ABSTRACT

The definition of “variety” in early cybernetics is one where the quantity of variety can always bemeasured. ToAshby,working in terms of information theory, the term “variety” (1956, 126) referred to the number of distinct elements in a set. Hence, the preoccupation of early cyberneticswith “codes,” very varied in kind but alwayswith a finite number of possibilities necessarily capable of enumeration (such as the information given by traffic lights). Hence, too, the operationalization of “variety’, such that:

[I]n a “given set’ this is a question “of how many distinguishable elements it contains. Thus, if the order of occurrence is ignored, the set c, b, c, a, c, c, a, b, c, b, b, awhich contains twelve elements, contains only three distinct elements – a, b and c. Such a set will be said to have a variety of three elements.