Heinz Von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of The
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Listen! (A Tribute to the Listen Inn, Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK) Ranulph Glanville
Listen! (A Tribute to the Listen Inn, Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK) Ranulph Glanville Independent Academic, CybernEthics Research, 52 Lawrence Road, Southsea, Hants PO5 1NY, UK: tel +44 (0) 23 9273 7779; fax +44 (0) 23 9276 7779; email [email protected] Text 1 “Beuys’ primary requirement for true communication was the existence of a reciprocal relationship between individuals. ‘For communication it’s necessary that there be someone who listens…There’s no sense in a transmitter if there’s noone who receives.’” Panel entitled “Communication” at the Joseph Beuys Exhibition, Royal Kilmainham Hospital, Dublin, read on June 2nd 1999. Abstract The argument is presented that, for participation and connectedness to be possible, we need to learn to listen, and to value listening, rather than being “given our voice”. Some benefits of listening are presented: as are side effects, which reflect qualities often thought of as being among the most desirable human qualities. Finally, examples of a demonstration and a workshop presented at the conference, concerned with developing listening skills, are introduced. Text 2 “Academics study precisely those areas in which they are least personally competent.” Academic Sod’s Law, Ranulph Glanville. Preamble The pianist enters the auditorium, and sits at the piano. The murmur in the audience subsides. He opens the keyboard and sits still for four and a half minutes. During this time, he makes no sound, plays no notes. At the end of this time, he gets up, takes his bow, and leaves. He has been performing John Cage’s piece, 4'32". (See Cage’s 1966 book, Silence.) You are in a community where no one will respond to anything you say, and no one will talk to you. -
Warren Mcculloch and the British Cyberneticians
Warren McCulloch and the British cyberneticians Article (Accepted Version) Husbands, Phil and Holland, Owen (2012) Warren McCulloch and the British cyberneticians. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 37 (3). pp. 237-253. ISSN 0308-0188 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43089/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Warren McCulloch and the British Cyberneticians1 Phil Husbands and Owen Holland Dept. Informatics, University of Sussex Abstract Warren McCulloch was a significant influence on a number of British cyberneticians, as some British pioneers in this area were on him. -
Kybernetik in Urbana
Kybernetik in Urbana Ein Gespräch zwischen Paul Weston, Jan Müggenburg und James Andrew Hutchinson1 Paul Ernest Weston was born on February 3rd 1935 in Garland, Maine. After stu- dying physics at Wesleyan University in Middletown (Connecticut), 1952 through 1956, Paul Weston came to the University of Illinois in summer 1956, receiving his M.S. in August 1958. The following autumn, as a graduate student of physics, he attended a seminar led by Heinz von Foerster under the promising title „Cyberne- tics“.2 In June 1959 Paul joins the newly founded Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) as a half time research assistant employed by the Electrical Engineering Department. Through roughly 1962, Weston’s primary emphasis was upon simulation of the processes of perception, with work in neuron models and pattern recognition. Together with Murray Babcock, Weston was one of the most prominent creators of prototypes built at the BCL. Already in 1961 Weston becomes widely known as the inventor of the NumaRete, a parallel operated pattern recognition machine, which played an important role in the public perception of the BCL through out the fol- lowing years.3 After 1964 Weston continues his research at BCL on the basis of a full position as a research assistant and starts to focus on information processing, particularly inte- rested in problems associated with natural-language interaction with machine. As a member of the Committee for Cognitive Studies Weston is also increasingly interes- ted in the potentials of how the new information technologies could shape society. In June 1970 Weston receives his PhD for developing a new and more efficient data structure called CYLINDER.4 After the BCL was closed in 1975 Weston continued to work as a Research Associate at the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory of the University of Illinois. -
1011 Neurons } 1014 Synapses the Cybernetics Group
History 329/SI 311/RCSSCI 360 Computers and the Internet: A global history Week 6: Computing and Cybernetics in the Soviet Union Today } Review } Cybernetics: minds, brains, and machines } Soviet computing and cybernetics } Soviet economic planning } Next time Review: SAGE } Origin: Whirlwind digital computer project, MIT } SAGE = Semi-Automatic Ground Environment } Computer-controlled air defense of lower 48 states } Networked over telephone lines } Duplexed (two computers for high reliability) } Tube-based central processors made by IBM } Magnetic core memory } First truly large software development } Served as a pattern for many subsequent military projects } Major factor in US and IBM dominance of commercial computer markets by late1950s Cybernetics: minds, brains, and machines Key figures } Norbert Wiener } cybernetics } Warren McCulloch & Walter Pitts } neural nets } John von Neumann } brain modeling, cellular automata, biological metaphors } Frank Rosenblatt } perceptrons The Cybernetics Group } Norbert Wiener, MIT } WWII anti-aircraft problems } Servo/organism analogies } “Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology” (1943) } Information as measurable quantity } Feedback: circular self-corrective cycles BEHAVIOR, PURPOSE AND TELEOLOGY 21 Examples of predictions of higher order are shooting with a sling or with a bow and arrow. Predictive behavior requires the discrimination of at least two coordinates, a temporal and at least one spatial axis. Prediction will be more effective and flexible, however, if the behaving object can respond to changes in more than one spatial coordinate. The sensory receptors of an organism, or the corresponding elements of a machine, may therefore limit the predictive behavior. Thus, a bloodhound follows a trail, that is, it does not show any predictive behavior in trailing, because a chemical, olfactory input reports only spatial information: distance, as indicated by intensity. -
Journal of Sociocybernetics
JOURNAL OF SOCIOCYBERNETICS _________________________________________________________________ Volume 3 Number 1 Spring/Summer 2002 Official Journal of the Research Committee on Sociocybernetics (RC51) of the International Sociological Association JOURNAL OF SOCIOCYBERNETICS www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/ Editor Richard E. Lee Newsletter Cor Van Dijkum Felix Geyer Editorial Board Mike Byron Tessaleno Devezas Jorge González Bernd R. Hornung Chaime Marcuello Vessela Misheva Philip Nikolopoulos Bernard Scott Mike Terpstra ____________________________________________________________________________ The JOURNAL OF SOCIOCYBERNETICS (ISSN 1607-8667) is an electronic journal published biannually--Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter--by the Research Committee on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association. MANUSCRIPT submissions should be sent electronically (in MSWord or Rich Text File format) to each of the editors: Richard E. Lee [email protected], Felix Geyer, [email protected], and Cor van Dijkum, [email protected]. In general, please follow the Chicago Manuel of Style; citations and bibliography should follow the current journal style (APA). Normally, articles should be original texts of no more than 6000 words, although longer articles will be considered in exceptional circumstances. The Journal looks for submissions that are innovative and apply principles of General Systems Theory and Cybernetics to the social sciences, broadly conceived. COPYRIGHT remains the property of authors. Permission to reprint must be obtained from the authors and the contents of JoS cannot be copied for commercial purposes. JoS does, however, reserve the right to future reproduction of articles in hard copy, portable document format (.pdf), or HTML editions of JoS. iii SOCIOCYBERNETICS traces its intellectual roots to the rise of a panoply of new approaches to scientific inquiry beginning in the 1940's. -
A Defense of Pure Connectionism
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2019 A Defense of Pure Connectionism Alex B. Kiefer The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3036 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] A DEFENSE OF PURE CONNECTIONISM by ALEXANDER B. KIEFER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2019 © 2019 ALEXANDER B. KIEFER All Rights Reserved ii A Defense of Pure Connectionism By Alexander B. Kiefer This manuscript has been read and accepted by the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________ _________________________________________ 1/22/2019 Eric Mandelbaum Chair of Examining Committee _________________________ _________________________________________ 1/22/2019 Nickolas Pappas Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: David Rosenthal Jakob Hohwy Eric Mandelbaum THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT A Defense of Pure Connectionism by Alexander B. Kiefer Advisor: David M. Rosenthal Connectionism is an approach to neural-networks-based cognitive modeling that encompasses the recent deep learning movement in artificial intelligence. It came of age in the 1980s, with its roots in cybernetics and earlier attempts to model the brain as a system of simple parallel processors. -
Intelligence Without Representation: a Historical Perspective
systems Commentary Intelligence without Representation: A Historical Perspective Anna Jordanous School of Computing, University of Kent, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4AG, UK; [email protected] Received: 30 June 2020; Accepted: 10 September 2020; Published: 15 September 2020 Abstract: This paper reflects on a seminal work in the history of AI and representation: Rodney Brooks’ 1991 paper Intelligence without representation. Brooks advocated the removal of explicit representations and engineered environments from the domain of his robotic intelligence experimentation, in favour of an evolutionary-inspired approach using layers of reactive behaviour that operated independently of each other. Brooks criticised the current progress in AI research and believed that removing complex representation from AI would help address problematic areas in modelling the mind. His belief was that we should develop artificial intelligence by being guided by the evolutionary development of our own intelligence and that his approach mirrored how our own intelligence functions. Thus, the field of behaviour-based robotics emerged. This paper offers a historical analysis of Brooks’ behaviour-based robotics approach and its impact on artificial intelligence and cognitive theory at the time, as well as on modern-day approaches to AI. Keywords: behaviour-based robotics; representation; adaptive behaviour; evolutionary robotics 1. Introduction In 1991, Rodney Brooks published the paper Intelligence without representation, a seminal work on behaviour-based robotics [1]. This paper influenced many aspects of research into artificial intelligence and cognitive theory. In Intelligence without representation, Brooks described his behaviour-based robotics approach to artificial intelligence. He highlighted a number of points that he considers fundamental in modelling intelligence. -
THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS of the Mcculloch
JHBS—WILEY RIGHT BATCH Top of ID Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 38(1), 3–25 Winter 2002 ᭧ 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (PHYSIO)LOGICAL CIRCUITS: THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF THE Base of 1st McCULLOCH–PITTS NEURAL NETWORKS line of ART TARA H. ABRAHAM This article examines the intellectual and institutional factors that contributed to the col- laboration of neuropsychiatrist Warren McCulloch and mathematician Walter Pitts on the logic of neural networks, which culminated in their 1943 publication, “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity.” Historians and scientists alike often refer to the McCulloch–Pitts paper as a landmark event in the history of cybernetics, and funda- mental to the development of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. This article seeks to bring some historical context to the McCulloch–Pitts collaboration itself, namely, their intellectual and scientific orientations and backgrounds, the key concepts that contributed to their paper, and the institutional context in which their collaboration was made. Al- though they were almost a generation apart and had dissimilar scientific backgrounds, McCulloch and Pitts had similar intellectual concerns, simultaneously motivated by issues in philosophy, neurology, and mathematics. This article demonstrates how these issues converged and found resonance in their model of neural networks. By examining the intellectual backgrounds of McCulloch and Pitts as individuals, it will be shown that besides being an important event in the history of cybernetics proper, the McCulloch– Pitts collaboration was an important result of early twentieth-century efforts to apply mathematics to neurological phenomena. ᭧ 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. -
What Is Systems Theory?
What is Systems Theory? Systems theory is an interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science, and is a framework by which one can investigate and/or describe any group of objects that work together to produce some result. This could be a single organism, any organization or society, or any electro-mechanical or informational artifact. As a technical and general academic area of study it predominantly refers to the science of systems that resulted from Bertalanffy's General System Theory (GST), among others, in initiating what became a project of systems research and practice. Systems theoretical approaches were later appropriated in other fields, such as in the structural functionalist sociology of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann . Contents - 1 Overview - 2 History - 3 Developments in system theories - 3.1 General systems research and systems inquiry - 3.2 Cybernetics - 3.3 Complex adaptive systems - 4 Applications of system theories - 4.1 Living systems theory - 4.2 Organizational theory - 4.3 Software and computing - 4.4 Sociology and Sociocybernetics - 4.5 System dynamics - 4.6 Systems engineering - 4.7 Systems psychology - 5 See also - 6 References - 7 Further reading - 8 External links - 9 Organisations // Overview 1 / 20 What is Systems Theory? Margaret Mead was an influential figure in systems theory. Contemporary ideas from systems theory have grown with diversified areas, exemplified by the work of Béla H. Bánáthy, ecological systems with Howard T. Odum, Eugene Odum and Fritj of Capra , organizational theory and management with individuals such as Peter Senge , interdisciplinary study with areas like Human Resource Development from the work of Richard A. -
Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better: the Cybernetics in Design and the Design in Cybernetics
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0368-492X.htm Try again. Try again. Fail again. Fail better: Fail again. the cybernetics in design and the Fail better design in cybernetics Ranulph Glanville 1173 The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK, and CybernEthics Research, Southsea, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the two subjects, cybernetics and design, in order to establish and demonstrate a relationship between them. It is held that the two subjects can be considered complementary arms of each other. Design/methodology/approach – The two subjects are each characterised so that the author’s interpretation is explicit and those who know one subject but not the other are briefed. Cybernetics is examined in terms of both classical (first-order) cybernetics, and the more consistent second-order cybernetics, which is the cybernetics used in this argument. The paper develops by a comparative analysis of the two subjects, and exploring analogies between the two at several levels. Findings – A design approach is characterised and validated, and contrasted with a scientific approach. The analogies that are proposed are shown to hold. Cybernetics is presented as theory for design, design as cybernetics in practice. Consequent findings, for instance that both cybernetics and design imply the same ethical qualities, are presented. Research limitations/implications – The research implications of the paper are that, where research involves design, the criteria against which it can be judged are far more Popperian than might be imagined. Such research will satisfy the condition of adequacy, rather than correctness. -
Social Systems
Home Browse Authors Sources Documents Years Theories Subjects Find Sources Authors Search Simple Advanced Help Previous Source Document Document 1 Next Source Document Front Matter by Editor, in Social Systems. [by] Niklas Luhmann and translated by John Bednarz, Jr. with Dirk Baecker. (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1995). pp. [N pag]-11. [Bibliographic Details] [View Documents] -- [NA] -- Front Matter [Cover] SOCIAL SYSTEMS Niklas Luhmann TRANSLATED BY John Bcdnarz, Jr. WITH Dirk Baecker -- [NA] -- -- [NA] -- SOCIAL SYSTEMS -- [NA] -- -- [NA] -- WRITING SCIENCE EDITORS Timothy Lenoir and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht -- [NA] -- -- [NA] -- [Title Page and Credits] SOCIAL SYSTEMS Niklas Luhmann TRANSLATED BY John Bednarz, Jr., with Dirk Baecker FOREWORD BY Eva M. Knodt STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA -- [NA] -- Assistance for the translation was provided by Inter Nationes Social Systems was originally published in German in 1984 as Soziale Systeme: Grundriβ einer allgemeinen Theorie, © 1984 Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California © 1995 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP data appear at the end of the book Original printing 1995 -- [NA] -- Contents Foreword ix Instead of a Preface to the English Edition: On the Concepts "Subject" and "Action" xxxvii Preface to the German Edition xlv Introduction: Paradigm Change in Systems Theory 1 1. System and Function 12 2. Meaning 59 3. Double Contingency 103 4. Communication and Action 137 5. System and Environment 176 6. Interpenetration 210 7. The Individuality of Psychic Systems 255 8. Structure and Time 278 9. Contradiction and Conflict 357 10. Society and Interaction 405 11. -
Second Order Cybernetics 31/08/2008 10:08
SECOND ORDER CYBERNETICS 31/08/2008 10:08 Search Print this chapter Cite this chapter SECOND ORDER CYBERNETICS Ranulph Glanville, CybernEthics Research, UK and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia Keywords: actor, analogy, argument, automata, autopoiesis, behavior, biology, Black_Box, causality, circularity, coding, cognition, communication, computation, concept, consciousness, control, conversation, cybernetics, description, design, distinction, ecology, education, environment, epistemology, error, ethics, feedback, form, function, generosity, goal, homeostasis, idea, identity, individual, information, interaction, internet, knowing, language, learning, logic, management, mathematics, meaning, mechanism, memory, meta-, metaphor, moment, mutualism, network, object, observe, organizational_closure, oscillation, person, phenomenon, philosophical, physics, positivist, (post-)_modernism, praxis, process, program, psychology, purpose, quality, reality, reason, recursion, relative, responsibility, science, second_order_cybernetics, (self-)_reference, semiotics, social, structure, subject, support, system, theory, thinking, time, truth, understanding, variety, whole_(and_part) Contents 1. Introduction: What Second Order Cybernetics is, and What it Offers 2. Background—the Logical Basis for Second Order Cybernetics 3. Second Order Cybernetics—Historical Overview 4. Theory of Second Order Cybernetics 5. Praxis of Second Order Cybernetics 6. A Note on Second Order Cybernetics and Constructivism 7. Cybernetics, Second Order