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September 14, 2004

Beer(1984)

Stafford Beer,"The Viable System Model: Its Provenance, Development,
Methodology and Pathology", The Journal of the Operational Research
Society, Vol.35, No.1, pp.7-25, 1984.
理解度が低いな．
variety engineeringの概念と，viable system modelの歴史的発展の流れは分かった．
なんというかBeerのお仕事紹介論文か．
methodologyのところが良く理解できなかった(解釈しづらい英文だったので)ので，Jacksonのほんの当該のchapterを読んで，しっ
かりと理解することにする．

A precise measure of systemic complexity had been proposed
as variety, meaning the number of distinguishable elements in a system,
or by extension the number of distinguishable systemic states.
(pp.10)

"Often one hears the optimistic demand: 'give me a simple
control system; one that cannot go wrong'. This trouble with such
'simple' controls is that they have insufficient variety to cope with
variety in the environment. Thus, so far from not going wrong, they
cannot go right. Only variety in the control system can deal
successfully with variety in the system controlled."
(snip)
"Only variety can destroy variety."
(pp.11)

Posted by ysk5 at September 14, 2004 10:58 PM