Editing Feedback (section)

{{short description|Process where information about current status is used to influence future status}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}
{{Complex systems}}
[[File:General Feedback Loop.svg|thumb|A feedback loop where all outputs of a process are available as causal inputs to that process]]

'''Feedback''' occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a [[Signal chain (signal processing chain)|chain]] of [[Causality|cause and effect]] that forms a circuit or loop.<ref name=Ford>{{cite book |title=Modeling the Environment |author=Andrew Ford |chapter=Chapter 9: Information feedback and causal loop diagrams |pages=99 ''ff'' |publisher=Island Press |year=2010 |isbn=9781610914253 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=38PJahZTzC0C&pg=PA99LPG |quote=This chapter describes [[causal loop diagram]]s to portray the information feedback at work in a system. The word ''causal'' refers to cause-and-effect relationships. The word''loop'' refers to a closed chain of cause and effect that creates the feedback.}}</ref> The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:

{{Blockquote
|text=Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole. As provided by Webster, feedback in business is the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feedback/|title=feedback|publisher=MerriamWebster|access-date=1 January 2022}}</ref>|author=Karl Johan Åström and Richard M.Murray|title=''Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers''<ref>{{cite book |title=Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers |author1=Karl Johan Åström |author2=Richard M. Murray |chapter=§1.1: What is feedback? |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cdG9fNqTDS8C&q=%22This+makes+reasoning+based+on+cause+and+effect+tricky%22&pg=PA1 |isbn= 9781400828739 |year=2008 |page=1 |publisher=Princeton University Press 
}} Online version found [http://authors.library.caltech.edu/25062/1/Feedback08.pdf here].
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