- William Ross Ashby
Infobox_Systems scientist H
region = Cybernetics
era = 20th century
color = #B0C4DE
image_caption =
name = William Ross Ashby
birth =6 September 1903
London ,England
death =November 15 ,1972
school_tradition =Psychiatry
main_interests =Psychiatry ,Cybernetics ,Systems theory
influences =
influenced =Norbert Wiener ,Ludwig von Bertalanffy ,Herbert Simon ,Stafford Beer andStuart Kauffman
notable_ideas =Cybernetics , Law of Requisite Variety, Principle of Self-Organization |, Principle ofSelf-organization W. Ross Ashby (
September 6 ,1903 , -November 15 ,1972 ) was an Englishpsychiatrist and a pioneer incybernetics , the study ofcomplex system s. His first name was never used, and generally, he was called 'Ross Ashby'.Biography
William Ross Ashby was born in 1903 in
London , where his father worked as Assistant Manager of an Advertising Agency. [http://www.rossashby.info/biography.html Biography of W. Ross Ashby] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. ] From 1917 to 1921 William studied at theEdinburgh Academy inScotland , and from 1921 at theSidney Sussex inCambridge , where he received his B.A. in 1924 and his M.B. and B.Ch. in 1928. From 1924 to 1928 he worked at theSt. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Later on he also received a Diploma in Psychological Medicine in 1930, and an M.A. 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. Andrews 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 inGloucester 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. [ [http://www.rossashby.info/autobiography.html Autobiographical summary] , taken from Ashby's own notes, made about 1972.]Ashby was president of
Society for General Systems Research from 1962 to 1964. He became a fellow of theRoyal 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 includedStuart Kauffman ,Stephen Wolfram andGeorge Klir . [ [http://www.rossashby.info/centenary.html W. Ross Ashby Centenary Conference] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. ]Work
Despite being widely influential within
cybernetics ,systems theory and, more recently,complex systems , he is not as well known as many of the notable scientists his work influenced includingHerbert Simon ,Norbert Wiener ,Ludwig von Bertalanffy ,Stafford Beer andStuart Kauffman . [ Cosma Shalizi, [http://bactra.org/notebooks/ashby.html W. Ross Ashby] web page, 1999. ]Journal
In May 1928, Ashby was 24 and a medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London when he started a journal, recording his theories in a series of 25 volumes (7,400 pages) over a period of 44 years. In 2003 the journal volumes were given to The British Library, London. In 2008, they were made available on the Internet in The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive. [ [http://www.rossashby.info/journal/index.html W. Ross Ashby Journal (1928-1972)] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. ]
Cybernetics
Ross Ashby was one of the original members of the
Ratio Club , a small informaldining club of young psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who met to discuss issues incybernetics . The club was founded in 1949 by the neurologistJohn Bates and continued to meet until 1958.Earlier, in 1946,
Alan Turing wrote a letter [ [http://www.rossashby.info/letters/turing.html Alan Turing letter] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. ] to Ashby suggesting he use Turing'sAutomatic Computing Engine (ACE) for his experiments instead of building a special machine. In 1948 Ashby made theHomeostat [ [http://www.hrat.btinternet.co.uk/Homeostat.html Java applet simulation] by Dr Horace Townsend ] . Ashby only made one reference to Turing in his journal, in December 1954 [ [http://www.rossashby.info/journal/page/5038.html W. Ross Ashby Journal (1928-1972), page 5039] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. ] .Variety
Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety [(Ashby 1956)] --variety absorbs variety, defines the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states. For example, the number of bits necessary in a digital computer to produce a required description or model.
In 1970 with Conant he produced the
Good Regulator theorem "Every Good Regulator of a System Must be a Model of that System" [ Int. J. Systems Sci., 1970. vol 1, No. 2 pp89-97] .Stafford Beer applied Variety to found management cybernetics and theViable System Model . Working independentlyGregory Chaitin followed this withalgorithmic information theory .See also
*
Cybernetics
*Intelligence amplification
*Self-organization
*Systems theory Publications
;Books
* 1952. "Design for a Brain", Chapman & Hall.
* 1956. " [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html 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: This article has the first known occurrence of the term "self-organizing " in print.
* 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 [http://emergence.org/ECO_site/ECO_Archive/Issue_6_1-2/Ashby.pdf 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.References
External links
* [http://www.rossashby.info/index.html 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.
* [http://www.gwu.edu/~asc/biographies/ashby/ashby.html Homepage of William Ross Ashby] with a short text from the "Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook" 1973, and some links.
* [http://bactra.org/notebooks/ashby.html W. Ross Ashby] web page byCosma Shalizi , 1999.
* [http://pcp.lanl.gov/ASHBBOOK.html W. Ross Ashby (1956): "An Introduction to Cybernetics", (Chapman & Hall, London): available electronically] , Principia Cybernetica Web, 1999
* [http://pcp.lanl.gov/reqvar.html The Law of Requisite Variety] in thePrincipia Cybernetica Web , 2001.
* [http://www.cybsoc.org/ross.htm 159 Aphorisms from Ashby and further links at the Cybernetics Society]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.