Cybernetics ...
  "the science and art of understanding"... - Humberto Maturana
  "interfaces hard competence with the hard problems of the soft sciences" - Heinz von Foerster
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Chapter 3: Proliferation of Cybernetics in the 1950's and Beyond


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TABLE OF CONTENTS: Our History of Cybernetics


CHAPTER 1:
Prehistory
  Chapter 1 of our history - the 'prehistory' of cybernetics - is presented on our History Main Page. To see the prehistory chapter, simply click on the button to the left to return to the History Main Page.


CHAPTER 2:
Coalescence
  Chapter 2 discusses the coalescence of cybernetics in the 1940's. To access Chapter 2, simply click the button to the left.


CHAPTER 3:
Proliferation
  Here on this webpage we discuss the proliferation of cybernetics after its birth in the 1940's.


ADDITIONAL
RESOURCES
  We have compiled a listing of additional online and published resources for exploring cybernetics' history. To review these resources, simply click the button to the left.


A REFERENCE AID: A Timeline for the History of Cybernetics


OPEN UP:
Cybernetics
Timeline
  To provide a succinct reference aid on this complex history, we have compiled a timeline for cybernetics. Clicking on the button at the left will open up a new window with the timeline. You can then keep it handy on-screen as you read the historical review that follows.


CHAPTER 3: The Proliferation of Cybernetics


INTRODUCTION

Randall Whitaker
March 2003

  In Chapter 1: Prehistory we reviewed the factors that practically guaranteed the rise of cybernetics or something very much like it. In Chapter 2: Coalescence we reviewed the historical circumstances and events through which many players came together to delineate a new field of inquiry under the label 'cybernetics. The story so far may strike you as 'curious', but you'll find that the subsequent proliferation and evolution of cybernetics is perhaps 'curiouser still'...
 


  In retrospect, what happened in the wake of this seminal period is perhaps just as amazing. Once the initial rush of exuberance had subsided, cybernetics managed not only to survive, but also to flourish and evolve. For example:

  • The universality and power of the ideas unleashed in this early 'cybernetics group' were so self-evident as to facilitate these ideas' recurrent adoption and adaptation in a variety of disciplines - especially the social sciences - as time went on.
     
  • The ramifications of the innovations popularly associated with cybernetics (e.g., computers, robotics, systemically-organized enterprises) soon produced apprehensions about their effects on human affairs. Relying on the core principles of cybernetics itself, cyberneticians (especially Wiener) effectively argued the case for the human side of the socio-technical interface.
     
  • Playing on a concept originating in conversation between Margaret Mead and Heinz von Foerster, the people of cybernetics turned the field on itself - exploring the notion of a 'cybernetics of cybernetics' to yield a second-order cybernetics. This innovation in turn yielded a second-order proliferation of ideas and themes across diverse disciplines.
     
  • As time went on, new approaches in addressing complex systemic phenomena arose which labeled themselves as something other than cybernetics. However, many of these new fields acknowledged themselves as descendants of, rather than alternatives to, cybernetics. Examples include complexity science, system dynamics, artificial intelligence, and many others.
     
  • In some cases, these derivative fields' results invited skepticism about their viability or validity - especially with respect to their outcomes' limitations or ramifications for real-world deployment. When such skepticism turned to criticism, people often returned to cybernetics as a source of inspiration for correction or improvement. A good example is that of artificial intelligence (AI), whose value was becoming questionable during the 1980's. In 1986, Winograd and Flores' Understanding Computers and Cognition outlined an alternative approach drawing on (e.g.) the second-order cybernetics work of Maturana and Pask.



Cybernetics a Half-Century Hence:
Cursed by Success?
  In light of the accomplishments outlined above, one must wonder why 'cybernetics' is now widely perceived as an esoteric anachronism or an overused synonym for 'computers and Internet stuff', at least in North America. Some of the reasons one could cite for this include:

  • The proliferation of more narrowly defined descendant and derivative fields has obscured the facts that (a) cybernetics continues, and (b) it continues to contribute to human knowledge. One aspect of this problem results from forgetting the origins of later, better-known fields:

    "When, early on, the glitter of exuberance had settled into the dust, the theoretical mathematics of cybernetics became "dynamical systems," the communication aspects morphed into "informatics," prosthetics expanded into "robotics"; at the same time, computer hardware and software advanced at an unbelievable clip. There was little consciousness that it all might be subsumed under the rubric of cybernetics." (Davis, 2002)

  • The universality and power of the ideas unleashed in this early 'cybernetics group' were so self-evident as to facilitate these ideas' recurrent adoption and adaptation in a variety of disciplines - especially the social sciences - as time went on.
     
  • The ramifications of the innovations popularly associated with cybernetics (e.g., computers, robotics, systemically-organized enterprises) soon produced apprehensions about their effects on human affairs. Relying on the core principles of cybernetics itself, cyberneticians (especially Wiener) effectively argued the case for the human side of the socio-technical interface.
     
  • Playing on a concept originating in conversation between Margaret Mead and Heinz von Foerster, the people of cybernetics turned the field on itself - exploring the notion of a 'cybernetics of cybernetics' to yield a second-order cybernetics. This innovation in turn yielded a second-order proliferation of ideas and themes across diverse disciplines.
     
  • As time went on, new approaches in addressing complex systemic phenomena arose which labeled themselves as something other than cybernetics. However, many of these new fields acknowledged themselves as descendants of, rather than alternatives to, cybernetics. Examples include complexity science, system dynamics, artificial intelligence, and many others.
     
  • In some cases, these derivative fields' results invited skepticism about their viability or validity - especially with respect to their outcomes' limitations or ramifications for real-world deployment. When such skepticism turned to criticism, people often returned to cybernetics as a source of inspiration for correction or improvement. A good example is that of artificial intelligence (AI), whose value was becoming questionable during the 1980's. In 1986, Winograd and Flores' Understanding Computers and Cognition outlined an alternative approach drawing on (e.g.) the second-order cybernetics work of Maturana and Pask.


Other Online Resources on the History of Cybernetics


History of Cybernetics and Systems Science

(Principia Cyberenetica)
 

  "Perhaps one of the best ways of seeing the strength and the impact of the systemic approach is to follow its birth and development in the lives of men and institutions."

Thus begins a review of the History of Cybernetics and Systems Science at:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSHIST.html
 



Cybernetics in the History of Complexity Studies

(Ralph H. Abraham)
 

  'The Genesis of Complexity' by Ralph H. Abraham is an article about the history of complexity studies, within which he subsumes cybernetics as one of the 'three main roots'. This historical review offers a perspective on cybernetics as progenitor of more recent work on chaos and complexity. The article can be accessed (as a PDF file) at:

http://www.ralph-abraham.org/articles/MS%23108.Complex/complex.pdf
 



Gregory Bateson, Cybernetics, and the Social / Behavioral Sciences

(Lawrence S. Bale)
 

  This is a Web-accessible version of an article published in the journal Cybernetics and Human Knowing. Even though it focuses on Gregory Bateson, it provides a good summary overview of the context and themes surrounding the rise of cybernetics and systems theory.

"Following Bateson, it is my conviction that the patterns of organization and symmetry embodied in living systems are indicative of mental process; and, that the cybernetic paradigm--with its focus on communication and information as the key elements of the self-regulation and self-organization--best exemplifies these hierarchical patterns of epistemic organization."

The article can be accessed at:

http://www.narberthpa.com/Bale/lsbale_dop/cybernet.htm
 



MORE INFO ON CYBERNETICS:
Defining
'Cybernetics'
Cybernetics'
Lexicon
Cybernetics
Tutorials
Noted Contributors
to Cybernetics


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