William Ross Ashby
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{{Infobox_Systems scientist H|
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region = Cybernetics |
era = 20th century |
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name = '''William Ross Ashby''' |
birth = [[6 September]] [[1903]] <br /> [[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]] and [[Stuart Kauffman]] |
notable_ideas = [[Cybernetics]], Law of Requisite Variety, Principle of Self-Organization |, Principle of [[Self-organization]]}}
'''W. Ross Ashby''' ([[September 6]], [[1903]], - [[November 15]], [[1972]]) was an [[England|English]] [[psychiatrist]] and a pioneer in [[cybernetics]], the study of [[complex 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.<ref name="bio">[http://www.rossashby.info/biography.html Biography of W. Ross Ashby] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. </ref> From 1917 to 1921 William studied at the [[Edinburgh Academy]] in [[Scotland]], and from 1921 at the [[Sidney Sussex]] in [[Cambridge]], where he received his B.A. in 1924 and his M.B. and B.Ch. in 1928. From 1924 to 1928 he worked at the [[St. 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 Major in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Back in England he was Director of Research of the [[Barnwood House Hospital]] in [[Gloucester]] from 1947 until 1959. For a year he was Director of the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol. In 1960 he went to the States and became Professor, Depts. of Biophysics and Electrical Engineering, [[University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]] in Illinois, U.S.A. until retirement in 1970.<ref>[http://www.rossashby.info/autobiography.html Autobiographical summary], taken from Ashby's own notes, made about 1972.</ref>
Ashby was president of [[Society for General Systems Research]] from 1962 to 1964. He became a fellow of the [[Royal 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 included [[Stuart Kauffman]], [[Stephen Wolfram]] and [[George Klir]].<ref>[http://www.rossashby.info/centenary.html W. Ross Ashby Centenary Conference] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. </ref>
== Work ==
Despite being widely influential within [[cybernetics]], [[systems theory]] and, more recently, [[complex systems]], he is not nearly as well known as many of the notable scientists his work influenced including [[Herbert Simon]], [[Norbert Wiener]], [[Ludwig von Bertalanffy]], [[Stafford Beer]] and [[Stuart Kauffman]].<ref> Cosma Shalizi, [http://bactra.org/notebooks/ashby.html W. Ross Ashby] web page, 1999. </ref>
=== 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 over a period of 44 years. In January 2003 the journal volumes were given to The British Library, London.<ref>[http://www.rossashby.info/journal/index.html W. Ross Ashby Journal (1928-1972)] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. </ref>
=== Cybernetics ===
Ross Ashby was one of the initial members of the [[Ratio Club]], a small informal [[dining club]] of young [[psychology|psychologists]], [[physiology|physiologists]], [[mathematics|mathematicians]] and [[engineering|engineers]] who met to discuss issues in [[cybernetics]]. The club was founded in 1949 by the [[neurology|neurologist]] [[John Bates]] and continued to meet until [[1958]].
Earlier in 1946, [[Alan Turing]] wrote a letter<ref>[http://www.rossashby.info/letters/turing.html Alan Turing letter] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. </ref> to Ashby suggesting he use Turing's [[Automatic Computing Engine]] (ACE) for his experiments instead of building a special machine. In 1948 Ashby made the [[Homeostat]] <ref>[http://www.hrat.btinternet.co.uk/Homeostat.html Java applet simulation] by Dr Horace Townsend </ref>. Ashby only made one reference to Turing in his journal, in December 1954<ref>[http://www.rossashby.info/journal/page/5038.html W. Ross Ashby Journal (1928-1972), page 5039] The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. </ref>.
=== Variety ===
Ashby's Law of Requisite [[Variety (cybernetics)|Variety]] <ref>(Ashby 1956)</ref> --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" <ref> Int. J. Systems Sci., 1970. vol 1, No. 2 pp89-97</ref>.
[[Stafford Beer]] applied Variety to found management cybernetics and the [[Viable System Model]]. Working independently [[Gregory Chaitin]] followed this with [[algorithmic 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,
;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 ==
{{reflist}}
== 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 by [[Cosma 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 the [[Principia Cybernetica Web]], 2001.
* [http://www.cybsoc.org/ross.htm 159 Aphorisms from Ashby and further links at the Cybernetics Society]
{{Cybernetics}}
{{Systems}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashby, William Ross}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1972 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital]]
[[Category:Artificial intelligence researchers]]
[[Category:Control theorists]]
[[Category:Cyberneticists]]
[[Category:English psychiatrists]]
[[Category:People from London]]
[[Category:Systems psychologists]]
[[Category:Systems scientists]]
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