One of the most important ideas I have taken from cybernetics is what is commonly referred to as Ashby’s law: variety consumes variety. Or, put more simply: For one system to exert control over another, the controller must exhibit at least as much variety as the controlee. For instance, an aircraft operates in three dimensions, and so the control inputs for the aircraft must support control over three dimensions. The details of the mapping do not matter quite as much as the fact that there is an equal amount of variety. Thus the controls of a helicopter can be different from the controls of a glider, but the control systems of both vehicles have enough variety to consume the variety of the environment the vehicle operates in.
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This is my answer to your question, it's just a quote, but I think it contain enough information .
Then further, there are machine learning, browser, operation system, novel world building, which require a lot of complexity. Functionality is born of complexity, and these are necessary complexities. There is a limit to simplicity. Rather than saying that the opposite of complexity is simplicity, it is more correct to say that the opposite of order is chaos.
Absorption of Complexity
One of the most important ideas I have taken from cybernetics is what is commonly referred to as Ashby’s law: variety consumes variety. Or, put more simply: For one system to exert control over another, the controller must exhibit at least as much variety as the controlee. For instance, an aircraft operates in three dimensions, and so the control inputs for the aircraft must support control over three dimensions. The details of the mapping do not matter quite as much as the fact that there is an equal amount of variety. Thus the controls of a helicopter can be different from the controls of a glider, but the control systems of both vehicles have enough variety to consume the variety of the environment the vehicle operates in.
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This is my answer to your question, it's just a quote, but I think it contain enough information .
https://smarimccarthy.is/posts/2022-02-18-cybernetics/
Then further, there are machine learning, browser, operation system, novel world building, which require a lot of complexity. Functionality is born of complexity, and these are necessary complexities. There is a limit to simplicity. Rather than saying that the opposite of complexity is simplicity, it is more correct to say that the opposite of order is chaos.
Thanks for pointing to that article about cybernetics! Lots of good quotes in there. This one fits well to what I write about here too:
> Not all knowledge must be tested scientifically for it to be knowledge; but all knowledge must be tested scientifically for it to be science.
Hi Stefan, I really enjoyed this read and I hope you'll continue the series on this topic.