Control theories such as #PCT (Perceptual Control Theory), which are based on #Cybernetics, are primarily focused on the #negative_feedback control loop closed through the system’s #environment and have little or no concern for the more important, internal #positive_feedback motor loop controlling the system’s #growth and #learning cycles.
Control in #Cybernetics always has to come from the outside or is exerted, not internally onto the elements that make the system but onto something else outside of the “control” system.
Even such brilliant thinkers as #FJ_Varela, one of the “fathers” of #autopoiesis could not escape this profoundly ingrained “cybernetic” assumption:
“#Autonomy means, literally, self-law. To see what this entails, it is easier to contrast it with its mirror image, #allonomy or external law. This is, of course, what we call #control. These two images, autonomy and control, do a continuous dance.”
Francisco J. Varela - Principles Of Biological Autonomy
