Decision and Control

1966 (John Wiley, London). Abbreviation: DC. Subtitle: the Meaning of Operational Research and Management Cybernetics. Lanchester Prize (TBYT 2009: 356). Reprinted 1994 in the Stafford Beer Classic Library.

In overview, DC is the method book: cybernetics as “the science of control and communication wherever these occur” (DC 1966: 239); OR a profession, cybernetics a science. A scientific model is “a homomorphism on to which two different situations are mapped” (DC 1966: 113) — later used against the analogy reading of the VSM. DC already reports a neurophysiological homomorph of a company (DC 1966: 136–138). Not project canon.

Where it is drawn on

Heaviest in pure-vsm-part-v-method-and-epistemology chs 24 (homomorphism) and 25 (observer-and-recognition). Also pure-vsm-part-i-foundations ch. 1; restated in management-science-1967 (ch. 27).

Formulation notes

From pure-vsm-appendix: variety sponge — control variety absorbs world variety “like a sponge” (DC 1966: 284, 293) vs HOE’s Three–Four exchange (HOE 1979: 144); scientific model as homomorphism (DC 1966: 113) vs BOTF on analogy.

Related

stafford-beer · homomorphism · observer-and-recognition · management-science-1967 · overview