Piero Mella - Böcker

This brief presents an overview of Gregory Bateson’s Constructivist method of Cognition. Bateson proposes a theory of cognition that is based on the abstract notion of difference that the mind distinguishes and perceives and represents information that constitutes and separates how different states are ordered, grouped, and classified. Bateson, however, does not clearly indicate how a cognitive system can develop a knowledge of reality from the perception of these differences. This book seeks to offer a scientific approach to Constructivism. Using Bateson’s hypothesis, chapters discuss how our mind distinguishes and elaborates differences, allowing us to form perceptions of objects, and how these objects can be described and compared. Chapters also discuss how from differences, it is possible to construct concepts or ideas of how these can be defined and how to derive from these differences the meanings of the signs used for the structuring of languages.  The brief offers a coherent structure of propositions that form an interpretative theory of the modus operandi of the human mind, which will be useful not only in shedding light on our cognitive processes, but also in laying the formal groundwork for artificial intelligence.Constructing Reality is a must-have resource for researchers and students of the cognitive sciences, as well as education sciences, and researchers and scholars of artificial intelligence, learning theory, and intelligent automata programming.

This book presents a new understanding on how control systems truly operate, and explains how to recognize, simulate, and improve control systems in all fields of activity.

This book presents a new understanding on how control systems truly operate, and explains how to recognize, simulate, and improve control systems in all fields of activity.

This book adopts the logic of Systems Thinking and Control Systems, presenting a simple but complete theory called the Theory of Combinatory Systems.

This book presents a gradual path toward “educating” readers in understanding how Control Systems truly operate and in recognizing, simulating and improving them in all fields of activity. Starting from the hypothesis that knowledge of Control Systems is not only a technical fact but also represents a discipline – that is, “A discipline is a developmental path for acquiring certain skills or competencies. (…) To practice a discipline is to be a lifelong learner. You “never arrive”; you spend your life mastering disciplines.” (Senge, 2006, p. 10) – Piero Mella has set the objective of making Control Systems a topic that is, in a certain sense, simple and attractive by turning to the effective symbolism typical of Systems Thinking models and avoiding too technical and formal a treatment of the subject. Thus readers should know that this is not an engineering, physics, biology or economics text, nor a mathematics one either. Technical or mathematical tools are not necessary to construct Control Systems; instead the book adopts a highly simple and universal logic behind the notion itself of control process and the simple and universal action of the Control Systems that produce this process.The Magic Ring: Systems Thinking Approach to Control Systems is divided into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 seeks to review the basic language of Systems Thinking and the models it allows us to create, while Chapter 2 introduces the control process, presenting the theoretical structure of four simple Control Systems we all can observe and manage. In Chapter 3 a general typology of Control Systems is proposed with examples taken from observations of reality. The view of Control Systems is broadened in Chapter 4 by introducing two important generalizations: 1. multi lever Control Systems, with levers that are independent or dependent of each other; 2. multi-objective systems, with independent or interdependent objectives. Chapter 5 outlines the guidelines for recognizing, observing or designing Control Systems and presents the problems that arise regarding their logical realization, introducing the fundamental distinction between symptomatic and structural control. Chapters 6-9 undertake a “mental journey” through various “environments”, increasingly broader in scope, suggesting to the reader how to recognize therein Control Systems that, by their ubiquitous presence, make the world possible in all its manifestations. Finally Chapter 10 covers ideas about a Discipline of Control Systems and the human aspects of control.

This study adopts the logic of Systems Thinking and Control Systems, presenting a simple but complete theory called the Theory of Combinatory Systems.

The core belief underlying this book is that the most useful and effective models to strengthen our intelligence are system ones, developed following the logic of Systems Thinking. Such models can explore complexity, dynamics, and change, and it is the author’s view that intelligence depends on the ability to construct models of this nature. The book is designed to allow the reader not only to acquire simple information on Systems Thinking but above all to gradually learn the logic and techniques that make this way of thinking an instrument for the improvement of intelligence. In order to aid the learning and practice of the Systems Thinking discipline, the author has abandoned a rigid formal language for a more discursive style. He writes in the first person, with an ample number of citations and critical analyses, and without ever giving in to the temptation to use formal mathematics.