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The Ring Variety: A Basic Typology

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The Magic Ring

Part of the book series: Contemporary Systems Thinking ((CST))

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Abstract

Chapter 2 presented the logic of control systems and described the technical structure that produces the general logical structure. I have thought it useful to begin with the simplest control systems, single-objective (a single Y and single Y*) and single-lever (a single X) ones, in order to present and simulate several elementary systems drawn from our daily experiences, in which the action function determining the dynamics of the variables (g and h) are represented as simple constants. This chapter presents several fundamental classes of control systems, distinguished by the type of human intervention in the control or by the nature of the objective: natural and artificial systems, manual or automatic cybernetic systems, quantitative and qualitative systems, attainment and recognition systems, steering and halt control systems, fixed- and variable-objective systems (or systems of pursuit), tendential and combinatory systems, as well as systems distinguished by other features. Finally, we shall consider various forms of interconnection among control systems and the holarchies of control systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Piero Mella

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  1. Piero Mella
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Mella, P. (2014). The Ring Variety: A Basic Typology. In: The Magic Ring. Contemporary Systems Thinking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05386-8_3

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