CYBERNETICS AND THE INTEGRATION OF KNOWLEDGE

Bernard Scott, Cranfield University, Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, Wilts, SN6 8LA

Scott, B. (2002). “Cybernetics and the integration of knowledge”, invited chapter for Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, UNESCO. http://www.eolss.net/.

KeywordsCybernetics, integration of knowledge, metadiscipline, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, first order cybernetics, second order cybernetics, cybernetic explanation, mechanism, model, quantum physics, cosmology, self-organization, epistemology, ontology, radical constructivism, autopoiesis, learning, knowledge, conversation theory, full learning conversation, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, vocational disciplines, ethics, philosophy

Contents List1. Introduction2. Cybernetic Explanation and the Concept of Mechanism3. Cybernetic Epistemology

3.1. Radical Constructivism3.2. What is Learning, What is Knowledge?3.3. A Model of “Coming to Know”3.4. A Model of “Knowledge Sharing”

4. The First Order Study of Natural Systems5. Approaches to the Study of Social Systems6. Cybernetics and the Arts, Humanities and Vocational Disciplines7. Cybernetics and Philosophy8. Concluding CommentsBibliography

Glossary

Cybernetics: the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine (Wiener).

First order cybernetics: the study of observed systems (von Foerster).

Second order cybernetics: the study of observing systems (von Foerster).

Epistemology: how we know and what may be known.

Ontology: the nature of being, what the world is “made of”.

Self-organizing system: a dynamical system exhibiting structures as emergent forms in far from thermodynamic equilibrium conditions (Prigogine); a dynamical system whose rate of change of redundancy is always positive as it becomes more “organized” (von Foerster).

Autopoiesis: the circularly organised processes of “self-creation” that characterise living systems, processes whose products include the processes that produce them (Maturana).

1

RC: radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld).

CT: conversation theory (Pask).

Summary

Cybernetics was formulated by its founders as a metadiscipline with the aim, not only of fostering collaboration between disciplines (interdisciplinarity), but also of sharing knowledge across disciplines (transdisciplinarity). As a metadiscipline, cybernetics comments on forms of knowing (the cognitive processes and communicative practices of observers) and also on forms of knowledge (for example, similarities and differences between different discipline areas). This article presents cybernetic models of “coming to know” and of “knowledge sharing.” The distinction between first and second order forms of cybernetics is introduced to mark the reflexive nature of cybernetics as a metadiscipline. There is then a discussion of the first order study of natural systems, noting in particular:

the emergent discovered properties of such domains; the role played by the observer’s a priori assumptions and decisions about what to study and

how to study.This is followed by a discussion of cybernetics and the social sciences. Here the distinction between first and higher order forms of cybernetics is brought into play in order to characterize:

studies of social systems and social behaviour that adopt classical scientific modes of investigation;

studies that investigate the interactions of social actors; approaches that attempt to characterize social systems as distinct forms of autonomous

whole.Finally there is a discussion of how the metadisciplinary perspective of cybernetics can help inform and enlighten the “other than science” domains of knowledge and activity known as the arts, the humanities, the vocational disciplines and philosophy.

1. Introduction

One of the major sources for the development of the transdisciplinary study of complex systems in modern times is the series of meetings convened by the Macy Foundation in the 1940’s and 1950’s on “Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems” (other sources for transdisciplinary work includes von Bertalanffy’s “general systems theory” and Korzybski’s “general semantics”). During the course of those meetings, Norbert Wiener adopted the name “cybernetics” for the emerging discipline and defined it as the study of “control and communication in the animal and the machine.” From the outset, it was conceived as both art and science and was seen as encompassing traditional concerns in the study of the “governance” of human systems (see History of Cybernetics, General Systems Theory).

Before it was named the founding conception of cybernetics was that it should serve as a way of “integrating knowledge.” In this article the idea of integration (from the Latin “integrare”, to make whole or make into one) is developed in several ways.

1. Integration through interdisciplinarity. By this is meant the use of the “language” of cybernetics (formal concepts and associated terminology) to build bridges between different knowledge domains (Latin “inter” - between). An example is the concept of control by negative feedback and the associated terminology. The concept as a model may be applied in many different domains. Indeed, a major motivation for the founding of cybernetics was that this was the case. Engineers, anthropologists, neurologists, psychologists and economists (to name some) were constructing “similar” models, albeit with different domains of application and terminology. Thus cybernetics as a lingua franca serves to

2

facilitate communication between discipline areas. A psychologist can learn from a computer scientist and vice versa. For example, “memory” is modelled as data storage; data retrieval is conceived as “remembering” how objects and events are classified and related together within a conceptual system. The fact that models, metaphors and analogies are shared does not legitimize them as being particularly true or useful; that is a secondary consideration.

2. Integration through transdisciplinarity. Here as in the hands of the masters (Ross Ashby, Gordon Pask, Stafford Beer) the models and terminology of cybernetics become systematized as a set of inter-related concepts. Cybernetics “has its own foundations” (Ross Ashby). With this conception it is now possible for someone to be “a cybernetician.” Cybernetics becomes a “window on the world.” Wherever he looks, the cybernetician sees the ubiquitous phenomena of control and communication, learning and adaptation, self-organization and evolution. His “cybernetic spectacles” allow him to see any particular knowledge domain and the systems within it as special cases of abstract, general cybernetic forms. Brains and societies may be modelled as hierarchical or heterarchical systems (with or without an overall controller). Processes may be serial or parallel, synchronous or asynchronous; all controlled processes are subject to the law of requisite variety (“Only variety can control variety”, Ashby). All self-organizing systems from amoebae to human societies adapt and evolve to become “informed” of the constraints in their worlds - or perish.

The power of cybernetics as a transdiscipline (Latin “trans” - across) is that it abstracts, from the many domains it adumbrates, models of great generality. Such models serve several purposes: they bring order to the complex relations between disciplines; they provide useful tools for ordering the complexity within disciplines; as above, they provide a “lingua franca” for inter-disciplinary communication; they may also serve as powerful pedagogic and cultural tools for the transmission of key insights and understandings to succeeding generations. However, as noted by Immanuel Wallerstein, past President of the International Sociological Association, if a transdisciplinary approach is to make a real contribution in the natural and social sciences, it must be more than a list of similitudes. It must also be epistemologically sophisticated and well-grounded. Cybernetics, with its explicit distinction between first and second order forms, can claim, not only to satisfy this criterion, but also to be making significant contributions to epistemological debates.

Ross Ashby defines cybernetics as the formal study of “all possible machines.” In his book “An Introduction to Cybernetics”, Ashby uses a simplified version of set theory notation to present concepts such as change, stability and regulation in complex systems. It can still be tough going for non-numerate readers. A simple but powerful formulation of the essence of cybernetics is that its key concepts are “process” and “product” and that its main methodology is to model the form of processes and their products, abstracted from any particular embodiment. Thus, for example, a control process, whose product is the maintenance of some state of affairs, may be distinguished and modelled as such, irrespective of its particular embodiment as a biological, artificial or social system (see Systemology: Systemic and Non-systemic entities, Transdisciplinary Unified Theory: basic concepts and Transdisciplinary Unified Theory: formal aspects).

3. Integration through metadisciplinarity. In this application cybernetics is a “discipline about disciplines” (Greek “meta”, above). It comments on the forms and procedures that constitute particular disciplines qua knowledge domains. It sees the physicist as a builder of models, constrained by the properties of the domains and systems he distinguishes and interacts with. It sees the biologist the economist, the sociologist, the psychologist likewise. It comments on their activities as modellers, controllers and predictors. Science, pure and applied, is a cybernetic pursuit and art “L’art d’assurere l’efficacité de l‘action” (Couffignal). The metadisciplinary aspect of cybernetic thought was explicit in its founding. It reached full fruition with Von Foerster’s articulation in the 1970’s of the fully reflexive metadisciplinary activity where cybernetics is used to study its own workings: the cybernetics of cybernetics, also referred to as second order cybernetics (see Second Order Cybernetics).

3

First and second order cybernetics are the study of “observed systems” and the study of “observing systems”, respectively. First order study is of “observed systems”, where we may deploy the research paradigms of the natural sciences and seek falsification of hypotheses. However, all this should take place under the rubric of the second order study of “observing systems.” First order systems are defined from the perspectives of our second order concerns and understandings. Von Foerster has gone on to discuss epistemological limits and ethical implications of second-order understandings: “we think, therefore we are”; “to know is to be.” He invites the observer of systems to “enter the domain of his own descriptions” and accept responsibility for being in the world, thus echoing the longstanding discussions in sociology about the “reflexive” nature of the “social” (see also sections 6 and 7, below). Gordon Pask made second-order concerns explicit by developing a cybernetic “theory of conversations”, with particular applications in education and epistemology. Pask’s contributions are described in more detail below (sections 3.4 and 5).

The article is structured as follows. First, there is a discussion of cybernetic explanation and the concept of mechanism. This is important because, although cybernetics does not have a commitment to a particular ontology in terms of “what the world is made of”, it does make assumptions about “how the world works.” Next, there is a discussion of cybernetic epistemology, the processes of coming to know and of knowledge sharing. This discussion expands on what is meant by second order cybernetics and is particularly important in that it establishes the metadisciplinary perspective for the “integration of knowledge.” Second order cybernetics provides an epistemology that in recent years has become known as “radical constructivism.” There is a brief excursion that elaborates on this usage.

Later parts of the article go on to discuss particular knowledge domains. For reasons of space, coverage is selective. First, there is a discussion of the first order study of the domains of the natural sciences. The applied sciences, such as engineering and computer science and the subdomains of robotics and artificial intelligence, are not dealt with explicitly. Partly because their relations to cybernetics are fairly self-evident and partly because they are dealt with elsewhere (see Computational Intelligence). There is then a more extended discussion of how cybernetics views the social sciences. This is because the topic is controversial and conceptually challenging. Here, the distinction between first and second order study is deployed in order to characterize:

• studies of social systems and social behaviour that adopt classical scientific modes of investigation;

• studies that investigate the interactions of social actors;• approaches that attempt to characterize social systems as distinct forms of autonomous

whole.

This is followed by a brief discussion of the cybernetic perspective on the arts, humanities and vocational disciplines, where emphasis is placed on the role of the human actor as a cybernetic agent, concerned to affect the world directly as a participant or indirectly as a commentator. Finally, there is a discussion of the relation between cybernetics and philosophy. That cybernetics addresses traditional philosophic concerns of epistemology and ethics is a theme throughout the article. Here there is a brief summary that emphasizes the cybernetic view of the complementary nature of “knowing” and “being” and the cybernetic “structural-functional-pragmatic” concepts of meaning and truth.

2. Cybernetic Explanation and the Concept of Mechanism

As noted above, cybernetics is concerned with modelling “how things work.” In Frank George’s terse phrase, “A theory is a model together with its interpretation.” Thus a cybernetic explanation is one where a model of process/product relations is provided, together with an interpretive narrative about the way in which the model accounts for the behaviour of the system in question. In Ross Ashby’s formal, abstract cybernetics it is assumed that systems are embodied as classical

4

mechanical forms. To make this account more complete, we will look a little more closely at the concept of “mechanism” in order to generalize and enrich it, first by considering quantum mechanics and second by considering thermodynamics and cosmology.

The concepts of abstract cybernetics may be generalized to quantum mechanics where processes are quantized, not continuous, and the forms of their outcomes are subject to the uncertainties of quantum physics. An important point to appreciate is that, as in Newtonian physics, processes are time-reversible, the “arrow of time” has no privileged direction, what is done may be undone. Current developments at this level include “nanotechnologies” and “quantum computation.”

Following Prigogine, we may also distinguish irreversible “mechanical” processes, subject to the second law of thermodynamics and where time’s arrow does have direction. Prigogine appears to have a deep intuition about not just the nature of particular dynamical systems within the cosmos but about the cosmos as a whole. With respect to “within cosmos” systems the same intuition and insight is found in a discussion by von Foerster of “self-organizing systems and their environments” and associated paradoxes of observation. Von Foerster defines a self-organizing system as one that is always becoming more organized, more complex in its form. If this is so, it means that the observer is obliged to continually update his model of the system, possibly having to expand the dimensionality of the space of possible states within which the system is defined.

With respect to Prigogine’s intuitions about cosmos there is also a paradox of observation concerning our place “as observers” within a cosmos that is “developing”, “becoming”, “evolving” or “unfolding.” The observer is irrevocably a part of what he or she observes. She is ineluctably caught in a hermeneutic loop, where, as a “being in time” she constructs concepts of “being” and “time.” As Spencer-Brown, Maturana, von Glasersfeld and others stress, our conceptions of cosmos are the constructions we make in order to make sense of our experiences of being living systems. This is where cybernetic explanation confronts the limits of the “ineffable.” But, though “explaining” has limits, cybernetics is also a praxis, an art, as earlier: “l’art d’assurer l’efficacite de l’action” (Couffignal). We may still will and do.

3. Cybernetic Epistemology

3.1. Radical Constructivism

The concept of “radical constructivism” (RC) has been promulgated particularly by Ernst von Glasersfeld, drawing on Piaget but also, very directly, on the collegiate of cybernetic thinkers that formed around Heinz von Foerster in the 1960’s and 1970’s, notably, Heinz von Foerster himself Gordon Pask and the biologist, Humberto Maturana. RC is contrasted with the “transmission model”, where “knowledge” is directly taught and where knowledge is conceived as a being a representation of an external “objective” or “mind-independent” reality. (see Inquiring Systems, Cybernetics and Communication).

“Language frequently creates the illusion that ideas, concepts and even whole chunks of knowledge are transported from a speaker to a listener ... rather each must abstract meanings, concepts and knowledge from his or own experience” (von Glasersfeld).

Radical constructivists are those who “have taken seriously the revolutionary attitude pioneered by Jean Piaget ...... the concept of knowledge as an adaptive function ....that cognitive efforts have the purpose of helping us cope in the world of experience, rather than the traditional goal of furnishing an “objective” representation of a world as it might “exist” apart from us and our experience” (von Glasersfeld).

Von Glasersfeld emphasizes that observers construct “consensual domains” by what Maturana calls the “structural coupling” of system and environment. The life trajectories of the members of a

5

species create shared ecological niches and consensual domains of interaction and communication, with “objects”, “events” and classes of them (Maturana and Varela). There is then the explicit reflexive acknowledgement that RC, as a research programme, is itself a consensual domain, with the aim, as von Foerster puts it, of “explaining the observer to himself.” A secondary aim is to characterize the shared predications that constitute a given consensual domain as a system of beliefs. As an example, the key predication of “science” is the acceptance of the “objectivity hypothesis”, however it is stated, in realist or constructivist terms as “there is a reality independent of the observer” or “let us proceed to construct a consensual domain whose structure and behaviour is deemed to be independent of (i.e., not “structurally coupled” to) the observer.” Whatever the a priori predications observers adopt, it becomes critical to recognize that there are such a prioris and that it behoves observers to become reflectively aware of what they are.

Careful reading of Maturana, Von Foerster and Pask shows a circularity. The constructivist phenomenal domain of the observer may be taken as a starting point to account for the joint construction of the scientific domain. In turn, the “scientific” may be taken as a starting point for an account of how observers evolve to become members of a community capable of constructing consensual domains. This circularity is imminent in Spencer Brown’s logic of distinctions. It is indicated globally in Maturana’s seminal prose poem “Neurophysiology of Cognition.” There, Maturana suggests that his essay makes sense as a whole by the way the parts hang together. The circularity is quite explicit in Von Foerster’s “Notes pour un Epistemologie des Objets Vivants”, where he constructs a circular set of propositions from “Everything that is said is said by an observer” to “The environment contains no information; it is as it is.” In similar spirit, Pask’s converation theory is explicitly reflexive. It is a theory of theory building that accounts for its own genesis. (See Second Order Cybernetics).

3.2. What is Learning, What is Knowledge?

Although it is conceded (as argued by many) that distinct knowledge domains do present problems particular to themselves, it is possible (and useful) to construct domain independent models of the processes of learning and “coming to know” and the ways in which observers share understandings and do so in agreed ways. We next consider what it is usually meant by the terms “learning” and “knowledge.” There is then a discussion of learning as a process of cognitive construction, drawing on the seminal ideas of Piaget and elaborations by Rescher. The “conversational skeleton” model of Gordon Pask is then presented. This model places Piagetian constructive process in an explicitly social context.

“Learning”, as biological adaptation, happens incidentally in the context of the pursuit of current “need-satisfying” goals. The process of adaptation is going on all the time. One cannot not learn. In humans, learning finds its highest expression. Our “need to learn” is so strong, we experience boredom and actively seek out novel environments. In addition, humans learn intentionally. We consciously set ourselves goals. We practise habits and skills. We reflect, conceptualize and converse. We come together to learn and to teach.

When we learn, we are said to acquire “knowledge.” There are many ways of conceptualizing forms of knowledge. Following Bloom, it is common practice to distinguish between “knowledge”, “skills” and “values.” Often, different sub-types of “knowledge” are distinguished. For example, Gagné, Briggs and Wager distinguish motor skills, discriminations, intellectual skills, defined concepts, concrete concepts, cognitive strategies, attitudes, problem solving, verbal information (names or labels, facts, knowledge), rules and higher-order rules. Here, these more elaborate schemes for describing “what is learned” are avoided as introducing unnecessary complication but also because (in the author’s view) the distinctions made are not always well-defined or easy to apply. However, considerable use is made of one particular distinction, familiar from the time of Aristotle onwards, the distinction between “knowing why” (cognitive, conceptual knowledge) and “knowing how” (procedural, performance knowledge).

6

3.3. A Model of “Coming to Know” Rescher, building on ideas taken from Piaget, has constructed a constructivist model of learning in which two cycles of activity are distinguished: one corresponding to the acquisition and justification of “why” knowledge, the other corresponding to the acquisition and consolidation of “how” knowledge (see figure 1).

Figure 1. A two cycle model of “coming to know” (after Rescher)

In the “why” cycle, new conceptual knowledge is integrated with existing conceptual knowledge to form a coherent whole. In the “how” cycle, new “methods” (procedures, operations) are constructed and tried out and are subject to pragmatic correction. The two cycles, “formal” and “functional”, interact: “facts” may always be put into question; some form of constructive or operational/pragmatic “proof” of theories may be asked for.

3.4. A Model of “Knowledge Sharing”

Generally, humans do not “come to know” in isolation. What is needed is a theory of learning that includes the role of the teacher, where learner and teacher (in general, “observers”) are “in

Metaphysical assumptionsTheoretical interpretationsConceptual systems

ModelsMethodsProcedures

Application

Pragmatic correction

Correction by coherence

Why?

How?

7

conversation” with one another. Gordon Pask is the thinker who has most thoroughly developed a theory of conversations (CT). Pask’s basic model is shown in figure 2. Pask refers to this model as the “skeleton of a conversation.” It shows a “snapshot” view of two participants (learner and teacher) in conversation about a topic. Notice how it distinguishes verbal interaction (questions and answers) from behavioural interaction via a shared modelling facility or “micro-world.”

Figure 2. The “skeleton of a conversation” (after Pask)

The horizontal connections represent verbal exchanges, which Pask refers to as “provocations” to emphasise this is not a transmission model of communication. Participants are provoked to construct understandings of each other. Pask argues that all such exchanges have, as a minimum, two logical levels. In the figure these are shown as the two levels: “how” and “why.” As in Rescher’s model, the “how” level is concerned with how to “do” a topic: how to recognize it, construct it, maintain it and so on; the “why” level is concerned with explaining or justifying what a topic means in terms of other topics.

The modelling facility allows the teacher to instantiate or exemplify the topic by giving non-verbal demonstrations. Typically, such demonstrations are accompanied by verbal commentary about “how” and “why.” In turn the learner may use the modelling facility to solve problems and carry out tasks set. He or she may also provide verbal commentary about “how” and “why.” Note that the form of what constitutes a canonical “world” for construction and demonstration is itself subject to negotiation and agreement. Here, a brief example will have to suffice.

Why? questions and responsesWhy questionsand responses

How questions and responses

Teacher Learner

Receives or offers explanations in termsof relations between

topics

Receives or offers explanations in termsof relations between

topics

Offers demonstrations or elicits models and

problem solutions

Receives demonstrations, builds models or solves problems

Modelling facility for performance of tasks such as model building and problem soving

Why?

How?

8

Consider topics in chemistry. A teacher may:• model or demonstrate certain processes or events; • offer explanations of why certain processes take place;• request that a learner teaches back his or her conceptions of why certain things happen;• offer verbal accounts of how to bring about certain events; • ask a learner to provide such an account;• ask a learner to carry out experiments or other practical procedures pertaining to particular

events or processes.

A learner may: • request explanations of why ;• request accounts of how; • request demonstrations;• offer explanations of why for comment;• offer explanations of how for comment;• carry out experiments and practical activities.

Pask’s model may be elaborated in a variety of interesting ways. It may be applied recursively, so that a conversation becomes the topic of a higher order conversation. It may be applied reflexively, as a “theory of theory building”, that “explains” to the observer his own cognition and behaviour. It is a “process/product model of “consciousness” (“knowing with another”) as the exchange and sharing of “understandings.” Pask writes as a cybernetician, with an eye on the cybernetic aim of unifying theories and concepts across disciplines. Thus for Pask, anything that can be sensibly said about “conversation” is potentially part of CT. As a cybernetic theory, CT is the theory of conversations. Of course there may be competing hypotheses, but this is to be expected within an evolving research programme. As a unifying theoretical framework, CT adumbrates (Pask’s term) the sociolinguistics of conversational interaction, the conversational implicature of Grice, the descriptive pragmatics of communication of Bateson and Watzlawick and the normative pragmatics of Habermas.

4. The First Order Study of Natural Systems

The natural sciences have their well defined methodologies and justifications (Popper, Lakatos, Suppe). A basic assumption is that the observer is standing outside of a subjectless universe and modelling its workings. By Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, he cannot make an observation without affecting the system but in all other respects the events in the universe are independent of his thoughts and feelings. Such a universe is assumed to exhibit stability or lawfulness. Events will always happen “for a reason.” Miracles are not allowed. As noted earlier, cybernetics has helped to articulate different concepts of what we mean by mechanism and we now have an emerging consensus about system emergence within cosmological frameworks. From the cybernetic perspective pursuits of “a theory of everything” are pursuits, just that, but without a final goal. As George Spencer-Brown puts it, “The universe will always expand to escape our telescopes.”

From the perspective of an external observer, a domain of observation is distinguished and modelled as a set of variables, which together constitute a multi-dimensional universe of discourse or reference frame. Particular systems are modelled as relations (products) and their transformations (processes). Values of variables are measured. Hypotheses are abduced about constraints or “lawfulness” within the domain of observation and serve as the basis for the generation of testable predictions.

Note how arbitrary are our knowledge domains and their names. Science is from the Latin word for knowledge (“scientia”); physics is from the Greek “physus” meaning nature; chemistry means “mixing things” (Arabic); algebra means “concerning broken parts” (Arabic); mathematics means

9

“that which is to be learned” (Greek); geometry means “earth measurement” (Greek); biology is the study of life (Greek); psychology is the study of the soul or the psyche (Greek).

There appears to be a general form to the processes of knowledge creation in science. Distinctions bifurcate and bifurcate as new concepts are articulated and new discoveries made within domains until a point comes where there is a new synthesis that voids distinctions between domains, revealing new holistic constructs. As an example, the voiding of the distinction between the domains of magnetism and electricity gives the one domain of electromagnetism. Interdisciplinary studies are now commonplace, as in biochemistry and neuropsychology, where observations are made in more than one domain and where events at one level of discourse within an hierarchy of system types are used to explain events at the more macrolevel. Such approaches are only partly reductionist. It is now generally acknowledged, following Prigogine and others, that emergent systems have “laws” governing their behaviour at their own level, although remaining subject to the “laws” of lower level systems.

Thus, chemical systems are emergents from physical systems; biological systems are emergents from chemical systems; psychological systems are emergents from biological systems; sociological systems are emergents from psychological systems. There are many classifications of systems types and accounts of their emergence and behaviour. However, “the devil is in the detail.” It can be very difficult to be precise about where one kind of system “ends” and another “begins.” Empirical studies of greater and greater refinement are called for, as in studies of the biochemistry of “life” and studies in child development concerned with the emergence of “personhood.” Conceptual innovation may also be called for, as illustrated below in section 5 on social systems where, in Pask’s conversation theory, the distinction between the “psychological” and the “social” is voided. (See Evolutionary Complex Systems, Evolutionary Biological Systems and Metasystems Transition Theory).

5. Approaches to the Study of Social Systems

In this section, three approaches to the study of social systems are distinguished:• studies of social systems and social behaviour that adopt classical scientific modes of

investigation;• studies that investigate the interactions of social actors;• approaches that attempt to characterize social systems as distinct forms of autonomous

whole.

First order approaches to the study of social systems and social behaviour are those that adopt classical scientific modes of investigation. As described above, from the perspective of an external observer, a domain of observation is distinguished and modelled as set of variables, which together constitute a multi-dimensional universe of discourse or reference frame. Particular systems are modelled as relations (products) and their transformations (processes). Values of variables are measured. Hypotheses are abduced about constraints or “lawfulness” within the domain of observation and serve as the basis as for the generation of testable predictions. The roots of this approach can be found in the empirical sociological studies of Emile Durkheim.

Second order approaches are those that that investigate the interactions of social actors. What is of interest is not just the behaviour of the actors but, critically, the systems of belief that give “meaning” to their behaviours, including the beliefs they hold about each others’ beliefs. The observer can no longer give himself the privilege of being an “external observer” except by setting up elaborate contracts with participants (as in experimental psychology). He may form hypotheses about participants’ beliefs on the basis of observations of behaviour but may also give himself access to those beliefs by eavesdropping on or participating in conversational exchanges. The roots of this approach are many, including Max Weber’s emphasis on the importance of verstehen, Alfred Schutz’s phenomenology of the social world and the “social behaviourism” of G. H. Mead.

10

Some approaches to the study of social systems are predicated on the idea that social systems are distinct forms of autonomous whole. That is, they are not just an observer’s construct, as in the first order concept of system (above), they are characterized as being self-constructing and possibly also as self-distinguishing. Early expressions of the idea of society as a “functioning” whole that may be analysed into participating structures and processes are to be found in the writings of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and, later, in the theories of Talcott Parsons. Cybernetics and systems theory have provided more recent formulations

The most general cybernetic concept is that of the “self-organizing” system, defined by von Foerster, as any system whose rate of change of redundancy is positive; it becomes more organized (see also above, section 2). Such a system, in becoming “more organized”, obliges the observer to update his frame of reference. Following Maturana, such a system persists because it is “organizationally closed”; it consists of processes whose products include the processes that produce them. Maturana refers to this “self-production” as “autopoiesis.” He draws on the biological domain as his main source of examples but refrains from extending his concept to social systems. He does have some notion of human communities as “wholes” but appears to wish to keep his concepts thoroughly grounded in the “biological”: “(humans) live a communitary co-existence that gives rise to a network of recurrent interactions that results in a manner of living in which languaging arises ... living in languaging is conserved in the community as its manner of living,” Maturana).

Niklas Luhmann applies the concept of autopoiesis directly to characterize “social systems.” A social system is an organizationally closed system of “communications”, such that, whatever else is effected by those communications, they serve to conserve the system within which they are produced. A major motivation for Luhmann is to “de-subjectivize” communication, to “reverse the idea that a “subject” must first consciously resolve to communicate in order to act communicatively.” Luhmann has developed a theory of “functional system-differentiation”, which in his own words, is a “far-reaching, elegant and economical instrument for explaining the positive and negative aspects of modern society” (Luhmann). (See Second Order Cybernetics).

Luhmann’s classification of kinds of autopoietic system is shown in figure 3.

There is not space here to go into too much detail. In brief, “biological” are living organisms; “psychic” are (roughly) “centres of individual consciousness” which may play the “role” of “persons”

Autopoietic systems

Biological Psychic Society

Organisations Social systems

Figure 3. Types of autopoietic system (after Luhmann)

11

in particular social situations; organizations are associations of “persons”, as in clubs and business organizations; “social systems” are the functionally differentiated subsystems that make up “society” as a whole (e.g., “Law”, “Science”, “Business”, “Art”), each of which has evolved a “symbolically generalized communication medium” (e.g., “power/law”, “truth”, “property/money”, “love”).

Mingers and others have questioned whether or not Luhmann’s use of the term “autopoiesis” for social systems is apppropriate. The view taken here is that this is a question of definition and interpretation. If “by definition”, the term autopoiesis implies “material embodiment”, its range of application is indeed limited and should not be applied to “social systems.” As was discussed earlier, Maturana seems to favour this usage. However, if “autopoiesis” is interpreted as a synonym for the cybernetic concept of “organizational closure” then Luhmannn’s usage is quite acceptable. As in Pask’s formulation (see below), “social systems”, qua systems, are an observer’s abstraction but they may be “abstracted” as organizationally closed totalities (Pask’s “p-individuals”). They are of course “embodied” but this “embodiment” is not restricted to the “biological.” They are “stored” in situ and distributively in artefacts, books and other archives. Clearly the “formal” and the “functional” interact. I believe a close reading of Luhamnn and Pask makes clear this is their vision. A social system “breaks down” if its “embodiments” are destroyed but may “arise” again if living or non-living “data archives” survive. Likewise, the “embodiments” of a social system are imperilled and may perish or be dispersed as a consequence of some “pathology” within its system of beliefs (examples are the Shaker community which has failed to reproduce biogically and the Nazi Third Reich which by its aggression invited its own destruction).

A more important critique, from the perspective of seeking cybernetic transdiciplinary clarity and unity, is Luhmann’s distinguishing of “psychic systems.” These are not well-defined as “process/product” (i.e., cybernetic) models and serve to “occultate” or obscure his aim of “de-subjectivizing” communication. Within his “psychic” systems are rooted the notions of “consciousness”, “meaning” and “individuality”, the very set of concepts that a science of the psychological and sociological should be elucidating. In short, “psychic systems” are redundant as distinct forms. All that is needed are conceptual systems (qua software, descriptions of processes) that are embodied (qua hardware, products of processes). Necessarily, the observer has to contemplate a class of “hybrid” models in which there is an interaction between the two domains, the “formal” and the “functional” (see Pask’s CT, below, for an example of this approach; see also the seminal discussion of what is peculiarly “human” and “social” by Peter Winch).

Thus, I argue that when Luhmann writes “psychic and social systems cannot be reduced to each other .. they use different media of reproduction; consciousness and communication,” he is plain wrong. As in figure 2 and elaborated upon in below, consciousness (knowing with another) is communication; communication always implies some consciousness.

There are other formulations but they, too, are not cybernetically well-defined. Anthony Giddens, like Luhmann, draws on the psychoanalytic tradition to demarcate an ill-defined domain of the “psychological” as a contributing factor to individual behaviour and the processes of “structuration.” Some of Foucault’s discussions of “discursive practices” and “epistemes” seem similarly to wish to grant some autonomy to “the social” but (to risk a gross generalization) as with other “postmodern” thinkers, he seems caught in the cleft stick of needing to undermine the status of his own theorizing in order not to be a victim of his own critiques. In stark contrast, as already described, second order cybernetics embraces its reflexivity with a positive spirit. The models in figures 1 and 2 “model themselves.”

Although Pask’s CT was developed prior to the publication of Luhmann’s first major work on social systems, Luhmann refers only to some of Pask’s earlier writings. This is surprising as the breadth and depth of Luhmann’s scholarship is so impressive. CT explicitly builds a bridge between the second and third approaches, the domains of individual actors and the social systems in which they participate. In Pask’s terms, both are “psychological individuals” (p-individuals). A

12

“p-individual” is distinct from a biological individual or “mechanical individual” (m-individual, Pask’s more general term for the “processors” that embody psychological processes). A p-individual is an organizationally closed self-productive system of concepts, where concepts are “processes that produce, recognize and maintain relations.” In deference to Maturana’s usage, Pask talks about “the organizational closure of potentially conscious systems” rather than autopoiesis. The importance for Pask in making the biological/psychological distinction and constructing hybrid models where form and function interact is that the two kinds of system are not necessarily in one-to-one correspondence: one biological system may embody several psychological systems (as in the “inner dialogue” of consciousness); one psychological system may be embodied distributively by several biological systems situated in a context (as in the conversational processes that constitute human social life). Thus Pask is enabled to build a neat bridge between individual and social psychologies.

A p-individual may be distinguished as an “actor”, embodied in a single brain/body system, with associated in situ “props.” Recursively, actors in communication and “sharing understandings”, as in the model shown in figure 2, also constitute a p-individual, embodied in more than one m-individual. They constitute a self-producing, organizationally closed “conceptual system”, “system of beliefs”, or “organization”.

Thus Paskian p-individuals are analogues of both Luhmann’s “persons” and his “organizations.” It is critical to the concept of an “organization” that the participating actors construe themselves as such; members of an organization know they are members of an organization. However, Luhmann’s “society differentiated as social systems” remains as a different kind of “ideal type” theoretical abstraction. Given the evolving and varied nature of Luhmann’s “social systems”, the difficulties in defining them and in explicating their interaction, a simpler approach would be to include them in the category “organization.” For example, rather than the “social system”, “Law”, one would need only to distinguish the “organizations”, the p-individuals that constitute conversations about “law.”

Arguably, Luhmann’s wish to “de-subjectivize” communication is also satisfied by this construction. P-individuals as recursively constituted systems are not “subjects”, they are “conversations.” An “actor” in Pask’s theory is always part of the “social”; “he” cannot not “act”; “he” may or may not be conscious of his actions. If “he” is, he is conversing with “himself” (Maturana provides a very eloquent account of “self-consciousness” as an emergent process within the “languaging” that constitutes social life).

This approach also avoids the problem of how to characterize “society as a whole” and the need to justify whether one can validly characterize “society” as a “whole” in the first place. Margolis, for one, is happy that we may distinguish systems within “society” but, as all observers are participants, insists that “societies” are uncharacterizable Wittgenstienian “forms of life.”

6. Cybernetics and the Arts, Humanities and Vocational Disciplines

As noted in the body of the article, Couffignal, suggests that cybernetics may be considered to be an art, “L’art d’assurer l’efficacite de l’action.” This suggests a useful perspective to adopt in order to gain cybernetic, transdisciplinary insight into the nature of the arts, humanities and vocational disciplines.

Quite straightforwardly, cybernetics is the art of designing and bringing about desirable artifacts and futures (see Second Order Cybernetics) but there are implications too for what it means to act in the role of artist qua designer. In his discussions of ethics and second order cybernetics, von Foerster points out that adopting a radical constructivist epistemology carries with it the corollary that one is responsible for the world one has constructed and that this may serve as a basis for an ethical approach to being in the world. Both quantum physics and forensic science tell us that “Every contact leaves a trace.” Between Paskian p-individuals, “Every contract leaves a trace”

13

(Scott). Works of art – and here I include the discourses of scholars in the humanities - may provoke awareness, inform and enlighten, bring about the good. They may also corrupt and confuse and limit the good. (See Ethic Systems Theory and Systems Sciences and the Humanities).

Cybernetic maxims for effective action include von Foerster’s “A is better off when B is better off”, “Act towards the future you desire” and “Act so as to maximize the alternatives.” Pask advises that we may strive for “unity without uniformity” and that, for the cybernetician, evil is that which curtails the opportunities for actors to interact. These maxims may be helpful for fostering reflective practice and “learning communities” within the vocational disciplines (education, social work, governance and related professions). (See Social Systems Design, A Systems Design for the Future).

7. Cybernetics and Philosophy

The model in figure 1, above, is a cybernetic “structural-functional-pragmatic” model of “meaning” and “truth.” It is structural in that it takes account of logical coherence within conceptual systems. It is functional in that it is based on the conception that living systems are autopoietic, self-constructing. It is pragmatic in that it acknowledges that the “meaning” of terms and the “truth” of theories are contingent not only on logical coherence but also on the operational “workability” of models, methods and procedures and the pragmatic consequences of action.

Although cybernetics does not have a commitment to a particular ontology, as the model in figure 1 shows, it does acknowledge that there is a complementarity between “knowing” and “being.” As Wittgenstein puts it, “The world of a sad man is not the world of a happy man.” What we “know” and believe may affect how we experience ourselves to be. Our experiences may affect our knowledge and beliefs, including our beliefs about what we may know and how we may be.

8. Concluding Comments

This article has attempted to give a cybernetician’s view of what is “knowing”, what is “knowledge” and to characterize various knowledge domains in an integrated way.

Whenever one abstracts from particular domains and systems to form general models one runs the risk of being accused of oversimplifying or misrepresenting. I believe there is virtue in the transdisciplinary aims of cybernetics and that, although some abstractions may be quite simple, they may also serve as very powerful intellectual tools in their application. They may also have the beauty and elegance so often found when form is fitted to function. I thus recommend the summary models and classifications of approaches deployed in this article. However, I am aware that there is much wealth in the details that has been suppressed in forming those abstractions. To construct broad brush stroke summaries of similarities and differences between domains of knowledge and the ideas and findings of great thinkers is one thing, to engage with those domains, that thought and those findings in detail is another. These latter activities may be enriching and enlightening despite or even because of disagreements about foundational framings and predications.

What should be stressed is the view that for the cybernetician learning is not just about mastering particular domains of knowledge and expertise, though this may be very useful and worthwhile. Critically, for the cyberneticians, learning is also about the second order processes of coming to know who we are and of sharing that knowledge. As Stafford Beer has put it, “The goal of a self-organizing system is to learn to be what it is.”

Bibliography

14

Ashby, W.R., (1956). Introduction to Cybernetics, New York: Wiley [Still a classic introduction to formal, abstract cybernetics; Ashby’s themes and examples have not dated; a “must read” for any serious student of cybernetics and is available on the internet].Beer, S. (1967). Decision and Control, New York: Wiley [A highly readable and accessible account of the main ideas of cybernetics from one of its acknowledged masters].Korzybski, A. (1948). Science and Sanity, 4th edn., Lakeville, Connecticut: International Non-Aristotelian Library. [The best source for Korzybski’s ideas on “general semantics” as a transdiscipline; his ideas predate cybernetics but had great influence on its development]. Luhmann, N. (1989). Ecological Communication, Cambridge: Polity Press. [A relatively short and readable introductin to Luhmann’s theory of social systems].Maturana, H. R., and Francisco J. Varela, (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science [ Cohen, Robert S., and Marx W. Wartofsky (eds.) ], Vol. 42, Dordecht (Holland): D. Reidel Publishing Co. [The best single source for Maturana’s papers on autopoiesis].Pask, G. (1979). “A conversation theoretic approach to social systems” in Sociocybernetics: An Actor Oriented Social Systems Theory, (F, Geyer and J. van der Zouwen (eds.), Amsterdam: Martinus Nijholf. [A relatively accessible paper from Pask with references to his more technically difficult works; the volume includes other interesting papers applying cybernetics to the social sciences; see also the web site http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/]. Piaget, J. (1972). The Principles of Genetic Epistemology, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. [Probably the best single volume introduction to the range and depth of Piaget’s thought]. Prigogine, I. (1980). From Being to Becoming, San Francisco: Freeman. [A classic on system emergence and cosmology].Von Bertalanffy, L. (1972). “The history and status of General Systems Theory”, in Trends in General Systems Theory, G. Klir (ed.), New York: Wiley, pp. 21-41. [Von Bertalanffy’s own account of the history of general systems theory, part of a set of papers by leading figures in the systems theory field].Von Foerster, H., Mead, M., and Teuber, H. L. (1953). Cybernetics: Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, New York. [The editors’ introduction is a “must read”; for more on Von Foerster’s later work visit the Radical Constructivism website: http://www.univie.ac.at/cognition/constructivism/ ].

15