Cybernetics: Elemental Control Theory
At its simplest cybernetics have three elements: one energetically fast the other slow plus an “oarsmen” who uses his steering oar to modulate the relationship between them. His ferry moves as does the river he sails on. An idealized “experimental scientist” has one cause, isolated from others, and its effect controlled by a third party the scientist. Similarly the economist has a thought experiment with a single causal variable, for example price, ceteris paribus, and two consequences, a change in the quantity consumed and the quantity supplied. Such three-ness is universal in cybernetics. However Beer’s Viable Systems Model (VSM) (Beer, 1985) has five elements, Miller’s (1978) “Living Systems Theory” 21 plus and Rosen (2000) has as a living thing software effecting hardware and vice versa. These seem inconsistent with cybernetic’s three-ness.
One could simply say that this difference represents complexity. The ferryman has passengers and crew to contend with. The scientist knows his experiment is a simplification. In reality many variables change simultaneously. Any reasonable economist knows there is a complexity of factors simultaneously operating in the situations he analyzes. Complexity contrasts with the simplicity of the models used to analyze it.
The simplest control system has three elements. Cook and von Zedtwitz (2004) use the atom as archetype. It has three elements protons, electrons and neutrons. The neutrons are the oar. They modulate the interactions between the fast moving electrons and the static protons. The latter repel each other and the neutrons stabilize their interaction. The result of this modulated dynamic interaction is matter.
This is the rule of three at its simplest: The mass of the nucleus, neutrons plus protons, balances out the electro-magnetic forces of the electrons which are repelled by the positively charged protons.