Back and forth: cybernetics interrelations and how it spread in Latin America

Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 2008

Cybernetics and Human Knowing

At the 2014 conference of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC), past presidents were invited to give a twenty minute presentation offering their perspectives on the history of cybernetics and ASC in the context of their terms of office. The author of this paper served a three-year term as ASC President from 1986 to 1988. The paper takes the perspective that a history of cybernetics should take into account the cybernetics of the concept of history. As such, it offers some premises on the concepts of history and time, claiming that these premises can be derived from concepts in cybernetics. The premise that history is continually being transformed serves as the point of departure for reflections on cybernetics in the 1980s and especially the time period 1986-1988. The author presents his recollections of the thought process that guided his role as ASC President in advancing cybernetic thinking and of the topics of discussion at that time that he wishes to conserve for continuing conversation. The paper concludes with a proposal to change the name of the ASC to reflect its international membership.

L. Floridi (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Computing and Information, 2004

The term cybernetics was first used in 1947 by Norbert Wiener with reference to the centrifugal governor that James Watt had fitted to his steam engine, and above all to Clerk Maxwell, who had subjected governors to a general mathematical treatment in 1868. Wiener used the word “governor” in the sense of the Latin corruption of the Greek term kubernetes, or “steersman.” Wiener defined cybernetics as the study of “control and communication in the animal and the machine” (Wiener 1948). This definition captures the original ambition of cybernetics to appear as a unified theory of the behavior of living organisms and machines, viewed as systems governed by the same physical laws. The initial phase of cybernetics involved disciplines more or less directly related to the study of such systems, like communication and control engineering, biology, psychology, logic, and neurophysiology. Very soon, a number of attempts were made to place the concept of control at the focus of analysis also in other fields, such as economics, sociology, and anthropology. The original ambition of “classical” cybernetics thus seemed to involve also several human sciences, as it developed in a highly interdisciplinary approach, aimed at seeking common concepts and methods in rather different disciplines. In classical cybernetics, this ambition did not produce the desired results and new approaches had to be attempted in order to achieve them, at least partially. In this chapter, we shall focus our attention in the first place on the specific topics and key concepts of the original program in cybernetics and their significance for some classical philosophic problems (those related to ethics are dealt with in Chapter 5, COMPUTER ETHICS, and Chapter 6, COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AND HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION). We shall then examine the various limitations of cybernetics. This will enable us to assess different, more recent, research programs that are either ideally related to cybernetics or that claim, more strongly, to represent an actual reappraisal of it on a completely new basis.

IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Magazine, 2015

The Origins of Cybernetics The term cybernetics stems from the ancient Greek κυβερνήτης (kybernetes), meaning "steersman, governor, pilot, and rudder." This word was first used by Plato in The Alcibiades to signify the governance of people [1]. From Plato's philosophy and his historical background [2], it is reasonable to assume that he used cybernetics to represent a study for acquiring ideal knowledge related to the governance of human society. The word cybernétique was used in 1834 by Ampère to denote the sciences of government [1]. In this sense, Ampère used cybernetics in a way similar to Plato. That is, the original meaning of cybernetics is "the science of governance." C Defining Cybernetics Reflections on the Science of Governance

AI & Society, 2022

In 1972, in Chile, the German designer Gui Bonsiepe was in charge of the Industrial Design Department of Technological Institute of the National Corporation for the Promotion of Production INTEC Corfo, during the government of socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile. In this article from the INTEC magazine n.2, published this time for the first time in English, Bonsiepe develops a theoretical formulation, applied to the field of design, through which he proposes a concept that will be fundamental in the field of interactive development, both analog and digital: the Interface. Thus, it also includes concepts of cybernetics such as variability and predictive study of behavior in the field of projecting disciplines. Bonsiepe is an exceptional representative during the formation of the iconic Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm (HfG Ulm). And among other elements, one very outstanding was his time as a student of Professor Max Bense and Horst Rittel, who would have introduced the concepts of first-order Cybernetics in the teaching of communication, and the design of information, in a pioneering way (Leopold, 2014). The challenge posed in 1972, in Chile, focused on the possibility of calculating elements of criticism of political economy, in the field of knowledge generated by sensitive experiences, "calculating the use value" of the field of esthetics. As a renowned disciple of Max Bense and Tomas Maldonado, Bonsiepe represents the meeting of two Cybernetic traditions, collaborating with the emblematic Cybersyn Corfo project (Chile: 1970-1973), in which the formulation of interaction mechanisms was strategic in combination with Stafford Beer's approaches to a second-order Cybernetics, according to the Viable System Model (VSM), for a project of decentralized state production, and transmission of information in real time.

Cybernetics for the 21st Century, Vol. 1: Epistemological Reconstruction, 2024

Lecture at Congress: Cybernetics in the 21st century. Epistemological reconstructions. Held at the Media Lab Guangdong Times Museum, at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023. Link: https://medialab.timesmuseum.org/en/lectures Project promoted by Yuk Hui, with the coordination of Jianru Wu. Book published on February 1st, 2024, by Hanart Press (Hong Kong) in paper and open access online. Link: https://hanart.press/cybernetics-for-the-21st-century-vol-1/

From its origins, cybernetics has based its desire on the concept of transverse nature, today transdisciplinary. Within its history, the breaking point is unquestionably Stafford Beer and the VMS applied in Salvador Allende's government. Chile's historical conditions and context undoubtedly allowed a series of conceptual emergencies that were not necessarily developed after the 1973 coup d'état. Beer's design, as he claims, could serve both a socialist vision and a fascist command. This tells us that the tool depends on the hand of the administrator. On the other hand, good but insufficient attempts have been made in the field of biologies, such as the theory of autopoiesis and epistemological positions concerning the observer, which have not been able to add value to the VMS. The errors in the design of the VMS can be summarized as follows: • Confusion of interactions with relationships • Confusing Co-Autonomy with Self-Organization • Confusion of centrism and centralities necessarily as central, • Establish isomorphisms in a mathematical system aiming at conceptual homologation. As is the case with Information and Entropy. This work shows that the VMS must obligatorily migrate to a Relational Viable system, whose bases are the relations of cooperation and reciprocity based on heterarchical structures for limited or scarce material energy resources. This is the basis of the socialist design which forces the economy to reduce the production of Non-Required Variety.

The article analyzes the technological shifts which took place in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and predict the main shifts in the next half a century. On the basis of the analysis of the latest achievements in medicine, bio-and nanotech-nologies, robotics, ICT and other technological directions and also on the basis of the opportunities provided by the theory of production revolutions the authors present a detailed analysis of the latest production revolution which is denoted as 'Cybernetic'. There are given some forecasts about its development in the nearest five decades and up to the end of twenty-first century. It is shown that the development of various self-regulating systems will be the main trend of this revolution. The article gives a detailed analysis of the future breakthroughs in medicine, and also in bio-and nanotech-nologies in terms of the development of self-regulating systems with their growing ability to select optimal modes of functioning as well as of other characteristics of the Cybernetic Revolution (resources and energy saving, miniaturization, and individualization). INTRODUCTION The present article presents the analysis of contemporary technological shifts and forecasts the future technological transformations on the basis of the theory of production principles and production

The article analyzes the technological shifts which took place in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and predict the main shifts in the next half a century. On the basis of the analysis of the latest achievements in medicine, bio- and nanotechnologies, robotics, ICT and other technological directions and also on the basis of the opportunities provided by the theory of production revolutions the authors present a detailed analysis of the latest production revolution which is denoted as ‘Cybernetic’. There are given some forecasts about its development in the nearest five decades and up to the end of twenty-first century. It is shown that the development of various self-regulating systems will be the main trend of this revolution. The article gives a detailed analysis of the future breakthroughs in medicine, and also in bio- and nanotechnologies in terms of the development of self-regulating systems with their growing ability to select optimal modes of functioning as well as of other characteristics of the Cybernetic Revolution (resources and energy saving, miniaturization, and individualization).

2024

Cybernetics for the 21st Century Vol.1 is dedicated to the epistemological reconstruction of cybernetics, consisting of a series of historical and critical reflections on the subject – which according to Martin Heidegger marked the completion of Western metaphysics. In this anthology, historians, philosophers, sociologists and media studies scholars explore the history of cybernetics from Leibniz to artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as the development of twentieth-century cybernetics in various geographical regions in the world, from the USA to the Soviet Union, Latin America, France, Poland, China and Japan. The reconstruction shows the various paths of cybernetics and their socio-political implications, which remain unfamiliar to us today. It reveals more than what we thought we knew – and yet we hardly know – and allows us to understand where we are and to reflect on the future of technology, ecology and planetary politics. With texts by Brunella Antomarini, Slava Gerovitch, Daisuke Harashima, Katherine Hayles, Yuk Hui, Dylan Levi King, Michał Krzykawski, David Maulen de los Reyes, Andrew Pickering, Dorion Sagan and Mathieu Triclot.

2000

We would like to contribute from our (not sociological) education and experience the following provocation for the interested ones concerning the question in the title of our contribution. We felt in Brisbane that a shared opinion on what is sociocybernetics is lacking in the sociocybernetics community.

Kybernetes, 2007

The mathematician Norbert Wiener (1948) coined the word cybernetics near the end of World War II, during which a variety of new phenomena emerged that seemed to be complex, adaptive, autonomous, and shared a circular form of organization. In retrospect, such forms have a long history. As early as 400 BC, Heron of Alexandria noted a peculiar mechanism that kept the flame of oil lamps stable. A structurally similar mechanism appeared in James Watt's steam engine, which literally fuelled the industrial revolution. Watt's regulator kept the RPMs of the steam engine stable under varying loads. At Wiener's time, servomechanisms in industry, targetseeking missiles in the military, and problems of coordinating the war effort, not to forget the emerging mechanization of computation, demanded new vocabularies to understand them. Although Wiener taught at MIT, a university dedicated to advancing technology, with the enlightenment project still in charge of academia, it was no surprise that Wiener defined cybernetics as a science, the science of control and communication.

Interest in cybernetics declined in North America from the mid 1970s to 2010, as measured by the number of journal articles by North American authors, but increased in Europe and Asia. Since 2010 the number of books on cybernetics in English has increased significantly. Whereas the social science disciplines create descriptions based on either ideas, groups, events or variables, cybernetics provides a multi-disciplinary theory of social change that uses all four types of descriptions. Cyberneticians use models with three structures – regulation, selforganization and reflexivity. These models can be used to describe any systemic problem. Furthermore, cybernetics adds a third approach to philosophy of science. In addition to a normative or a sociological approach to knowledge, cybernetics adds a biological approach. One implication of the biological approach is additional emphasis on ethics. Keywords: regulation, self-organization, reflexivity, ethics Background

Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences, 2018

Understanding the differences between scientific approaches to cybernetics is difficult because of the very different histories and intellectual traditions in Russia and the West, i.e. the U.S. and Europe. This paper, firstly, describes the peculiarities of the Russian style of scientific thinking, considering as an example Alexander Bogdanov’s theory (tectology) in context of the Russian intellectual tradition. Secondly, the paper compares Vladimir E. Lepskiy’s and Stuart A. Umpleby’s theories of cybernetics looking at them through the prism of Russian and American intellectual traditions. Western cybernetics of the second order includes biological and social versions. It arose from “experimental epistemology.” The goal was to understand the processes of cognition on the basis of neurophysiological experiments, as a result of which cyberneticians came to the conclusion that the observer cannot be excluded from science. Biological cybernetics is concerned with how the brain creates ...