ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ @Kihbernetics@qoto.org

>“Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces,” a Pentagon official told me. “That sucks.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

@jimdonegan

I like #HvFoerster's take "*On Constructing a Reality*":
#Reality = #Community

@antlerboy

I was looking for more info on "Cyberfolk" and found this interesting article from Morozov in which parts sounds to me as if they came straight out of Orwell's "1984"😀, with the "algedonic meter" dial in every household and all that.

As I suspected "Cyberfolk" was just "window dressing" as Beer had no idea how to implement "workers' participation" in Cybersyn, so instead of starting from the bottom and solving problems where "the rubber hits the road" by increasing popular involvement, they all concentrated on the "easy" development of the Ops Room for top bureaucrats.

As Morozov points out in his article "Project Cybersyn could at least provide graphic designers with full employment" 😀

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machine

>It is the self-organizing and self-assembling properties of *inanimate* molecules that make the origin problem much less difficult. The mystery probably does not have a complete solution, but amazing partial solutions have been discovered in my lifetime. Most promising are:
(1) the rich *abiogenic* syntheses of amino acids, nucleobases, and many other biomolecules, and
(2) the *spontaneous* folding and assembly of linear copolymers of amino acids and nucleotides to form enzymes and higher order molecular structures.

>The origin of the genetic code and genetic language is still the greatest mystery, but whatever the answer, it is a fact that for over 4 billion years of evolution linear copolymer folding has remained the essential symbol grounding process that enables *1-dimensional genetic symbolic descriptions* to construct and control the *3-dimensional molecular machinery of all life*. These folded macromolecules also have remained as the *initial detectors of sensory information* at all levels of evolution. Any biosemiotic studies should understand these universal ***molecular symbol-matter and matter-symbol transitions***.

https://www.academia.edu/44551141/The_Primary_Biosemiosis_Symbol_Sequence_Grounding_by_Folding

@psybertron @antlerboy

Yes. Interesting, innit?

@psybertron
Italian

@psybertron @antlerboy

That's the point. You don't *have* to do anything. But if you *are* doing something my suggestion is to ask #people questions first: #who you are doing it for, and #why.

@psybertron

The reason for using #Kihbernetics as the name for my "special" flavor of understanding this system science was mainly to distance from everything *cyber* and to return to the roots by using a spelling similar to the pronunciation of #Κυβερνητική in the Greek original:

https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=el&text=Cybernetics&op=translate

@psybertron @antlerboy

Real trust between people and between people and technology is built, not by engaging in philosophical discussions about the "greatness" of one or another idea, but in real #work where all "have their skin in" and "scratch each other's backs".

Unfortunately, a large number of people may not see that, and develop an infatuation with narcissistic loudmouth salesmen that don't genuinely have their best interest in mind.

@antlerboy

That's what I'm trying to say.

Impressions are important, and Cybersyn projected an unhelpful technocratic elitist aura that was in the end seized by its opponents and helped in ending the whole thing.
Morozov pushes the narrative that the reason the experiment failed was all because of the "evil capitalist West" interference but, IMO if it was that great it would endure whatever was thrown on it.

It is always the same, developers (innovators) build #products that satisfy *themselves*, not #people they are supposedly developing it for.

And people are not only *symbolically* more important, they are *realistically* much more important than technology. Especially in a revolution.

@antlerboy

Morozov:

>“That’s why I find the legacy of the Cybersyn Project and Stafford Beer to be a very promising avenue for reinventing what socialism of the 21st century should be.”

No, it's not. A better world is built on #trust, not on "cybernetic management principles". Giving decision-makers "chairs with a set of futuristic buttons, a cigar ashtray, and space for a whisky tumbler built into the armrest" does not exactly project a picture that they may have the workers' best interests in mind.

Medina has a much better understanding of the whole Cybersyn thing and the role technology plays in creating a better world:

1️⃣ Government can shape innovations to benefit the whole of society
2️⃣ Design bias can limit democracy and inclusion
3️⃣ Older technology can solve problems
4️⃣ Privacy is critical
5️⃣ Innovation alone does not build a better world

https://jacobin.com/2015/04/allende-chile-beer-medina-cybersyn/

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.

Unless I see evidence that someone else already introduced it in similar terms, I will claim here that I've come up with (yet another😀) theory of consciousness I will aptly name a "Kihbernetic Theory of #Consciousness" or "#KTC".

According to this theory #regulation in a dynamical system is always #unconscious (innate or learned, like driving a bike), #guidance is always #conscious (i.e. it assumes there is #intention, teleology, conscious seeking for answers), and #control can be either conscious or unconscious.

For example, one can be focused on (have conscious control over) a conversation while unconsciously controlling a vehicle they are driving, and then momentarily switch their #attention to some unexpected situation on the road that the regulators were unable to resolve by themselves.

Reading about different theories of #consciousness while trying to understand why it is such a "hard problem" and just had an idea. I'm sure someone has already thought of it, but here it is just in case:

Both #unconscious and #conscious neural activity are carried on by the same neural network mechanisms. The only difference between the two is that unconscious activities happen in #parallel, like a wave, while all conscious activity is performed in a #sequence.

We can experience multiple things and are able to perform multiple **unconscious** activities at the same time, but we can focus our conscious #attention only on *one thing at a time*. This is why we are flipping between two different views of the Necker cube and we can't *see* both versions at the same time.

Both conscious and unconscious activity affects the current #state of the neural network (our thoughts), but only conscious thoughts can be memorized and later recalled because they are "recorded" as sequences of events (stories).

This is totally different from computer #memory which mainly stores and retrieves separate, out-of-context data points.

Introducing the *qualitative* category of #Wisdom in the triad made of *quantifiable* #Data, #Information, and #Knowledge items adds nothing to the better understanding of the matter.

Saying someone or something is "wise" is just a subjective judgment made by an external #observer about another (#observed) system's behavior *appropriateness* to the given situation in the environment without knowing anything about the observed system's internal state, goals, or motives.

In addition, a really "wise" entity would never identify itself as such.😀

>"The mathematics of quantum mechanics works incredibly well as a predictor of what this data should be. It will not give you certainty, but it will give you reliable probabilistic predictions."

It is definitely **not** a *mystery*. #Quantum #Constructivism is just like every other #Science, which will also *not give you certainty, but it will give you reliable probabilistic predictions.*

https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-mystery-interaction/

The #control functions in a dynamical system such as a living organism are distributed on three levels:
1️⃣ The automated and predominantly *unconscious* #regulatory functions are responsible for any *immediate* response and maintaining the system's *homeostasis* in the face of external disturbances.
2️⃣ The working parameters for these "regulators" are changed based on actions planned, directed, and modulated by the *conscious* #control functions seeking to optimize the use of the regulators and fulfill "high-level" goals, aspirations, and other *needs* that originate on
3️⃣ The "highest"#governance control level which maintains *long-term* drives that the system may be either aware (conscious) of (voluntary), or deeply ingrained in some unconscious habits, or innate.

It is evident from this short presentation that #consciousness resides primarily on the *middle* control level that has the ability to make *predictions* of future events and compare such expectations with the *perception* of reality as provided by the regulators. All in order to extract the *difference* between the two, or the #information that will be subsequently *integrated* into the #knowledge structure of the system to improve control.

Many people think that "history doesn't repeat itself" so they dislike #models because "they are based on the #past and thus not useful for identifying all the #complexity associated with the #changes that will happen in the #future."

This is most likely because they think models are for producing #forecasts, while the best use of models is, instead, to plan future #experiments.

#Predictions are often made as statements about what **will** occur in the future, while they should be only statements about #expectations of what **may** most probably happen in the (most immediate) future.

Predictions based on historical data define the boundary of the narrow conical "#possibility_space", the "volume" of which rapidly increases with longer prediction times.

idem ...

>The concept of #language was modeled more and more after those emerging from interactions with computers, the "computer languages." It is clear that the syntax of these languages must be obeyed meticulously, otherwise ''garbage in - garbage out."
>Unfortunately, under the leadership of one of the foremost linguists in America, Noam Chomsky, the logico-mathematical principle of fulfilling rigorous #syntactic requirements in so-called "well-formed formulae" was transplanted into the domain of natural languages and became a criterion for "linguistic competence." This aspect of language ignores the essential role as a means of #communication and perceives language as an end in itself. It is in this castrated form that one believes language is "linear," that questions have unique answers, that the linguistic problem is to generate "well-formed sentences," and other misconceptions that have their roots in perceiving language as a monologue.