The Cybernetic Ontology of Action

Abstract

Popularly, metaphysics is considered to be the antonym for physics. Argues that this attitude is a hangover from outdated forms of empiricism and positivism. In the light of cybernetic epistemology, scientific theories are linguistic structures which help to produce predictions of events. These structures are not directly deduced from experience, but guessed and then justified a posteriori. Metaphysics provides a basis for such structures. Proposes the principle that the ultimate reality we find in the physical world is that of action. Modifies Schopenhauer's formula as the world is action and representation, with action taking ontological precedence, and not to the space‐time picture of the world. For a picture is only a picture, a representation which changes from one subject to another, from one theory to another; while action is an irrefutable reality. Thus the concept of action in abstracto is taken and on this basis an attempt is made to interpret the fundamental concepts of knowledge: what are objects, what is objective description of the world, what is space and time?

Citation

Turchin, V.F. (1993), "The Cybernetic Ontology of Action", Kybernetes, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 10-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb005960