Unity, Plasticity, Catastrophe: Order and Pathology in the Cybernetic Era (original) (raw)
Related papers
EVOLUTION & CYBERNETICS, 2019
The Cybernetic aspect reveals both the true motive and the meaning of the gradual process of change and development over millions of years. We have analyzed our formalized model and valued functioning using The Measure of the Abilities. The Measure of the Abilities can increase only. The Measure of Abilities is a continuum (a set of continuous and inseparable) of three hypostases. With an increase in The Measure of Abilities three characteristics increase always: (1) the Memory volume; (2) the speedy transmission of sensory and motor impulses; (3) the reliability and robustness of Memory. All three hypostases of The Measure of Abilities are changed simultaneously and in the same direction, increase only. The article is focused on biologists and cybernetics. Formalized model and its the phenomenological description Our article is continuing the work "Conrad Hal Waddington and Can We Find a New Idea?" The author proposed a formalized model of living being and its phenomenological description (Kireev, 2019-1). Our model consists of "black box" (Ashby, 1956) with one input and one output (Fig.1). Such a model reflects both the relationships between stimuli and responses and the causal mechanisms of animal behavior. Stimuli come on entrance one by one. The responses appear on output as a result of the model functioning after receipts its own stimulus.
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.
A History of the History of Cybernetics: An Agenda for an Ever-changing Present
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.
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
Classical Cybernetics and Transhumanism. A Reply to Richmond
Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2018
Sheldon Richmond has written an insightful and exhaustive review of my book The Nature of the Machine and the Collapse of Cybernetics: A Transhumanist Lesson for Emerging Technologies (Palgrave Macmillan 2017). Richmond voices concerns regarding some suggestions I made about the future of humanity vis-à-vis a contemporary cybernetic re-instantiation in the form of Emerging Technologies. He suggests that future cybernetically rooted sciences (and the transhumanist technologies that come along with them) can pose peril for the human condition. This reply is intended to clarify certain points that Richmond brings up, by means of (a) responding to his suggestion that cybernetics and transhumanism could be independently understood, and (b) unveiling a metaphysical and ethical stance, shared by Richmond, critical to the observations I made regarding a “cybernetically organized mankind” made possible by Emerging Technologies. I identify Richmond’s position as (a) precautionary in nature, (b) for reasons perhaps more ethical than epistemological, somewhat out of sync with the cybernetic ethos.