Kybernetes: Volume 49 Issue 8

Guest editorial

Jocelyn Chapman, Christiane M. Herr, Ben Sweeting

Owning one’s epistemology in religious studies research methodology

Philip Baron

There is a lack of epistemological considerations in religious studies methodologies, which have resulted in an on-going critique in this field. In addressing this critique, the…

Learning the Ashby Box: an experiment in second order cybernetic modeling

Andrei Cretu

W. Ross Ashby’s elementary non-trivial machine, known in the cybernetic literature as the “Ashby Box,” has been described as the prototypical example of a black box system. As far…

Narratives of exploration: from “Failure is not an Option” to “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Thomas Fischer

To trace a shift in attitudes towards control since the mid-twentieth century, as reflected in a shift in rhetoric that accompanied the extension from first- to second-order…

Design cybernetics in support of cross-disciplinary collaboration: educating the next generation of Chinese architects and structural engineers

Christiane M. Herr

This paper offers design cybernetics as a theoretical common ground to bridge diverging approaches to design as they frequently occur in collaborative design projects. Focusing on…

Traces left by Herbert Brün that orient my cybernetics (Maybe)

Judith Lombardi

Herbert Brün was a composer of many things including electronic and computer music. His compositions were, by design, nested in his passions for designing a new society – without…

Understanding the contributions of some Russian scientists to developing systems thinking and the theory of evolution

Tatiana A. Medvedeva

This study aims to explain and illustrate the character of Russian systems thinking and to show how it is different and similar to traditions in the West. This study’s second aim…

A proposal for the role of the arts in a new phase of second-order cybernetics

Tom Scholte

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a more central role for reflexive artistic practices in a clarified research agenda for second-order cybernetics (SOC). This is offered as…

The art of conversation: design cybernetics and its ethics

Claudia Westermann

The purpose of this paper to discuss ethical principles that are implicit in second-order cybernetics, with the aim of arriving at a better understanding of how second-order…