Francis Heylighen - Cybernetics and Second-Order Cybernetics
Cybernetics - So much more than robots
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Transcript of Cybernetics - So much more than robots
Cybernetic Theory: So much more than robots
Catherine Novak
INDS 500
March 17th 2013
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From “steersman” to self-organizing systems
Kybernetes (Greek def.)
Person at the wheel of ship, with their eye on the horizon “steersman”
Latin version: gubernator
Cybernetics
the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine (Weiner, 1948)
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Key concepts:
Cybernetics focuses on systems which adjust automatically to feedback
A cybernetic system includes organism/machine/organization AND its environment
Recursion: cyclical process of reproduction; e.g. chicken and egg, opposing mirrors
Autopoeisis: the system can self-replicate. Applied to biological systems, language and more.
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Origins of cybernetics
Idea of cybernetics dates back to time of Aristotle
Automated systems have been in existence for hundreds of years
With industrial revolution, the idea of cybernetics resurfaces, although it wasn't called that until the 1940s
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The Macy Conferences (1942-53)
Numerous specialists met to find interdisciplinary solutions to W.W. II, then to explore other collaborative ideas
Anthropologists
Computer scientists
Mathematicians
Neuroscientists
Physicists
From their work, Norbert Weiner coined the term for the modern study of cybernetics. (1948)
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Entropy vs. Self-Organization
Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics
Entropy: matter becomes more chaotic, varied
Information, acted upon, reverses this law
Computer Code
DNA
Mind
Self-organization limits possibilities, reduces entropy
A self-organizing system is cybernetic
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Relationships, activities, feedback
Cybernetic theorists are more interested in what a system does than what its components are
Information is the “electron” of a cybernetic circuit
Can be active or quiescent
Flows from origin to environment and back
Maintains or alters the system
Bateson defined information as “differences that make a difference” (1971, 2000)
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Second-order cybernetics
“Cybernetics of cybernetics” (von Foerster)
Second-order cybernetics “Studies the role of the (human) observer in the construction of models of systems and other observers” (Heylighter, 2001)
“No data are truly 'raw', and every record has been somehow subjected to editing and transformation either by man or by his instruments” (Bateson, 1971, 2000 p. xxvi)
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Applications
Cybernetics involves studies of goal-oriented, functional systems
Machines (Weiner)
Animals
Computers
Machine/Animal hybrids
Ecosystems
The Mind (Bateson)
Communication (Pask)
Societies (Beer)
Creativity (Iba)
etc.
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More applications than theory
Interdisciplinary cybernetic research reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s
Much cybernetic research is now specific to applied research such as robotics, AI, meteorology, biology, neuroscience
General systems theory has adopted many of the tenets of cybernetics
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The last word
“The characteristic of a non-trivial system that is under control, is that
despite dealing with variables too many to count,
too uncertain to express,
and too difficult even to understand,
something can be done to generate a predictable goal.” (Beer, 2002)
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ReferencesAmerican Society of Cybernetics. (n.d.) Foundations: History of cybernetics. Retrieved March 16th, 2013 from http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/timeline.htm
Bateson, G. (2000). Steps to an ecology of mind, with a new foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press.
Beer, S. (2002) What is cybernetics? Kybernetes, 31(2), 209-219. doi:10.1108/03684920210417283
Heylighten, F. & Joslyn, C. (2001). Cybernetics and second-order cybernetics in R.A. Meyers (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Academic Press
Leaning, M. (2002). The person we meet online. In Convergence, 8(1) 18-27. doi:10.1177/135485650200800103
Rudall, B.H. (2000). Cybernetics and systems in the 1980s, Kybernetes, 29(5/6), 595-611. doi:10.1108/03684920010333071
Takashi Iba, (2010). An autopoietic systems theory for creativity. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(4). 6610-6625 Retrieved March 16th 2013 from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810011298
Wiener, N. (1950). The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and society. Retrieved from http://books.google.ca/books?id=ra8HqPk-wMIC&dq=Weiner+AND+cybernetics&lr=
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Image credits
1. Cirius Cybernetics: Creative Commons attribution license by Bryan K. Ward
2. Steersman: Creative Commons attribution license
3. Droste cocoa package: public domain
4. Dipping bird: Creative Commons attribution license Wikimedia Commons
5. Weiner cover by George Giusti: Creative Commons attribution license by Crossett Library Bennington College
6. Information superhighway Creation Commons attribution license
7. From Heylighter & Joclyn, 2001, p. 16
8. Second-Order Cybernetics: Creative Commons attribution – share alike license Wikimedia Commons
9. From Iba, 2010
10. Rudall, 2000, p. 598
11. By Joachin Stroh. Retrieved March 16th 2013 from https://plus.google.com/100641053530204604051/posts/dFpRvJUwRhw