William Ross Ashby
Encyclopedia
W. Ross Ashby was an English
psychiatrist
and a pioneer in cybernetics
, the study of complex system
s. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby.
His two books, Design for a brain and An introduction to cybernetics, were landmark works. They introduced exact, logical, thinking to the nascent discipline, and were highly influential.
, where his father was working at an advertising agency
. From 1917 to 1921 William studied at the Edinburgh Academy
in Scotland
, and from 1921 at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
, where he received his B.A. in 1924 and his M.B. and B.Ch. in 1928. From 1924 to 1928 he worked at the St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Later on he also received a Diploma in Psychological Medicine in 1931, and an M.A. 1930 and M.D. from Cambridge in 1935.
Ross Ashby started working in 1930 as a Clinical Psychiatrist in the London County Council. From 1936 until 1947 he was a Research Pathologist in the St Andrew's Hospital
in Northampton
in England. From 1945 to 1947 he served in India where he was a Major in the Royal Army Medical Corps
.
When he returned to England he served as Director of Research of the Barnwood House Hospital
in Gloucester
from 1947 until 1959. For a year he was Director of the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol. In 1960 he went to the United States and became Professor, Depts. of Biophysics and Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
, until his retirement in 1970.
Ashby was president of the Society for General Systems Research
from 1962 to 1964. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry in 1971.
On March 4–6, 2004, a W. Ross Ashby centenary conference was held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. Presenters at the conference included Stuart Kauffman
, Stephen Wolfram
and George Klir
. In February 2009 a special issue of the International Journal of General Systems
was specifically devoted to Ashby and his work, containing papers from leading scholars such as Klaus Krippendorff
, Stuart Umpleby
and Kevin Warwick
.
, systems theory
and, more recently, complex systems
, he is not as well known as many of the notable scientists his work influenced including Herbert Simon
, Norbert Wiener
, Ludwig von Bertalanffy
, Stafford Beer and Stuart Kauffman
.
, a small informal dining club
of young psychologists
, physiologists
, mathematicians
and engineers
who met to discuss issues in cybernetics
. The club was founded in 1949 by the neurologist
John Bates
and continued to meet until 1958.
Earlier, in 1946, Alan Turing
wrote a letter to Ashby suggesting he use Turing's Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) for his experiments instead of building a special machine. In 1948 Ashby made the Homeostat
.
stating that "variety absorbs variety, defines the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states." This law can be applied for example to the number of bits necessary in a digital computer to produce a required description or model.
In response Conant (1970) produced his so called "Good Regulator
theorem" stating that "every Good Regulator of a System Must be a Model of that System".
Stafford Beer applied Variety to found management cybernetics and the Viable System Model
. Working independently Gregory Chaitin
followed this with algorithmic information theory
.
Articles, a selection
About W. Ross Ashby
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and a pioneer in cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, the study of complex system
Complex system
A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties not obvious from the properties of the individual parts....
s. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby.
His two books, Design for a brain and An introduction to cybernetics, were landmark works. They introduced exact, logical, thinking to the nascent discipline, and were highly influential.
Biography
William Ross Ashby was born in 1903 in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where his father was working at an advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
. From 1917 to 1921 William studied at the Edinburgh Academy
Edinburgh Academy
The Edinburgh Academy is an independent school which was opened in 1824. The original building, in Henderson Row on the northern fringe of the New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the Senior School...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, and from 1921 at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.The college was founded in 1596 and named after its foundress, Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex. It was from its inception an avowedly Puritan foundation: some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance...
, where he received his B.A. in 1924 and his M.B. and B.Ch. in 1928. From 1924 to 1928 he worked at the St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Later on he also received a Diploma in Psychological Medicine in 1931, and an M.A. 1930 and M.D. from Cambridge in 1935.
Ross Ashby started working in 1930 as a Clinical Psychiatrist in the London County Council. From 1936 until 1947 he was a Research Pathologist in the St Andrew's Hospital
St Andrew's Hospital
St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton, England is a psychiatric hospital run by a non-profit-making, charitable trust. It is by far the largest mental health facility in UK, providing national specialist services for adolescents, men, women and older people with mental illness, learning disability,...
in Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
in England. From 1945 to 1947 he served in India where he was a Major in the Royal Army Medical Corps
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
.
When he returned to England he served as Director of Research of the Barnwood House Hospital
Barnwood House Hospital
Barnwood House Hospital was a private mental hospital in Barnwood, Gloucester, England. It was founded by the Gloucester Asylum Trust in 1860 as Barnwood House Institution and later became known as Barnwood House Hospital. The hospital catered for well-to-do patients, with reduced terms for those...
in Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
from 1947 until 1959. For a year he was Director of the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol. In 1960 he went to the United States and became Professor, Depts. of Biophysics and Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
, until his retirement in 1970.
Ashby was president of the Society for General Systems Research
Society for General Systems Research
The Society for General Systems Research is predecessor of the current International Society for the Systems Sciences , known to be one the first interdisciplinary and international co-operations in the field of systems theory and systems science...
from 1962 to 1964. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry in 1971.
On March 4–6, 2004, a W. Ross Ashby centenary conference was held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. Presenters at the conference included Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth...
, Stephen Wolfram
Stephen Wolfram
Stephen Wolfram is a British scientist and the chief designer of the Mathematica software application and the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine.- Biography :...
and George Klir
George Klir
George Jiri Klir is a Czech-American computer scientist and professor of systems sciences at the Center for Intelligent Systems at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York.- Biography :...
. In February 2009 a special issue of the International Journal of General Systems
International Journal of General Systems
The International Journal of General Systems is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on basic and applied aspects of systems science and systems methodology. Its focus is on "general systems" - systems ideas that have general applicability...
was specifically devoted to Ashby and his work, containing papers from leading scholars such as Klaus Krippendorff
Klaus Krippendorff
Klaus Krippendorff Frankfurt am Main, is the Gregory Bateson professor for Cybernetics, Language, and Culture at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.- Overview :...
, Stuart Umpleby
Stuart Umpleby
Stuart Anspach Umpleby is an American cybernetician and a professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning in the School of Business at the George Washington University....
and Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...
.
Work
Despite being widely influential within cyberneticsCybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, systems theory
Systems theory
Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
and, more recently, complex systems
Complex systems
Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...
, he is not as well known as many of the notable scientists his work influenced including Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
, Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
, Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy was an Austrian-born biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory . GST is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics, and other fields...
, Stafford Beer and Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth...
.
Journal
Ashby kept a journal for over 44 years in which he recorded his ideas about new theories. He started May 1928, when he was medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Over the years he wrote down a series of 25 volumes totaling 7,400 pages. In 2003 these journals were given to The British Library, London, and since 2008, they were made available online as The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive.Cybernetics
Ross Ashby was one of the original members of the Ratio ClubRatio Club
The Ratio Club was a small informal dining club of young psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who met to discuss issues in cybernetics....
, a small informal dining club
Dining club
A dining club is a social group, usually requiring membership , which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers...
of young psychologists
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, physiologists
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
, mathematicians
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and engineers
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
who met to discuss issues in cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
. The club was founded in 1949 by the neurologist
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
John Bates
John Bates
John Bates may refer to:* John Bates , fashion designer who designed Diana Rigg's clothes in The Avengers* John Bates , former president of the UK Social Democratic Party...
and continued to meet until 1958.
Earlier, in 1946, Alan Turing
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
wrote a letter to Ashby suggesting he use Turing's Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) for his experiments instead of building a special machine. In 1948 Ashby made the Homeostat
Homeostat
The Homeostat is one of the first devices capable of adapting itself to the environment; it exhibited behaviours such as habituation, reinforcement and learning through its ability to maintain homeostasis in a changing environment. It was built by William Ross Ashby in 1948 at Barnwood House Hospital...
.
Variety
In An Introduction to Cybernetics Ashby formulated his Law of Requisite VarietyVariety (cybernetics)
In cybernetics the term variety denotes the total number of distinct states of a system.- Overview :The term Variety was introduced by W. Ross Ashby to denote the count of the total number of states of a system. The condition for dynamic stability under perturbation was described by his Law of...
stating that "variety absorbs variety, defines the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states." This law can be applied for example to the number of bits necessary in a digital computer to produce a required description or model.
In response Conant (1970) produced his so called "Good Regulator
Good Regulator
The Good Regulator is a theorem due to Roger C. Conant and W. Ross Ashby that is central to cybernetics. It is stated "Every Good Regulator of a system must be a model of that system"....
theorem" stating that "every Good Regulator of a System Must be a Model of that System".
Stafford Beer applied Variety to found management cybernetics and the Viable System Model
Viable System Model
The viable systems model, or VSM is a model of the organisational structure of any viable or autonomous system. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. One of the prime features of systems that survive is that they are...
. Working independently Gregory Chaitin
Gregory Chaitin
Gregory John Chaitin is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist.-Mathematics and computer science:Beginning in 2009 Chaitin has worked on metabiology, a field parallel to biology dealing with the random evolution of artificial software instead of natural software .Beginning in...
followed this with algorithmic information theory
Algorithmic information theory
Algorithmic information theory is a subfield of information theory and computer science that concerns itself with the relationship between computation and information...
.
See also
- CyberneticsCyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
- HomeostatHomeostatThe Homeostat is one of the first devices capable of adapting itself to the environment; it exhibited behaviours such as habituation, reinforcement and learning through its ability to maintain homeostasis in a changing environment. It was built by William Ross Ashby in 1948 at Barnwood House Hospital...
- Intelligence amplificationIntelligence amplificationIntelligence amplification refers to the effective use of information technology in augmenting human intelligence...
- Self-organizationSelf-organizationSelf-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it through planning...
- Systems theorySystems theorySystems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
Publications
Books- 1952. Design for a Brain, Chapman & Hall.
- 1956. An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman & Hall.
- 1981. Conant, Roger C. (ed.). Mechanisms of Intelligence: Ross Ashby's Writings on Cybernetics, Intersystems Publishers.
Articles, a selection
- 1940. "Adaptiveness and equilibrium". In: J. Ment. Sci. 86, 478.
- 1945. "Effects of control on stability". In: Nature, London, 155, 242-243.
- 1946. "The behavioural properties of systems in equilibrium". In: Amer. J. Psychol. 59, 682-686.
- 1947. "Principles of the Self-Organizing Dynamic System". In: Journal of General Psychology (1947). volume 37, pages 125–128.
- 1948. "The homeostat". In: Electron, 20, 380.
- 1962. "Principles of the Self-Organizing System". In: Heinz Von Foerster and George W. Zopf, Jr. (eds.), Principles of Self-Organization (Sponsored by Information Systems Branch, U.S. Office of Naval Research). Republished as a PDF in Emergence: Complexity and Organization (E:CO) Special Double Issue Vol. 6, Nos. 1-2 2004, pp. 102–126.
About W. Ross Ashby
- Asaro, Peter (2008). "From Mechanisms of Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: The Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby," in Michael Wheeler, Philip Husbands and Owen Holland (eds.) The Mechanical Mind in History, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
External links
- The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive includes an extensive biography, bibliography, letters, photographs, movies, and fully indexed images of all 7,400 pages of Ashby's 25 volume journal.
- Homepage of William Ross Ashby with a short text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook 1973, and some links.
- Asaro, Peter M. (2008). "From Mechanisms of Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: The Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby," in Michael Wheeler, Philip Husbands and Owen Holland (eds.) The Mechanical Mind in History, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 149–184.
- W. Ross Ashby web page by Cosma ShaliziCosma ShaliziCosma Rohilla Shalizi is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh....
, 1999. - W. Ross Ashby (1956): An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London): available electronically, Principia Cybernetica Web, 1999
- The Law of Requisite Variety in the Principia Cybernetica Web, 2001.
- 159 Aphorisms from Ashby and further links at the Cybernetics Society
- W. Ross Ashby, Cybernetics and Requisite Variety (1956) from An Introduction to Cybernetics
- W. Ross Ashby, Feedback, Adaptation and Stability (1960) from Design for a Brain
- What is Cybernetics? Livas short introductory videos on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....