A return to the homeostat

W. Ross Ashby's Homeostat represents one of the oldest and simplest theories of self-organizing systems. Originally proposed as a model of the human nervous system, the Homeostat has seen limited application, due mainly to the extremely long times required to achieve adaptation. Recent work however, which is summarized here, has corrected a number of deficiencies of the Homeostat. The purpose of this paper is to try to renew interest in applications of Ashby's work.