Feed forward & feedback, direction counts.

Taken as isolated individual elements Observe, Orient, Decide and Act is a simple entity model. It’s the addition of feed forward and feedback channels between and within them that moves it into being something else. These channels of communication allow for the exchange of energy information in every direction throughout the loop.

The explicit difference between feed forward and feedback is a simple one, direction-that’s it. What’s implied is where we’ll find things getting complex. I’ll start with a simple question. What is being fed forward and fed back? As we have seen so far it has to be energy information. We have to account for a flow of E/I in either direction.

I’ll use the definition of signal as the feed forward and feedback flow of E/I; “a detectable physical quantity or impulse (as a voltage, current, or magnetic field strength) by which messages or information can be transmitted.” In short we have communication. At the most basic level a signal requires a source-(origin), an idea-(a bit of information) for transmission-(flow) and a subject-(receiver) that understands it-(can make sense of the bit). It’s a meaningful interaction between two entities.

So how can you differentiate between a signal that’s being fed forward from one being fed back? The answer is the signals point of origin and destination. Feed forward is a signal being transmitted from the source to the subject. This is seen as normal communication, someone said something to someone that was understood. On the other hand feedback is a signal from the source that loops back to the source, it returns to the point of origin. If the signal went somewhere else, say third parties, it would be a relay. With feedback the entity or subsystem is essentially ‘talking to itself.’ This notion provides tension between co-operating antagonistic ideas, forward or backward. Does the signal pass onto the next entity or do we have to reconsider it? Do we carry on blindly or get stuck in endless navel gazing? Alone neither of these bode well for survival, together they are essential.