Plurality of Variety:

Art by NightCafe

This is available as part of a book offering that is free for community members of Cyb3rSynLabs. Please check here (https://www.cyb3rsynlabs.com/c/books/) for Second Order Cybernetics Essays for Silicon Valley. The ebook version is available here (https://www.cyb3rsyn.com/products/soc-book)

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was How Blank is Your Paper?

Discover more from Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

4 thoughts on “Plurality of Variety:”

  2. The reverse of the LRV is also true: “ variety produces variety”. I use the description, also stated by Ashby, that the growth of a system is constrained by the growth of the communication channel. By growing communicating I mean establishing relationships.

    The paradox of leadership is about NOT being in control while remaining responsible (responding is part of communicating) for “what ever happens”. Leadership then is being created by the group of people, authorizing who needs to be authorized as required by the situation. Variety requires variety. Trying to control this, with the idea that “ control” works, destroys communications and inevitably leads to more restraints.

    Ashby started out as an engineer, and engineering is all about control. Artificial systems – I tend to use the word system only for man made system – require control. Control is also an effect of the use of language. Language has been developed for “ command and control”, and NOT for communicating meaning.

    Organic beings organically organize organs. Human beings organize organisations.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • A while back I came to the conclusion that complexity is not about the past but the present and more importantly the future. Complexity is about possibilities. In other words, complexity is explained by variety. Similar to what you noted, I state it as “variety begets more variety.” Beer’s view of using variety as the measure of complexity makes a lot of sense to me.

      Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Jan.

      Like

      Reply
  3. Pingback: An Existentialist’s View of Complexity: | Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science. ~

Leave a comment