p.149-150 A medical doctor and psychiatrist by training, Ashby approached
the brain as being first and foremost an organ of the body. Like other organs the brain had specific biological functions
to perform. Ashby further believed that through a thoughtful analysis of those functions, a quantitatively rigorous analysis
of the brain’s mechanisms could be devised... By always insisting upon sticking to the naturalistic functions of the
brain, and to quantitative methods, Ashby was led to a number of startling and unique insights into the nature of intelligence
that remain influential.
p.152 [Ashby] I have worked to increase our understanding of the mechanistic aspect of "intelligence,"
partly to obtain a better insight into the processes of the living brain, partly to bring the same processes into
action synthetically.
p.153 Ashby recognizes that the instruments of investigation shape what
one finds, and the question is what instruments to use to study the brain.
p.154 Ashby sought to apply mechanistic analysis to the gross holistic
organization of behavior directly, not merely to low-level processes, and to thereby demonstrate the general
mechanisms by which the brain could achieve mental performances.
The first step in this conceptual move... he took an epistemological
approach which sought to explain the mental process of "equilibrium." This approach is epistemological insofar as it attempts
to show that we can know or understand the mind the same way we understand mechanical processes - by virtue
of the analogy made between them... Ashby... rather than argue that adaptation is reducible to this concept [JLJ - that the
mind must submit to mechanistic explanation because it was necessarily made up of the obviously physical brain], shows that
it is equivalent, and hence can be analyzed and studied in the same manner as mechanical processes but independent of
its specific material composition.
p.154 The central argument of Ashby’s mechanistic approach first appears
in ‘‘Adaptiveness and Equilibrium’’ (1940). The title discloses the two concepts that he argues are
analogous. In its final formulation, the analogy he argued for was that adaptive behavior, such as when a
kitten learns to avoid the hot embers from a fire, was equivalent to the behavior of a system in equilibrium.
In establishing this analogy, he shows that the biological phenomena of adaptive behavior can be described with the
language and mathematical rigor of physical systems in states of equilibrium.
p.155 a peculiar feature of living organisms is their adaptive behavior... the
capacity for adaptation is necessary, and possibly sufficient, for something to be a living organism.
p.155 [Jennings, 1915] Organisms do those things that advance their welfare. If the environment changes, the organism
changes to meet the new conditions... In innumerable details it does those things that are good for it.
p.156 [Ashby, 1940] stable equilibrium is necessary for existence,
and that systems in unstable equilibrium inevitably destroy themselves. Consequently, if we find
that a system persists, in spite of the usual small disturbances which affect every physical body, then we
may draw the conclusion with absolute certainty that the system must be in stable equilibrium.
p.156 Ashby later (1945) employed the simpler definition of the physicist Hendrik
Lorentz (1927): ‘‘By a state of equilibrium of a system we mean a state in which it can persist permanently’’
(p.15). Since many equilibrium states are precarious and unlikely, Ashby further qualifies this by accepting the definition
of a ‘‘stable’’ equilibrium as one in which a system will return to the equilibrium state even when
some of its variables are disturbed slightly.
p.156 Ashby... clarifies the concept’s meaning (Ashby 1940, pp. 479, 483):
We must notice some minor points at this stage. Firstly, we notice that
‘‘stable equilibrium’’ does not mean immobility. A body, e.g. a pendulum swinging, may vary
considerably and yet be in stable equilibrium the whole time. Secondly, we note that the concept of ‘‘equilibrium’’
is essentially a dynamic one. If we just look at the three bodies [cube, cone, and sphere] on our table and do nothing
with them the concept of equilibrium can hardly be said to have any particular meaning. It is only when we disturb
the bodies and observe their subsequent reactions that the concept develops its full meaning....
The question of whether adaptiveness is always equivalent to ‘‘stable
equilibrium’’ is difficult. First we must study the nature of ‘‘adaptiveness’’ a little
closer.
p.157 in all cases adaptiveness is shown only in relation to some specific
situation... we are dealing with a circuit, for we have, first: environment has an effect on the animal,
and then: the animal has some effect on the environment. The concept of adaptive behavior deals with the relationship
between the two effects. It becomes meaningless if we try to remove one of the effects.
p.157 "Adaptation," like other scientific concepts, is nothing more than a set of observed reactions of various systems
under different conditions. Those conditions are crucial insofar as the environment provides the context for the actions and
the reactions - the behavior - of the system, a necessary link in the chain of cause and effect.
p.157 Mechanical theory was of particular interest to Ashby by virtue of its potential
for supplying a mathematical basis for psychology.
p.158 A break is a change in the organization of a system... the equations or functions that previously defined the system
no longer hold true... a break, or change in the constants, is necessarily a discontinuous change from one distinct organization
to another distinct organization - in other words, a shift from one set of equations to another set of equations.
p.159 (Ashby 1945, p. 17): We may state this principle in the form: dynamic systems
stop breaking when, and only when, they reach a state of equilibrium. And since a ‘‘break’’ is a change
of organization, the principle may be restated in the more important form: all dynamic systems change their internal
organizations spontaneously until they arrive at some state of equilibrium.
The process of breaking continues indefinitely as long as the
variables describing the system continue to exceed tolerable limits on their values - that is, until the variables
can be kept within certain limits... the organism adapts to its environment by successive trials of internal
reorganization until it finds an equilibrium in which its physiological needs are met. In later writings, Ashby (1952a,
c) will stress the importance of certain ‘‘essential variables,’’ which the
organism must maintain within certain limits in order to stay alive... In its psychological formulation, the
thinking system behaves so as to seek and approach a ‘‘goal,’’ defined as a set of desired values
over certain variables. The organism thus seeks to find an equilibrium of a specific kind, one in which essential variables
are kept within their safe and vital limits, or in which a goal is satisfied.
p.159 Generally, a breakdown is seen as undesirable... Here it has become
the supreme virtue of living machines: the creative drive, the power to generate alternative organizations in order to adapt
to the environment...a change in the relationships between variables cannot be as easily expressed. In
order to describe a machine that changes its dynamics, it is necessary to switch from one set of functions to another.
p.160 The living system can maintain some desired portion of its organization in equilibrium, the essential variables,
even as the rest of the system changes dynamically in response to disturbances that threaten to destroy that desired equilibrium.
For Ashby, this involved developing his conception of "ultrastability" - the power of a system to always find a suitable
equilibrium despite changes in its environmental conditions... the organism achieves a certain kind of stability for a few
vital variables
p.162 Ashby... offers the Homeostat as an example of a simulation useful in
scientific education for demonstrating that goal-seeking behavior, as a trial-and-error search for equilibrium, presents
a fundamentally different kind of mechanical process—negative feedback with step-functions—and opens
up new vistas of possibility for what machines might be capable of doing.
p.162 Throughout these efforts, Ashby sought to motivate and inspire the
belief that a revolution had occurred in our understanding of machines, and that the mechanism of adaptation
might ultimately result in machines capable of impressive and even superhuman performances. [JLJ - computer chess,
perhaps?]
p.168 In biological systems, the random variations of mutation supply alternative
possibilities unforeseen by any designer, and thus the organism can evolve capacities beyond its own design.
p.169 Ashby suggested that we ought to design machines that would amplify the intellectual
powers of average humans.
p.170 According to Ashby, intelligence implies a selection: intelligence is
the power of appropriate selection.
p.171 intelligence is now understood as a combination of the abilities to produce
a great many meaningless alternatives, and to eliminate by appropriate selection the incorrect choices among those—a
two-stage process. [JLJ - easier said than done. You would need to start with a collection of hypotheses, some ideas on how
to maintain a sustainability, and a wisdom that selectively and sequentially asks, "and now what?" We also need to get
away from the thinking that choices somehow can be "correct" or "incorrect" - we may never know due to the complexity and
uncertainty present. Instead, we choose how to "go on" - the unknown (and unknowable) consequences of the consequences of
the consequences will resolve and determine how "correct" or "incorrect" we are. We strategically choose how to position
ourselves (and our adaptive capacity) for what essentially is "further maneuver" in whatever it is that follows - foreseen
or otherwise. "Correct" is for questions on tests - life is a much more ambiguous examiner.]
p.175 [Ashby, 1961] What I am saying is that if the measure is applied to both
on a similar basis it will be found that each, computer and living brain, can achieve appropriate selection precisely so far
as it is allowed to by the quantity of information that it has received and processed.
p.182 Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety states that any system that is to
control the ultimate outcome of any interaction in which another system also exerts some control must have at least as much
variety in its set of alternative moves as the other system if it is to possibly succeed (Ashby 1956b, p. 206).
