Kybernetes: Volume 44 Issue 8/9

Living in cybernetics

The purpose of this paper is to justify the theme of the ASC 50th anniversary conference; to implement Mead’s cybernetics of cybernetics; and to establish cybernetics as “a way of…

When Newton meets Heinz Von Foerster, complexity vanishes and simplicity reveals

Complexity is the real beast that baffles everybody. Though there are increasing inter-disciplinary discussions on it, yet it is scantly explored. The purpose of this paper is to…

A quantitative examination of two different teaching paradigms in a Germiston based pre-school: A pilot study

The purpose of this paper is to determine if there is value in performing studies comparing a cybernetic approach over a traditional teaching approach in regards to improved…

Outline of a cybernetic theory of brain function based on neural timing nets

The purpose of this paper is to outline an integrative, high-level, neurocomputational theory of brain function based on temporal codes, neural timing nets, and active…

Blind spots obscuring circular causality in design and elsewhere

Circular causality is one of several unorthodox assumptions underlying cybernetics. This paper identifies “blind spots” which obscure the soundness of this assumption, rendering…

An explanatory framework for understanding teachers resistance to adopting educational technology

– The purpose of this paper is to propose a way of understanding the resistance shown by teachers to the adoption of some educational technologies.

Second-order cellular automata to support designing

The purpose of this paper is to identify two ways of conceptualizing cellular automata (CA) systems: a utility-focussed approach focussed on modeling, simulation and prediction as…

Living in cybernetics: Polynesian voyaging and ecological literacy as models for design education

The purpose of this paper is to learn from successful educational frameworks how to inform a possible framework for design education that includes ecological literacy, systems…

The cybernetics of humour: introducing signature analysis to humour research

The purpose of this paper is to introduce signature analysis to humour research. Signature analysis is not widely used in the fields of humanities, the introduction of a new…

The relevance of cybernetics for a positive psychology approach to dyslexia

– The purpose of this paper is to consider the relevance of the literature of cybernetics for a positive psychology approach to dyslexia.

Information-energy metasystem model

The human system is developing into a global biocultural superorganism. However, in the process of aligning a stable global goal state, contemporary human control systems appear…

Non-trivial philosophy: Cybernetics, data analytics, and the biophysics of information theory

The purpose of this paper is to recuperate Heinz von Foerster’s “Quantum Mechanical Theory of Memory” from Cybernetics: Circular, Causal, and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and…

The Christchurch earthquakes’ impact on the Convergence gathering

The purpose of this paper is to take a cybernetic perspective on the impact of the earthquakes on the Convergence gathering. Convergence is an organisation formed by a network of…

The role of experience in the ASC’s commitment to engage those outside the cybernetics community in learning cybernetics

The key ideas of cybernetics have remained unknown or misunderstood by contemporary technological societies. The purpose of this paper is to consider how best to assist…

Avec un “s”: histories of cybernetics and the ASC

The purpose of this paper is to target the problem of awareness of the history of cybernetics as a field with different actors inside and outside cybernetics. It provides a short…

Change in consciousness as an ecological strategy

Pursue Gregory Bateson’s observation that human consciousness as we see it today is tightly focussed on finding and pursuing purposes. Taken too far, the wider world of nature…

Homunculus strides again: why “information transmitted” in neuroscience tells us nothing

For half a century, neuroscientists have used Shannon Information Theory to calculate “information transmitted,” a hypothetical measure of how well neurons “discriminate” amongst…

Proto-cybernetics in the Stanislavski System of acting: Past foundations, present analyses and future prospects

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the cybernetics community at large to the remarkably prescient work of nineteenth century theatrical pioneer Konstantin Stanislavski…

Cybernetic narrative: Modes of circularity, feedback and perception in new media artworks

The purpose of this paper is to explore how second-order cybernetics (von Foerster, 2002) functions in new media artworks, specifically through information, system and user. While…

The machine for living in the conversational age

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate possibilities for a more intersubjective digital design process that amplifies the potential for novelty to arise.

Cybernetics of practice

– The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which cybernetics leads to distinctiveways of acting.

A challenge to objective perception in hearing and seeing in counselling psychology

Mainstream counselling psychology with its Western epistemology implies several assumptions about the therapeutic conversation. One assumption is the ability of the therapist to…

Special issue abstracts

Living in Cybernetics: Papers from the 50th Anniversary Conference of the American Society for Cybernetics