W. Ross Ashby Short Quotes

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When a constraint exists advantage can usually be taken of it.

W. Ross Ashby
The concept of "variety" [is] inseparable from that of "information."

W. Ross Ashby
Further, as every law of nature implies the existence of an invariant, it follows that every law of nature is a constraint.

W. Ross Ashby
The most basic facts in biology are that this earth is now two thousand million years old, and that the biologist studies mostly that which exists today.

W. Ross Ashby
Every isolated determinate dynamic system, obeying unchanging laws, will ultimately develop some sort of organisms that are adapted to their environments.

W. Ross Ashby
[Constraint] is a relation between two sets, and occurs when the variety that exists under one condition is less than the variety that exists under another.

W. Ross Ashby
If intellectual power is to be developed, we must somehow construct amplifiers for intelligence — devices that, supplied with a little intelligence, will emit a lot.

W. Ross Ashby
By a state of a system is meant any well-defined condition or property that can be recognised if it occurs again. Every system will naturally have many possible states.

W. Ross Ashby
What is important is that complex systems, richly cross-connected internally, have complex behaviours, and that these behaviours can be goal-seeking in complex patterns.

W. Ross Ashby
The fundamental questions in regulation and control can be answered only when we are able to consider the broader set of what it might do, when might is given some exact specification.

W. Ross Ashby