6/18 AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERNETICS 



Boxes. We do in fact work, in our daily lives, much more with 

 Black Boxes than we are apt to think. At first we are apt to think, 

 for instance, that a bicycle is not a Black Box, for we can see every 

 connecting link. We delude ourselves, however. The ultimate 

 links between pedal and wheel are those interatomic forces that 

 hold the particles of metal together; of these we see nothing, and 

 the child who learns to ride can become competent merely with the 

 knowledge that pressure on the pedals makes the wheels go round. 



To emphasise that the theory of Black Boxes is practically co- 

 extensive with that of everyday life, let us notice that if a set of 

 Black Boxes has been studied by an observer, he is in a position to 

 couple them together to form designed machinery. The method is 

 straightforward: as the examination of each Box has given its 

 canonical representation (S.6/5), so can they be coupled, inputs to 

 outputs, to form new systems exactly as described in S.4/8. 



What is being suggested now is not that Black Boxes behave 

 somewhat like real objects but that the real objects are in fact all 

 Black Boxes, and that we have in fact been operating with Black 

 Boxes all our lives. The theory of the Black Box is merely the 

 theory of real objects or systems, when close attention is given to 

 the question, relating object and observer, about what information 

 comes from the object, and how it is obtained. Thus the theory 

 of the Black Box is simply the study of the relations between the 

 experimenter and his environment, when special attention is given 

 to the flow of information. "A study of the real world thus becomes 

 a study of transducers." (Goldman, Information theory.) 



6/18. Before we go further, the question of "emergent" properties 

 should be clarified. 



First let one fact be established. If a number of Black Boxes 

 are given, and each is studied in isolation until its canonical repre- 

 sentation is established, and if they are coupled in a known pattern 

 by known linkages, then it follows (S.4/8) that the behaviour of 

 the whole is determinate, and can be predicted. Thus an assembly 

 of Black Boxes, in these conditions, will show no "emergent" 

 properties; i.e. no properties that could not have been predicted from 

 knowledge of the parts and their couplings. 



The concept of "emergence" has never been defined with precision, 

 but the following examples will probably suffice as a basis for dis- 

 cussion: 



(1) Ammonia is a gas, and so is hydrogen chloride. When the 

 two gases are mixed, the result is a solid — a property not possessed 

 by either reactant. 



110 



