von) Leibniz, Theodicy : Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, edited with an introduction by Austin Farrer, translated by E.M. Huggard from C.J. Gerhardt’s edition of the Collected Philosophical Works, 1875–1890.  Routledge 1951.  Open Court 1985.  Paragraph 360, page 341.

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Posted in Differential Calculus, History of Science, Hologrammautomaton, Leibniz, Thony Christie | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Higher Order Sign Relations • Discussion 2

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: Ontolog Forum • Joseph Simpson
Re: Relations, Types, Functions

JA:
The subject matters of relations, types, and functions enjoy a form of recursive involvement with one another which makes it difficult to know where to get on and where to get off the circle of explanation.  As I currently understand their relationship, it can be approached in the following order.

  • Relations have types.
  • Types are functions.
  • Functions are relations.

In this setting, a type is a function from the places of a relation, that is, from the index set of its components, to a collection of sets known as the domains of the relation.

My 3-basket mantra recited above harks back to the mid 1980s when I took a course on Applications of Lambda Calculus from John Gray at Illinois.  It was all about categories, combinators, and computation, focusing especially on Cartesian Closed Categories, one of the hot topics of the day.  We had a packet of readings from the classic sources and used J. Lambek and P.J. Scott’s Introduction to Higher Order Categorical Logic as our main text.  I followed that up with a supervised independent study where I explored various themes of my own.

The directions I pursued and continue to explore all have to do with mutating category theory just far enough to encompass Peirce’s 3-eyed vision in a more natural fashion.

I’ll make that more explicit when I next get a chance.

cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Ontolog Forum
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Posted in C.S. Peirce, Gödel Numbers, Higher Order Sign Relations, Inquiry, Inquiry Driven Systems, Inquiry Into Inquiry, Logic, Peirce, Quotation, Reflection, Reflective Interpretive Frameworks, Semiotics, Sign Relations, Triadic Relations | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Theory and Therapy of Representations • 4

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: Theory and Therapy of Representations • 3
Re: Ontolog Forum • Paola Di Maio

JA:
What are the forces distorting our representations of what’s observed, what’s expected, and what’s intended?
PDM:
The short answer is …. the force behind all distortions is our own unenlightened mind, and all the shortfalls this comes with.

I think that’s true, we have to keep reflecting on the state of our personal enlightenments.  If we can do that without losing our heads and our systems thinking caps, there will be much we can do to promote the general Enlightenment of the State.

On both personal and general grounds we have a stake in the projects of self‑governing systems — whether it is possible for them to exist and what it takes for them to thrive in given environments.  Systems on that order have of course been studied from many points of view and at many levels of organization.  Whether we address them under the names of adaptive, cybernetic, error-correcting, intelligent, or optimal control systems they all must be capable to some degree of learning, reasoning, and self‑guidance.

Resources

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Posted in Cybernetics, Democracy, Economics, Education, Expectation, Governance, Information, Inquiry, Intention, Justice, Law, Logic, Observation, Plato, Representation, Science, Semiosis, Semiotics, Society, Statistics, Virtue | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Theory and Therapy of Representations • 3

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Representation is a concept we find at the intersection of cybernetics, epistemology, logic, mathematics, psychology, and sociology.  In my studies it led me from math to psych and back again, with sidelong glances at the history of democratic governance.  Its time come round again, I find myself returning to the scenes of two recurring questions.

Scene 1.  Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • 18

We do not live in axiom systems.  We do not live encased in languages, formal or natural.  There is no reason to think we will ever have exact and exhaustive theories of what’s out there, and the truth, as we know, is “out there”.  Peirce understood there are more truths in mathematics than are dreamt of in logic — and Gödel’s realism should have put the last nail in the coffin of logicism — but some ways of thinking just never get a clue.

That brings us to Question 1 —

  • What are formalisms and all their embodiments in brains and computers good for?

Scene 2.  Theory and Therapy of Representations • 1

Statistics were originally the data a ship of state needed for stationkeeping and staying on course.  The Founders of the United States, like the Cybernauts of the Enlightenment they were, engineered a ship of state with checks and ballasts and error-controlled feedbacks for the sake of representing both reality and the will of the people.  In that connection Max Weber saw how a state’s accounting systems were intended as representations of realities its crew and passengers must observe or perish.

That brings us to Question 2 —

  • What are the forces distorting our representations of what’s observed, what’s expected, and what’s intended?

Resources

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History, Its Arc, Its Tangents • 1

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: Renaissance Mathematicus • Both Sides of History

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe;
the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways;
I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by
the experience of sight;  I can divine it by conscience.
And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

🙞 Theodore Parker

I think we are dealing with the scientific analogue of the moral figure above.  To inquire is to act as if inquiry pursued far enough will end in truth.  It’s a regulative principle, not a dogma, but a regulative principle is akin to a leap of faith.  Here we have a parting of the ways between those who think the end is near what we think we already know and those who think it’s more likely further down the road.  The two camps sort past and present ideas according to each one’s guess what the future holds.

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Posted in History of Science, Inquiry, Mathematics, Science, Theodore Parker, Thony Christie | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pragmatic Truth • Discussion 19

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Going over the last few month’s posts about signs, systems, and theories of truth I see many unanswered questions deserving of further attention.  Seasonal diversions being what they are my mind will be elsewhere the rest of the year so I’ve put together a list of topics for future work.

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog Forum • Structural Modeling • Systems Science

Posted in Aristotle, C.S. Peirce, Coherence, Concordance, Congruence, Consensus, Convergence, Correspondence, Dewey, Fixation of Belief, Information, Inquiry, John Dewey, Kant, Logic, Logic of Science, Method, Peirce, Philosophy, Pragmatic Maxim, Pragmatism, Semiotics, Sign Relations, Triadic Relations, Truth, Truth Theory, William James | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Cybernetics • Regulation In Biological Systems • Discussion 3

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: Cybernetics • Faisal L. Kadri

Maybe it will help to say a few things about the way forward …

I’ll be getting back to Ashby’s text directly — it’s still the best guide I’ve found to the rudiments of cybernetics and the underlying logic of developing systems.  Once we’ve laid down a stable platform of basic ideas we’ll be equipped to explore many directions of application, extension, and generalization.

As far as the future goes …

The way I see it, scientific inquiry is a cybernetic process carried on at every scale from individual inquirers to whole communities of inquiry.  That’s the way forward for me, but it’s still a ways to go.

Reference

  • Ashby, W.R. (1956), An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman and Hall, London, UK.  Republished by Methuen and Company, London, UK, 1964.  Online.

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog (1) • (2) • Structural Modeling (1) • (2) • Systems Science (1) • (2)

Posted in Adaptive Systems, Ashby, C.S. Peirce, Communication, Control, Cybernetics, Evolution, Information, Inquiry Driven Systems, Learning, Logic, Mathematics, Peirce, Purpose, Regulation, Survival, Truth Theory, W. Ross Ashby | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Higher Order Sign Relations • Discussion 1

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

Re: FB | Charles S. Peirce Society • John Corcoran

Questions about the proper treatment of use and mention from the standpoint of Peirce’s theory of signs came up recently in discussions on Facebook.  In pragmatic semiotics the trade‑off between “signs-of-objects” and “signs-as-objects” opens up the wider space of higher order sign relations.  In previous work on Inquiry Driven Systems I introduced the subject in the following way.

When interpreters reflect on their use of signs they require an appropriate technical language in which to pursue their reflections.  They need signs referring to sign relations, signs referring to elements and components of sign relations, and signs referring to properties and classes of sign relations.  The orders of signs developing as reflection evolves can be organized under the heading of “higher order signs” and the reflective sign relations involving them can be referred to as “higher order sign relations”.

References

Resources

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Posted in Arithmetization, C.S. Peirce, Gödel Numbers, Higher Order Sign Relations, Inquiry, Inquiry Driven Systems, Inquiry Into Inquiry, Logic, Mathematics, Quotation, Reflection, Reflective Interpretive Frameworks, Semiotics, Sign Relations, Triadic Relations, Use and Mention, Visualization | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Cybernetics • Regulation In Biological Systems • Selection 8

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Jon Awbrey

We want to understand how a species of organisms might evolve:  (1) organic means of storing formal structures capable of bearing information about an organism’s state in the world, and (2) faculties for developing artificial extensions of those means.  Keeping that goal in mind, let’s follow Ashby’s thesis about the mark of a good regulator as he applies it to higher forms of regulation.

Regulation In Biological Systems

Survival

Ashby Cybernetics Figure 10.5.2

10/6.[concl.]   The same argument will apply, with obvious modifications, to the automatic pilot.  If it is a good regulator the passengers will have a smooth flight whatever the gustiness outside.  They will, in short, be prevented from knowing whether or not it is gusty outside.  Thus a good pilot acts as a barrier against the transmission of that information.

The same argument applies to an air-conditioner.  If I live in an air-conditioned room, and can tell, by the hotness of the room, that it is getting hot outside, then that conditioner is failing as a regulator.  If it is really good, and the blinds are drawn, I shall be unable to form any idea of what the outside weather is like.  The good conditioner blocks the flow inwards of information about the weather.

The same thesis applies to the higher regulations achieved by such activities as hunting for food, and earning one’s daily bread.  Thus while the unskilled hunter or earner, in difficult times, will starve and will force his liver and tissues (the essential variables) to extreme and perhaps unphysiological states, the skilled hunter or earner will go through the same difficult times with his liver and tissues never taken to extremes.  In other words, his skill as a regulator is shown by the fact, among others, that it prevents information about the times reaching the essential variables.  In the same way, the skilled provider for a family may go through difficult times without his family realising that anything unusual has happened.  The family of an unskilled provider would have discovered it.

In general, then, an essential feature of the good regulator is that it blocks the flow of variety from disturbances to essential variables.

Reference

  • Ashby, W.R. (1956), An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman and Hall, London, UK.  Republished by Methuen and Company, London, UK, 1964.  Online.

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog Forum • Structural Modeling • Systems Science

Posted in Adaptive Systems, Ashby, C.S. Peirce, Communication, Control, Cybernetics, Evolution, Information, Inquiry Driven Systems, Learning, Logic, Mathematics, Peirce, Purpose, Regulation, Survival, Truth Theory, W. Ross Ashby | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments