ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ @Kihbernetics@qoto.org
- https://twitter.com/Kihbernetics
#Kihbernetics is the study of #Complex #Dynamical #Systems with #Memory which is quite different from other #SystemsThinking approaches. Kihbernetic theory and principles are derived primarily from these three sources:
1️⃣ #CE_Shannon's theory of #Information and his description of a #Transducer,
2️⃣ #WR_Ashby's #Cybernetics and his concept of #Transformation, and
3️⃣ #HR_Maturana's theory of #Autopoiesis and the resulting #Constructivism
Although equally applicable to any dynamical system with memory (mechanisms, organisms, or organizations) the Kihbernetic worldview originated from my helping navigate organizations through times of #change.
Talking about the "nervous system" in isolation from the rest of the body and its environment is like trying to figure out what is the automobile about by looking at its motor running on a stand. You need to look at where the "rubber hits the road" to really understand what's going on.
Only "bodies can do things" not the isolated nervous systems. Of course, brains have a #function within the body, the same way that individual bodies (with their respective brains) have a function within a social organization.
The nervous "(sub)system" has no need to be in direct contact with the environment, but it also can't function or even survive (is not viable) without the support of all the other body parts, some of which *are* and *must* be in direct contact with the #environment.
According to #HH_Pattee, The whole purpose of the nervous system and cognition is the survival of the body:
>"The major function of the brain is actually not to sit around and discuss things like we are doing now, but it is to make decisions - it has to decide whether to fight or run or eat ..."
https://www.academia.edu/6576779/Rosen_and_Pattee_on_Theoretical_Biology
Thinking about the nervous "system" in isolation is typical for #Cybernetics thinking which separates the #control (management) system from the #controlled system (the plant) and does not recognize the fact that they depend on each other and should be thought of as one system.
People are "social animals" and the emergent capability and knowledge of an #organization as a system of people are quite different from the collection of all the individual learning capabilities and knowledge of the individuals it is composed of, so it is, therefore, appropriate to treat the organization as another dynamical #learning system.
I want to share this jewel that I found while looking for texts about #HV_Foerster's *non-trivial machine*.
It reminded me of how I always felt that the multidisciplinary game weaving together structures from different sciences with music in #H_Hesse's book *The Glass Bead Game* (*Das Glasperlenspiel*) published in 1943 (1949 in English) describes #Cybernetics, the very thing #N_Wiener was working on at the same time.
https://www.academia.edu/67973857/Creating_von_Foersters_non_Trivial_Machine_in_Digital_audio
>#Cybernetics stands to the real machine - electronic, mechanical, neural, or economic - much as geometry stands to a real object
in our terrestrial space.
>It takes as its subject matter the domain of *all possible machines*,
and is only secondarily interested if informed that some of them have not yet been made, either by Man or by Nature.
#WR_Ashby (1956) - *An Introduction to Cybernetics*
I think Maturana may have "jumped the gun" here by succumbing to the cybernetic #control vs. #controlled type of thinking and using a gun (a mere passive #product or #structure) as a metaphor for an active, living #system.
In my mind, the notion of ***external control*** so pervasive in #cybernetics does not fit well with the notions of #autopoiesis and #constructivism.
Unlike a (living) system, the gun has no other #choice but to react to the trigger, except, as Maturana notes, in case of malfunction (which is not equivalent to choice).
1943 - The year when it all started:
#Cybernetics, #Computationalism, #ANN
From: *Brains, Machines, and Mathematics*
by: *Michael A. Arbib*
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*
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.
People often interpret *Ashby’s Law* (after W. Ross Ashby) as if the *system*'s internal states must have the ***same level of variety*** as its *environment* in order to survive, which implies that the system should be able to *respond* (react) to every little disturbance from the environment.
This is not completely true because, on the lowest, #regulation, level, the system blocks #variety from an (environmental) #disturbance reaching the (internal, system protected) #EssentialVariables in two ways:
1️⃣ #Passive isolation (sheltering) from most environmental disturbances, and
2️⃣ #Active reaction to (parring with) the remaining disturbance that managed to *break through* this passive protection.
from "Intro to #Cybernetics"
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html
Another reason (among many) why I became disenchanted with #Cybernetics and had to “invent” #Kihbernetics.
Warren Sturgis McCulloch, the co-inventor of the first computational model of a #Neuron that was the precursor for #AI and #DeepNeuralNetworks, uses a racial slur to incorrectly suggest that Cybernetics is somehow the result of the “interbreeding” between the Natural and the Artificial in the preface he wrote for Gordon Pask’s book:
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/3965798-an-approach-to-cybernetics
“The paradox Kant had linked to teleology (or to internal purposive forms or natural purposes) is related to the fact that a purposive system has to move or develop towards a purpose before that purpose is present, apparently even before a purpose can be conceived of. A genuine purposive system does not only possess a representation of the purpose towards which it is moving, but it also has to construct that representation itself.”
#cybernetics #teleology #purpose #purposivesystems #constructivism
Gertrudis Vijver - New Perspectives on Cybernetics - Self-Organization, Autonomy and Connectionism
"#Cybernetics might, in fact, be defined as the study of systems that are open to #energy but closed to #information and
control—systems that are “information-tight”."
W. Ross Ashby (1956): An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London): now available electronically.
- https://twitter.com/Kihbernetics
#Kihbernetics is the study of #Complex #Dynamical #Systems with #Memory which is quite different from other #SystemsThinking approaches. Kihbernetic theory and principles are derived primarily from these three sources:
1️⃣ #CE_Shannon's theory of #Information and his description of a #Transducer,
2️⃣ #WR_Ashby's #Cybernetics and his concept of #Transformation, and
3️⃣ #HR_Maturana's theory of #Autopoiesis and the resulting #Constructivism
Although equally applicable to any dynamical system with memory (mechanisms, organisms, or organizations) the Kihbernetic worldview originated from my helping navigate organizations through times of #change.
