Conference reports

Citation

Andrew, A.M. (2006), "Conference reports", Kybernetes, Vol. 35 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2006.06735aab.006

Conference reports

Conference reports

Review of CybCon 04 – “Cybernetics and Public Administration”: Annual Conference of UK Cybernetics Society, jointly with Metaphorum [2]

The 2004 Annual Conference of the Cybernetics Society, on the theme of “Cybernetics and Public Administration” was held, jointly with Metaphorum, in London during the afternoon of Friday 3 September, and all day on Saturday 4th. Metaphorum is a society that arose out of what has become known as a Staffordian Syntegration in 2003, the reference being to the procedure for team discussion conforming to edges of a regular icosahedron, introduced by Stafford Beer (1994). The topic that was addressed in the 2003 event, held in the University of Hull, was: “What should we do with Stafford’s legacy/gift?” The Metaphorum Society was formed to promulgate and extend Stafford’s initiatives in management cybernetics. Its President, Professor Alfredo Moscardini of the University of Sunderland, participated in the recent conference, as did also Dr Allenna Leonard, the former partner of Stafford Beer who is now President of the American Society for Cybernetics, and also Stafford’s daughter, the painter Vanilla Beer.

Details of Metaphorum, including its origins, can be found at: www.metaphorim.org. An account of the conference can be found on the website: www.cybsoc.org. Selected papers are published in this special double issue of Kybernetes.

The start on Friday afternoon was on deck chairs in St James’ Park, in excellent sunny weather but with traffic noise that made things difficult. Nick Green delivered a fascinating account of a planned IT system for the National Health Service, to link all GP surgeries and hospitals and other facilities. This should be efficient and should make available statistical data in ways hitherto impossible. It was indicated by the speaker how part of the system could be mapped onto Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model.

Although Nick was prepared to strain his voice it was not feasible, in the park, to follow the original plan for clustered discussion sessions, and the meeting moved to a rather less noisy alternative location above a pub in Whitehall. The first presentation here was by Isaac Hayut-Man, Academy of Jerusalem, on proposals for a peaceful and appropriate treatment of the old city of Jerusalem. It was suggested that all the faiths involved should agree to leave the sites within the city intact, under control of an interfaith body to be established. It is planned to promote the arrangement by forming a temple-shaped laser display over the city that would be effectively a scoreboard for a peacekeeping Olympics, and to spread awareness by giving access to a VR representation of the city as an interactive computer game. Details can be found at: www.thehope.org and are presented in a fine collection of art reproductions in Wired magazine for April 2004, at: www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.04/holyland.html.

A feature of the meeting was its international flavour, and the next speaker was Dr Leonie Solomons of the University of Sunderland who explained the nature and origins of conflict in Sri Lanka, with details of the arrivals of the various ethnic groups, with their languages (and alphabets) and religions. Aspects of proposed partitioning of the territory were examined, with reference to such things as agricultural value of respective areas, and access to ports. The central problem is how to form a stable community. Some views of Humberto Maturana were found to be relevant.

Two further speakers on the Friday afternoon were Luc Hoebeke, with affiliations in both Belgium and the University of Amsterdam, and Margaret Heath of the Free University of Brussels. Both of them discussed aspects of the Viable System Model in relation to cognitive science and sociology.

The venue on the Saturday was a room in the London School of Economics, with projection facilities and no traffic noise. The proceedings began with an address from Prof. Moscardini in which he contrasted the cybernetics field with his own earlier speciality of system dynamics. One difference is that the support for management cybernetics is fragmented, consisting in UK of the two sponsoring bodies for the present conference, with Cybernetics North as a third (WOSC was not explicitly mentioned, though it can provide a common focus and is already involved through Kybernetes). Reference was made to the use of cybernetic principles in a project in the Ukraine.

This address was followed by a symposium, introduced by Allenna Leonard, in which three speakers discussed possibilities for systemic development of the AIDS programme of FAO, mainly with reference to Africa. The three speakers were Dr Angela Espinosa of the University of Hull, Dr Marcela Villarreal of FAO, and John Clarke of WHO. The emphasis was on social consequences of the disease, which promotes inequality and is itself promoted by inequality. Many large families have to be supported at subsistence level by a grandparent because the parent generation has perished. There are also widows of AIDS victims who are destitute because they are excluded from the clan they joined when they married, the exclusion being made because they are likely to be infected (and with the usual sex bias in such matters, such that they are often blamed for the problem in the first place). The resulting inequality directly leads to spread of the disease because destitute women and children turn to prostitution.

John Clarke referred to “organisational autism” and the reluctance in the press and elsewhere to broach topics that are “politically incorrect”, especially references to sexual behaviour. This is a very difficult area, especially in the context of cultures that are unfamiliar to Europeans, but one where scrupulous political correctness is inappropriate. It was mentioned by one of the earlier speakers that the countries most affected by AIDS are contiguous and the infection has largely followed truck routes.

In the afternoon, Dr Steve Wright, formerly of the Omega Foundation, gave a systems description of the Northern Ireland conflict. His statistical analysis strongly supported the view that terrorism thrives on the attempt to suppress it, an observation that is acknowledged in various papers of Stafford Beer and that is not popular with current world leaders. He also mentioned some little-known aspects of events in Ireland that do not reflect well on the administration, and chilling anti-terrorist gadgetry under development in commercial laboratories in USA.

The final part of the meeting was a presentation and discussion on “identity and structure” led by Dr Paul Stokes, a sociologist in Trinity College, Dublin, and Luc Hoebeke. A feeling of identity can belong to an individual or to a group and is argued to be recursive and related to viability and to the Viable System Model. The theme was developed at length by Stokes, and then the presentation by Hoebeke evoked a good deal of disagreement and controversy. A long paper by Paul Stokes is available at: www.cybsoc.org/IdentityandProcess.pdf.

The conference was highly successful and Nick Green in particular is to be congratulated for the local arrangements, which may be a pattern for future events (except for the first part in a noisy public park!).

Alex M. Andrew

Note2. Editor’s note: This special double issue of Kybernetes is based on papers presented at this event. This review is accordingly reprinted for the information of readers.