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Article
Publication date: 22 November 2017

Paul Pangaro

In an ideal situation, the author would like to answer each of the following questions: What is Conversation? What is Theory? What is Conversation Theory, anyhow? How did it…

359

Abstract

Purpose

In an ideal situation, the author would like to answer each of the following questions: What is Conversation? What is Theory? What is Conversation Theory, anyhow? How did it arise? Who participated? How is it a theory? Where did it end up? Is it interesting? How might it be useful? Where has it been applied? Why should you care? What does it offer the practice of education? Of design? Of ethics? Where is it headed? (Sorry, steering joke, since Conversation Theory is situated in cybernetics, the art of steering). The purpose of this paper is to answer as many of these questions as practical.

Design/methodology/approach

The seeds of Conversation Theory lie in Gordon Pask’s instincts and in his “making”. This paper begins by describing some of the machinery he constructed to explore human interaction. Next, a skeletal model of conversation is offered, and connections to Pask’s own diagrams are drawn. Complementary to these models of the structure of conversations are their consequences, which are described in broad terms rather than given in detail. Lastly, Pask’s approach to proposing a scientific theory, and his means of achieving it, are explained.

Originality/value

Conversation Theory is a thoroughly original body of work, unmatched by its range and specificity. It is little known and yet potentially profound, with a scope that has already influenced educational psychology, second-order cybernetics, knowledge modeling and software design. By describing its origins, models and implications, the author hopes its value can be extended to new generations and to new domains.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 46 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 1 July 2001

Paul Pangaro

In this paper, the author revisits his excitement in learning Pask’s conversation theory that gave immediate prescriptions for the construction of training systems and adaptive…

332

Abstract

In this paper, the author revisits his excitement in learning Pask’s conversation theory that gave immediate prescriptions for the construction of training systems and adaptive, personalized information browsers. Named after Pask’s first implementation of an interactive knowledge structuring tool, the THOUGHTSTICKER system described here came to maturity in 1986, some ten years before the Web’s wide acceptance, yet it had all the components of modern Web browsers plus an organising principle for the hyperlinks – something the Web still needs. THOUGHTSTICKER’s techniques for modelling each user’s unique experiences and conceptual learning style embodied the concept of “personal computer” still unattained in other commercial software products. Over a 15‐year period, many software prototypes were constructed and gave proof to the applicability of Pask’s theory. It remains to be seen if these and other aspects of his theory will rise to the consciousness of the marketplace, becoming popular and, afterwards, irremovable and “obvious”.

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Kybernetes, vol. 30 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 23 October 2007

Hugh Dubberly and Paul Pangaro

This paper aims to describe relationships between cybernetics and design, especially service design, which is a component of service‐craft; to frame cybernetics as a language for…

740

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe relationships between cybernetics and design, especially service design, which is a component of service‐craft; to frame cybernetics as a language for design, especially behavior‐focused design.

Design/methodology/approach

The material in this paper was developed for a course on cybernetics and design. Work began by framing material on cybernetics in terms of models. As the course progressed, the relevance of the models to design became clearer. A first focus was on applying the models to describe human‐computer interaction; later another focus emerged, viewing cybernetic processes as analogs for design processes. These observations led to a review of the history of design methods and design rationale.

Findings

The paper argues that design practice has moved from hand‐craft to service‐craft and that service‐craft exemplifies a growing focus on systems within design practice. It also proposes cybernetics as a source for practical frameworks that enable understanding of dynamic systems, including specific interactions, larger systems of service, and the activity of design itself. It also shows that development of first‐ and second‐generation design methods parallels development of first‐ and second‐generation cybernetics. Finally, it argues that design is essentially political, frames design as conversation, and proposes cybernetics as a language for design and a foundation of a broad design education.

Research limitations/implications

The paper suggests opportunities for more research on the historical relationship between cybernetics and design methods, and design research on modeling user goals.

Practical implications

The paper offers tools for understanding and managing the complicated communities of systems that designers increasingly face.

Originality/value

The paper suggests models useful for practicing designers and proposes changes to design education.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 36 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 2 September 2013

Jocelyn Chapman

The aim of this paper is to contribute to making higher education, particularly online education, more relevant and inspiring by orienting it toward the pragmatics and aesthetics…

1593

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to contribute to making higher education, particularly online education, more relevant and inspiring by orienting it toward the pragmatics and aesthetics of knowing. This paper also demonstrates the relevance of cybernetics and cybernetic thinking in education today.

Design/methodology/approach

The author's general strategy is to connect processes of knowing to the purpose of education, thus providing an organizing principle for the design and practice of online education. Nontrivial conversation and aesthetic experience are combined in a cybernetic complementarity, conceptualized as the processes that foster understanding. This serves the purpose of education, defined here as developing an understanding of how knowledge is constructed and fostering ways of knowing that are creative and complex.

Findings

Because the world has become increasingly complex, ambiguous, and pluralistic, the type of thinking needed to act and interact in the world must also be complex, e.g. creative, adaptive, relational, and empathetic. Research shows that this type of thinking is brought forth by aesthetic experience and nontrivial conversation. Combining these as processes of knowing provides a non-dogmatic way of orienting education toward student-centered constructivist learning.

Originality/value

Connecting nontrivial conversation and aesthetic experience as processes of knowing is an original contribution to education literature. This is also an exemplar of generating a cybernetic complementarity for conceptual modelling in education design. Anyone interested in how online education can extend efforts to transform higher education so it may better facilitate thinking in ways that are creative and complex will find this paper valuable.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 42 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Available. Content available
182

Abstract

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 38 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 7 February 2020

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…

58

Abstract

Purpose

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 violence. In this article, the author attempts to address several of Brün’s concepts relevant to his desire for social change. This paper was stimulated by a panel discussion about Brün at the 2018 American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) conference “Framing a Reality and How It Matters in a Shared World.”

Design/methodology/approach

Herbert Brün nested his communication in what he labeled “anticommunication,” which requires a listener to generate new ways of listening. As a video ethnographer, the author had many opportunities to videotape Brün, beginning with our first encounter at the 1992 ASC Conference in Washington State. During the past several decades, the author has composed a variety of movies in which the video footage of Brün and others that the author associates with cybernetics is used. Excerpts from many of these movies are embedded in the links located in the references section of this paper.

Findings

Brün’s cybernetic formulations for designing social transformations explored in this paper include his ideas on floating hierarchies, anticommunication, his notions on a circularity of needs, peace as a need, articulating desires, composing as an element of daily life, and the retardation of decay.

Originality/value

It is the author’s desire that this paper encourages the reader to explore some of Herbert Brün’s formulations for designing social change and transformations.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 49 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 7 September 2015

Albert Müller

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…

200

Abstract

Purpose

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 overview on research and literature during the last two decades and pleads for a multiplicity of historical views.

Design/methodology/approach

Historical research, review of literature.

Findings

While it can be found that there was a growing historical interest in cybernetics, this cannot be claimed for the history of the American Society of Cybernetics (ASC) as an organization and a productive network. One reason seems to be the lack of archival sources. The article provides a proposal to reconstruct such an archive for the history of the ASC.

Originality/value

Stimulation of historical awareness for and in cybernetics.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 44 no. 8/9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 1 July 2005

Alex M. Andrew

A recent discussion on the CybCom discussion list is reviewed, making a comparison of views of information due to Bateson and Shannon. The discussion extends to theories involving…

362

Abstract

Purpose

A recent discussion on the CybCom discussion list is reviewed, making a comparison of views of information due to Bateson and Shannon. The discussion extends to theories involving cellular automata and their relationship, as well as that of mathematics in general, to the real world. A recent suggestion that messages from extraterrestrials may be coded in DNA is discussed.

Design/methodology/approach

The aim is to review developments on the internet, especially those of general cybernetic interest.

Findings

The discussion is essentially philosophical and thought‐provoking.

Practical implications

A passing reference is made to methods for pattern recognition, and to the Bremermann limit with its bearing on ultimate computing capability. Attitudes to information exchange have a bearing on sociological theories, and behaviour of cellular automata is claimed to model communication between bacteria. The final note on extraterrestrial communication via DNA may redirect activity in the search for such communication and is evidence of an increasingly liberal attitude to scientific publication.

Originality/value

It is hoped this is a valuable periodic review.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 34 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Available. Content available

Abstract

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 38 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 7 September 2015

Peter Cariani

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…

261

Abstract

Purpose

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 regeneration of temporal patterns of spikes within recurrent neural circuits that provides a time-domain alternative to connectionist approaches.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual-theoretical paper draws from cybernetics, theoretical biology, neurophysiology, integrative and computational neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness studies.

Findings

The high-level functional organization of the brain involves adaptive cybernetic, goal-seeking, switching, and steering mechanisms embedded in percept-action-environment loops. The cerebral cortex is conceived as a network of reciprocally connected, re-entrant loops within which circulate neuronal signals that build up, decay, and/or actively regenerate. The basic signals themselves are temporal patterns of spikes (temporal codes), held in the spike correlation mass-statistics of both local and global neuronal ensembles. Complex temporal codes afford multidimensional vectorial representations, multiplexing of multiple signals in spike trains, broadcast strategies of neural coordination, and mutually reinforcing, autopoiesis-like dynamics. Our working hypothesis is that complex temporal codes form multidimensional vectorial representations that interact with each other such that a few basic processes and operations may account for the vast majority of both low- and high-level neural informational functions. These operational primitives include mutual amplification/inhibition of temporal pattern vectors, extraction of common signal dimensions, formation of neural assemblies that generate new temporal pattern primitive “tags” from meaningful, recurring combinations of features (perceptual symbols), active regeneration of temporal patterns, content-addressable temporal pattern memory, and long-term storage and retrieval of temporal patterns via a common synaptic and/or molecular mechanism. The result is a relatively simplified, signal-centric view of the brain that utilizes universal coding schemes and pattern-resonance processing operations. In neurophenomenal terms, waking consciousness requires regeneration and build up of temporal pattern signals in global loops, whose form determines the contents of conscious experience at any moment.

Practical implications

Understanding how brains work as informational engines has manifold long-reaching practical implications for design of autonomous, adaptive robotic systems. By proposing how new concepts might arise in brains, the theory bears potential implications for constructivist theories of mind, i.e. how observer-actors interacting with one another can self-organize and complexify.

Originality/value

The theory is highly original and heterodox in its neural coding and neurocomputational assumptions. By providing a possible alternative to standard connectionist theory of brain function, it expands the scope of thinking about how brains might work as informational systems.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 44 no. 8/9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

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