15/7 ADAPTATION IN ITERATED AND SERIAL SYSTEMS 



Environment 



Organism 



Figure 15/7/1 : Sketch of the diagram of immediate effects of an organism 

 adapting to an environment as three separate subsystems. (Compare 

 Figures 15/8/1 and 16/6/1.) 



mechanisms, B can achieve no permanent adaptation until A has 

 reached adaptation, for their values will keep changing. However, 

 once A's step-mechanisms have reached their terminal values, B's 

 parameters will be constant, and B can then commence profitably 

 its own search, undisturbed by further changes. Thus the join 

 from A's step-mechanisms will about double the time taken for the 

 whole to reach adaptation. 



If, however, the effect comes to B from A's reacting part, then 

 even after A has reached adaptation, every time that A shows its 

 adaptation (by responding appropriately to a disturbance to its 

 environment), the lines of behaviour that A's reacting part follow 

 will provide B with a varying set of values at its parameters. 

 B is thus in a situation homologous to that of the Homeostat 

 in S. 8/10, except that B may be subject to parameter-values 

 many more than two. The time that B will take to reach adapta- 

 tion under all these values is thus apt to resemble T x (S. 11/5), and 

 thus to be excessively long. Thus a joining from the reacting 

 part of A to that of B may have the effect of postponing the whole's 

 adaptation almost indefinitely. 



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