Diagnosing the System, from Ronald Weber
Diagnosing the System, by Stafford Beer (John Wiley & Sons) This books presents an interesting way of looking at organizational structure, but some of the terms could be applied in a financial markets system/context. Here are a few excerpts:
- Viable: able to maintain a separate existence
- Homeostasis: stability of a system's internal environment, despite the system's having to cope with an unpredictable environment
- Invariant: a factor in a complicated situation that is unaffected by all the changes surrounding it
- Variety: a measure of complexity: the number of possible states of a system
- The Law of Requisite Variety: only variety can absorb variety (Ashby's Law)
- Attenuator: a device that reduces variety
- Amplifier: a device that increases variety
- Transducer: encodes or decodes a message whenever it crosses a system boundary - and therefore needs a different mode of expression
- Oscillation: failing to settle down in homeostatic equilibrium, a dynamic system over-corrects itself continuously