Design for a Brain¶
Ashby, W. R. (1952). Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behaviour. Chapman & Hall.
Cited by¶
2 citations across 2 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Homeostasis
- biology and physiology (Cannon (1929) in Physiological Reviews gave the canonical "Organization for Physiological Homeostasis" treatment of body-temperature, blood-pressure, blood-glucose, and ion-balance regulation; modern physiology treats homeostasis as the organizing principle of organ-system function),
This sourceDevelops the "homeostat" — an electromechanical demonstration of self-regulating ultrastability — as a concrete model for cybernetic and engineering accounts of self-regulating systems (PID-style controllers, autopilots, thermostatic regulators).
- biology and physiology (Cannon (1929) in Physiological Reviews gave the canonical "Organization for Physiological Homeostasis" treatment of body-temperature, blood-pressure, blood-glucose, and ion-balance regulation; modern physiology treats homeostasis as the organizing principle of organ-system function),
- Ultra-Stability (Ashby's Concept)
- Ashby demonstrated this with the homeostat, a machine with multiple subsystems that could automatically adjust their parameters to keep electrical readings within critical bounds; the machine could reach the same outcome through different internal configurations, showing that stability is not about one fixed state but about maintaining constraints on essential variables
This sourceDevelops the "homeostat" — an electromechanical demonstration of self-regulating ultrastability — as a concrete model for cybernetic and engineering accounts of self-regulating systems (PID-style controllers, autopilots, thermostatic regulators).
SupportedVerified against the work's full text
Ashby describes the four-unit homeostat whose uniselectors re-randomise parameters when a magnet passes its critical state, until a stable field is found.
“the coil G of each uniselector is energised when, and only when, the magnet M diverges far from the central position”
- Ashby demonstrated this with the homeostat, a machine with multiple subsystems that could automatically adjust their parameters to keep electrical readings within critical bounds; the machine could reach the same outcome through different internal configurations, showing that stability is not about one fixed state but about maintaining constraints on essential variables
Verification¶
Does it exist? Not checked yet. This entry carries no identifier to resolve. It was extracted from the citation as written in the article, normalized, and deduplicated against the rest of the registry.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 1 of 2 citations: 1 supported. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.
See how references were verified.
Registry ID ref:b308f38ab741 · see in the full table