" Cybernetics and Scientific Methodology ", I sincerely recommend it.
PDF of the original text of the book : https://pan.quark.cn/s/4c81dc001cd6 (categorized under the study directory)
Cybernetics is a method of making systems behave the way we want them to.
The following is a summary of cybernetics, information theory, and systems theory:
cybernetics
Several points common to the control process:
- The controlled object must have multiple possibilities for development
- People can choose among these possibilities through certain means
All control processes are composed of the following three basic links:
- Understand what the possibility space is that things face
- Select some states in the possibility space as the goal
- Control conditions to transform things toward established goals
- Used to expand control range
- L − 1 AL is called the conjugate process of the A process. Through L − 1 transformation and L LL transformation, the A process of turning things that we cannot control into things that we can calibrate is completed.
Negative feedback control:
- Once the target difference occurs in the system, there will automatically be some reaction to reduce the target difference.
- Adjustments to reduce the target difference need to work again and again, so that the approximation to the target can accumulate
- The target gap keeps growing
- It often marks the destruction of the control process to achieve the predetermined goal, which means a process out of control.
- Also known as a "vicious cycle"
information theory
What is "knowing":
- The process by which people obtain information
- How to "know" is the process of how information is transmitted and how information is obtained.
Transmission of information:
- The transmission of information refers to the transmission of the process of reducing the possibility space
- The transmission of information requires us to exercise some kind of control, and in turn, the control process must rely on the transmission of information
- Effective control cannot be achieved because insufficient information is obtained
- Only by obtaining enough information about the target can the target be controlled
Is information an object?
- The amount of information is only an expression of the amount of information and does not exclude the subjective role of information.
Channel capacity:
- The maximum amount of information that can be transmitted by a channel in unit time is called the channel capacity of this channel.
Storage of information:
A formula: A ⇒ LABB ⇒ LBCC
Among them, the set A AA represents the information source, the set B represents the storage method of the information, the set C represents the recipient of the information, and L AB and LBC represent the corresponding transformation.
- All information preservation can be attributed to the above-mentioned transformation process
Several common characteristics of information preservation:
B itself is not necessarily something completely different from A, but the defensible state of B must be stable and can be preserved for a longer period of time than A.
B usually reflects a certain aspect of A.
In order for the stored information to be used, we must specifically understand the corresponding relationships LAB and LBC.
Information and organization:
- The process of organization creation is actually a process in which a system goes from a state of no contact, excluding many other possible ways of contact, and only adopts one or a few ways of contact.
- The organizational process is a process in which the possibility space of connections between errors changes from large to small, or from chaos to order. It is a process of establishing connections.
- A system must obtain a certain amount of information in order to be organized
Control, information, and organization can all be expressed as reductions in the possibility space. The difference lies in the different states of the possibility space.
- When studying control and information transmission, we isolate various parts of a complex organization from each other and derive the basic concepts when considering the local aspects.
System Theory
Characteristics of systematic research methods:
- Examine a process as a whole, grasp the factors that affect changes in things as comprehensively as possible, and focus on studying the interconnections between things and the general trend of development and change of things.
Causal links in systems research methods
Long chain of cause and effect:
- Behind one reason there are others. If you keep pursuing, you will find a long chain of cause and effect.
- The connections between many things in nature are random. The cause of a does not necessarily cause the result of a, and the result of a does not necessarily result from the cause of a. We call this uncertain cause and effect "probabilistic cause and effect"
Reciprocal causation or self-causation:
- "Why are there icebergs in Antarctica? This is caused by insufficient radiation, but in turn, the reflection of the icebergs causes the radiation not to be absorbed well."
- This kind of mutual causation and self-causation presents a causal loop. If we want to trace the ultimate cause, the cause is within the system. This kind of internal change of things determines the development and changes of things.
- Many things are not determined by a single reason, but by multiple reasons. If we want to have a good learning state, we can't just consider how the teacher teaches, but also have good learning methods, good sleep quality, healthy psychology, etc.
- These intersections mean that one thing has many causes, and that this event also has more consequences. This complex intersection criss-crosses the causal chain like a web.
- Ignore those factors that have a small enough impact probability and treat it as interference to the system and factors outside the system.
- System: artificially defining a group of variables with a strong degree of mutual coupling and correlation as a system
- The traditional method of researching complex things is: when there are many factors that affect the thing, other parts are often fixed, the impact of changes in each factor on the thing is examined separately, and then comprehensive research is conducted.
Steady state structure of the system
- Stable state: If a disturbance causes a system to deviate from a certain state, interactions within the system can still bring it back to that state.
- The system always automatically tends to a steady-state structure
Uniform and stable:
- A certain system is uniform in space, which means that after any transformation is performed on each position of the object space, the system remains unchanged.
Instability and system shock
Unstable states can be divided into two types:
1. Slowly tending to a stable structure
2. During cyclical fluctuations
- What mainly determines the oscillation of the system is the interaction of the subsystems within the system.
- Important Features: Rely on instability to maintain stability
- Special phenomenon: "stable-unstable-stable" phenomenon occurs periodically
- Ultra-stable mechanism: Re-search for a stable mechanism until the original steady-state structure is found, and the system returns to the unchanged state.
System evolution
- Transition from one stable structure to another
- Two basic modes: bifurcation and confluence
The collapse of the system: the phenomenon of self-reproduction
- The phenomenon of self-reproduction often marks the rapid break of the original stable structure of the system.
Common characteristics of self-reproduction phenomena:
- There is a critical value. Only when a system variable is greater than this critical value will self-reproduction occur.
- There is an automatic growth chain of causality within the self-reproducing system.
- The formation of a self-reproducing system is caused by the destruction of negative feedback control
self-organizing system
- System formation is an organizational process
- A system that occurs automatically between a group of things or variables without the intervention of forces other than the group of things or variables is called a self-organizing system.
Characteristics of self-organizing systems:
- First there is an organizational core
- A self-organizing system is an unstable system or a metastable system
- There is a causal chain of automatic selection within the self-organizing system.
- The self-organizing process is irreversible
- Small differences in the core of self-organization can lead to huge differences in the final formation of large organizations.
How to promote a collection of small systems to become the self-organizing system we need?
- Control the core system of the organization to form the organization we need
- Artificially changing a system to make it unstable or metastable
- Lose no opportunity to control it
intelligence amplification
- Amplification of choice ability
- Self-organizing system is a process of automatic amplification of selection ability
Other control systems
- Best/optimal control system: an automatic control system that makes the selected objective function reach the "best" under limited conditions.
- Adaptive control system: an automatic control system that can automatically adjust parameters or characteristics to adapt to environmental conditions.
- Follow-up system/tracking system: an automatic adjustment system that accurately follows or repeats a certain process
If you are interested, you can check out the electronic version of the book in PDF : https://pan.quark.cn/s/4c81dc001cd6