Source: Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behavior (1952), p.54
“The primary fact is that all isolated state-determined dynamic systems are selective: from whatever state they have initially, they go towards states of equilibrium. These states of equilibrium are always characterised, in their relation to the change-inducing laws of the system, by being exceptionally resistant.”
Source: Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behavior (1952), p. 238
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W. Ross Ashby 26
British psychiatrist 1903–1972Related quotes
Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter XV, Markov Chains, p. 397.

“The evolution of a physicochemical system leads to an equilibrium state of maximum disorder.”
Thermodynamics of Evolution (1972)
Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 56.
Source: General System Theory (1968), 7. Some Aspects of System Theory in Biology, p. 166-167 as quoted in: Eugene Thacker (2004) Biomedia. University of Minnesota Press. p. 150

Thinking
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part V - Vibrations

Source: 1940s, Quasi-Stationary Social Equilibria and the Problem of Permanent Change, 1947, p. 40.
As cited in: Debora Hammond (2005). "Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Systems Thinking", in: tripleC 3(2): pp. 20–27.
1950s, Problems of Life (1952, 1960)
Source: General System Theory (1968), 2. The Meaning of General Systems Theory, p. 39

“The state of crisis is the real war; the equilibrium is nothing but its reflex.”
On War (1832), Book 3