NEW PERSPECTIVES on CYBERNETICS SYNTHESE Lffirary

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CYBERNETICS SYNTHESE LffiRARY

STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,

LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Managing Editor:

JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University

Editors:

DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University ofLeyden WESLEY C. SALMON, University of Pittsburgh

VOLUME 220 NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CYBERNETICS

Self-Organization, Autonomy and Connectionism

Edited by

GERTRUDIS V AN DE VIJVER University o/Ghent, Belgium

Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

NeH perspectlves on cybernetlcs : se1f-organlzatlon. autonoay. and connectlonisa I edited by Gertrudls van de Vljver. p. CI. -- (Synthese 11brary ; v. 2201 1nc1udes blb)lographlca1 references and Index.

1. Cybernetlcs. 2. Se1f-organlzlng systems. 3. Automatlc contro1. 1. Vljver. Gertrudis van deo 11. Serles. Q310.N48 1992 003·.5--dc20 91-34827

ISBN 978-90-481-4107-4 ISBN 978-94-015-8062-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8062-5

Printed on acid-free paper

No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without wrilten permission from the copyright owner. CONTENTS

G. Van de Vijver: Preface 1 G. Pask: Introduction: Different kinds of cybernetics 11

Self-organization and complexity

H. Allan: Ends and meaning in machine-like systems 35 S. Salthe: Hierarchical non-equilibrium self-organization as the new post-cybernetic perspective 49 E. Bernard-Weil: A priori and a posteriori in cognitive praxis: the model for the regulation of agonistic antagonistic couples 59 F. Heylighen: Non-rational cognitive processes as changes of distinctions 77

Epistemological issues

F. Vandamme: Self-organization and autonomy in a post-cybernetic perspective. Epistemological issues 97 G. Van de Vijver: The experimental epistemology of W.S. McCulloch. A minimalistic interpretation 105 D. Andler: From paleo- to neo-connectionism 125 P. Livet: Second cybernetics: a double strategy for representing cognition 147 T. Meynen: The bringing forth of dialogue: Latour versus Maturana 157 A. Goudsmit: A one-sided boundary: on the limits of knowing organizational closure 175 P. Burghgraeve: Mechanistic explanations and structure-determined systems. Maturana and the human sciences 207

Sociological issues

G. Pask: Correspondence, consensus, coherence and the rape of democracy 221 E. Rosseel: Writers of the lost I: second-order self-observation and absolute writership 233

Index 247 PREFACE

Gertrudis Van de Vijver·

Seminar of Logic and Epistemology University of Ghent

Before being classified under the fashionable denominators of complexity and chaos, self-organization and autonomy were intensely inquired into in the cybernetic tradition. Despite all rejections that cybernetics has gone through in the second half of this century, today its importance is more and more recognized. Its decisive influence for connectionist theories, autopoietic and constructivist theories, for different forms of applied or experimental epistemology, is being more and more understood and generally accepted. It is mainly due to the success of connectionist models that we observe today a revival of interest for cybernetics. The 1943 article by McCulloch and Pitts is evidently a founding article. Cybernetics has however a much broader interest than the one linked to technical-mathematical details relevant to the construction of networks. For instance, the evolution from first to second order cybernetics, the ways of approaching biological and cognitive phenomena in the latter and the limits that were formulated there, are particularly meaningful to understand current developments and divergences in connectionism. A nuanced picture of cybernetic's history and its present state is therefore clearly epistemologically essential. The major differences between first and second order cybernetics are traced out in the Introduction by Gordon Pasko We will therefore limit ourselves to a brief sketch of some elements of the history of cybernetics - a history full of misunderstandings, mistaken interpretations, denials and rejections - which are of importance for the studies that are nowadays to be situated under the denominators of self-organization and complexity.

First order cybernetics, starting at the beginning of the forties with the work of Wiener, Rosenblueth, Bigelow, McCulloch, Pitts, and many others, was definitely an interdisciplinary project. It was, as a consequence, marked by a great diversity in aims and by quite divergent views on how cognitive, biological and teleological phenomena had to be studied and explained. Although it is generally described, rather monolithically, as the science of the control and communication in the animal and the machine, its status and meaning as a scientific discipline were not and are not that straightforward.

Is cybernetics a science of feedback-mechanisms or of information? Does it give expression to the idea of a neo-mechanicism, an 'experimental philosophy' relevant to very different fields of research ? Is it rather a methodology of action, a strategy, an art ? Or does it have in the first place a technological value ? As Gordon Pask states in the Introduction to this volume, the interpretation of the meaning of cybernetics depends on the philosophical orientation one has with regard to science. It is indeed not at all evident that experiment, technology and art ought to be seen in all cases as distinct.

These distinctions however did play a role in the reception of cybernetics in the scientific community. The technological side of the cybernetical project never posed many problems. Cybernetics was, certainly after 1953, mainly identified with this aspect and its importance was accepted as such. The following statement by McCulloch, in 1961, is characteristic in this respect: "In English medicine cybernetics is still a dirty word, but in their industry it has been washed in the holy water of filthy lucre." (McCulloch, 1965, pp. 221-222). The reception of what we called the experimental side of the cybernetic project was and is, however, much more delicate. The importance and diversity of the cybernetical research, from its beginning till second order cybernetics, makes it quite incomprehensible that it has been rejected for such a long time on the basis of a monolithic and necessarily historically mistaken picture, a picture which reduces its value to a mere technological one. Questions about the scientific character, about the objectivity of cybernetics remain vivid up to this day, leading to surprised reactions in seeing cybernetic research continuing, and to quick answers such as: "Cybernetics ? Cybernetics is dead!".

Was it the aim to understand in a scientific way teleological phenomena that caused the great stir being made in the scientific community? Was this the reason for the all too passionate and general rejection that lasted for more than 40 years ? Was it the geneml interdisciplinary project which was in the first place represented by Norbert Wiener?

That cybernetics was genemlly subjected to criticism and rejection, has indeed, according to us, to do with the aim of understanding, within a scientific context, teleological phenomena in a broad sense. In this context, we can refer to the reactions on the founding article "Behaviour, Purpose, Teleology". However, we do not want to deal with this aspect here; we will briefly indicate what are the major shifts in the view on teleology from first cybernetics to the new cybernetics. PREFACE 3

In first cybernetics, as we can see in the above mentioned article, teleology was essentially connected with the possibility of control, and necessitated the presence of a well-defined goal-object and a completely specified system. External observation, a classical view on objectivity in which subject and object are separable, were some of the epistemological features of first order cybernetics. However, the fact of stressing the necessity of control had not only as a consequence that technological aims were quite naturally pursued in the first place, it also implied that some forms of purposiveness could not be accounted for. The first cybernetics' interpretation implied essential simplifications on the level of the meaning of goal-directedness.

The teleological problem as Kant had formulated it in connection with biological organizations, and that we can describe to-day in terms of self organization and autonomy, necessitates another approach than the one of first cybernetics in terms of control. The paradox that Kant had linked to teleology (or to internal purposive forms or natural purposes) is related to the fact that a purposive system has to move or develop towards a purpose before that purpose is present, apparently even before a purpose can be conceived of. A genuine purposive system does not only possess a representation of the purpose towards which it is moving, it also has to construct that representation itself.

Along the main lines of the cybernetical project, it had to be possible to understand and explain how certain kinds of systems - artificial and biological - can develop certain goals, how they come to behave in a purposive manner. The necessity for a theory of goals, i.e. a theory of meaning, which explicates how boundaries and goals are created, not only for a system, but also by a system, clearly presented itself after first cybernetics. Moreover, a theory of how observation plays a central role in the description and explanation of teleological phenomena had to be developed; external observation turned out to be inadequate for complex systems.

First order cybernetics is a theory of observed systems. Second order cybernetics is a theory of observing systems, concerned with problems of biological organization and with the paradoxes of self-reference and self organization that can be linked to it. The 'post-cybernetics' or 'new cybernetics' that we are confronted with today is fundamentally to be seen as a continuation of second-order cybernetics. The original aim of cybernetics is retained in that the artificial system is still considered to be an important means in the clarification and explanation of natural systems and phenomena. However, through the complexification of the artificial 4 O. VAN DE VINER system, the traditional borderlines between natural and artificial, which were hardly questioned during the first cybernetics, are becoming more and more problematic. With regard to the latter we can even state that the artificial system can be seen as a very specific source of experience and knowledge. The effect of this on human and 'hard' sciences has yet to be explored in all its riches. The complexification of the artefact obliges us to reconsider thoroughly concepts like observation and objectivity. Consequences on the epistemological and sociological level, as well as consequences for the relation between theory and praxis, have to be made more explicit. The evolution out of first cybernetics confronted us on the one hand with the impossibility to control autonomous systems and on the other hand with the task to precisely delineate the limitations of knowing and observing self-organizing systems. Whereas control was one of the key-concepts of first cybernetics, in the post-cybernetic theories however, interaction has taken its place. The role of multiple soft 'constraints', as such not sufficient, neither necessary, has to be taken into account to deal adequately with autonomous and self-organizing systems.

This collection, containing epistemological and sociological contributions about autonomy and self-organization in a new cybernetic perspective, is in several respects quite significant. The theories which are under consideration in this volume, were, at least partially, developed out of the impasses of fIrst order cybernetics. Some of these belong explicitly to the second order cybernetics as it took form starting with the publications about self-organization by Von Foerster and Ashby. The current constructivist school of thought has been heavily inspired by Von Foerster's epistemological writings. Other theories, in particular the theory of autopoietic systems by Maturana and Varela, deal with the autonomy of biological organization with the organizational closure of autonomous systems, and the knowability of these. Though the latter do not wish to be classified among the second order cyberneticians, their ideas apparently took shape starting from the same problems and impasses. In terms of openness/closure, adaptation/mime sis, construction/enaction, representation/adaptation/enaction, etc., the consequences of an alternative view on objectivity are here equally traced out.

The articles have been arranged as follows: i) The fIrst part of this book consists of the search for formal models which give expression to self-organizing and autonomous properties. It inquires into the differences that are found between natural and artificial systems. ii) In the second part, the epistemological status of the new cybernetics as well as of the theories of autopoiesis and constructivism, is inquired into. In addition, PREFACE 5 an alternative minimalistic view on epistemology aims at making the specific status of experimental epistemology explicit. iii) The implications of those theories for sociology and political theory form the third part of this book. i) Self-organization and complexity

First we shall discuss some articles containing a formal elaboration of concepts which were crucial in second order cybernetics. In Ends and meaning in machine-like systems, Henri Atlan is concerned with one of the most complex problems of the second order cyberneticians: the problem of meaning. For them, the emergence of meaning was tied up with the finality and functionality of systems. Atlan's interpretation of both finality and functionality shows, however, a turnabout with regard to second order cybernetics: for him, meaning precedes finality. He discusses the possibility of mechanisms whereby meaning can emerge in natural systems without having to define a priori the ends the systems are pursuing. Initially, meaning is created as a classification criterion; later, or at the very utmost simultaneously in relation to it, the function is defined as the classification according to that criterion. The relation between ends and meaning is illustrated through the formalism of the Boolean networks. The text of Stanley Salthe, Hierarchical non-equilibrium self-organization as the new post-cybernetic perspective, criticizes the concepts of hierarchy and organization, starting from first order cybernetics - cybernetics fram the perspective of equilibrium. Moreover, it has the intention of laying the conceptual bases for the dynamics of natural, self-organizing systems on the basis of what he calls a post-cybernetic perspective of non-linearity, of non-equilibrium. These dynamics not only apply to the functioning, but also to the development and the evolution of that kind of systems. In a formal elaboration by Elie Bernard-Wei!, the relation between theory and practice, openness and closure, between observing and being observed, is explicitly under discussion. In A priori and a posteriori in cognitive praxis: the model for the regulation of agonistic antagonistic couples, the impossibility of a theory of cognition as separable from a praxis is analyzed, specifically in connection with medical discourse. Rather than considering it as separated from praxis, as in most of the 'unilateral strategies', cognition should be seen as an epigenetic development out of praxis. 'Bilateral strategies' are based upon this idea and aim at avoiding some of the 'perverse' effects of the unilateral approaches. Francis Heylighen's article, Non-rational cognitive processes as changes of distinctions, is to be situated in continuation of Spencer-Brawn's logic of 6 G. V AN DE VIJVER distinctions, which was studied thoroughly in the School of Santiago by Varela and Maturana. On the basis of the definition of rational processes as distinction preserving, a classification is worked out which should make it possible to model non-rational processes as incompletely distinction-conserving. Rational cognitive processes are processes constrained by an external system of rules, and these constraints are represented by means of the conservation of distinctions. ii) Epistemological Issues

In Self-organization and autonomy in a post-cybernetic perspective: epistemological issues, Fernand Vandamme gives an illustration of a minimalistic approach in epistemology. Knowledge, seen as the structuration of a specific domain, is at best a minimal structuration of that domain, and this in view of a maximal adaptation with regard to ever changing circumstances. The minimalism means on the one side that striving for a complete control does not make sense, and on the other side it refers to the fact that all knowledge is to be related to concrete circumstances and to the purposes which are postulated by the observing system. The notion of 'being sufficient' is essential in this minimalism. As a matter of fact, the interpretation of self-organizing systems as systems which are able to eliminate and generate structures, finds its basis in the combination of 'sufficiency' and 'possibility'. Warren Scott McCulloch was one of the leading figures during the first cybernetics. In his work some views are to be found which clearly go beyond these first ambitions and assumptions, not only on account of the epistemological interpretation, but also because of the role he played in the history of connectio nism. The following two articles are respectively treating one of those aspects. In The experimental epistemology of W.S. McCulloch: A minimalistic interpretation by Gertrudis Van de Vijver, we find on the one side the delineation of the specific interpretation which McCulloch gave to the experimental epistemology; on the other side we find a delineation of a minimalistic interpretation of experimental epistemology, going beyond McCulloch's rather reductionist interpretation, but always in line with his particular view on 'experimentalism'. Epistemology, in as far as it has the tendency to be experimental, does not serve as a support for reductionism, but is rather directed at the delineation of concrete limits within which a general epistemology can be developed.

Daniel Andler, in From paleo to neo-connectionism, questions the pertinency of the always upheld idea of a difference between two forms of connectionism: PREFACE 7 paleo- and neo-connectionism. On the basis of two important articles of McCulloch (1943 and 1947), he shows that a clear distinction of embodied logic and embodied computation permits to bring the relation between current connectionism in all its different forms and 'old' connectionism to more nuanced proportions. From Turing's definition of calculability and McCulloch's psychological justification of it onward, this distinction has insufficiently been made explicit up to now. Central in the exposition of D. Andler is the place of representation. Starting from the meaning of this concept in classical cognitivism, he shows in which way this problem did not pose itself for McCulloch, and in which way the success of current connectionism is related to the introduction of a representational level. The differences between the connectionism of the Parallel Distributed Processing and the approach of the Attractor Neural Networks of Amit are positioned with regard to this.

An explicit criticizing of second order cybernetics can be found in the text by Pierre Livet, Second cybernetics: a double strategy for representing cognition. The particularly seductive but much too loose character of the formal models in these cybernetics is taken to task by him. On the basis of Von Foerster's criticism of first cybernetics and his interpretation of memory, Livet inquires into the particular view on cognition in the cybernetics of second order. The concept of 'inverted reductionism' is meant to give expression to the specificity and the inadequacies of this view. The topicality of the second cybernetics, via its influence on current connectionism, makes this criticism all the more pertinent.

The next three studies can be seen as critical reflections and further elaborations of the autopoietic theory. They are clearly much more than just sterile repetitions or applications of it. In this theory, biological systems are considered as autopoietic systems, i.e. as systems which are self-producing and self-preserving networks of relations between processes and components. In his comparison between Latour and Maturana in The bringing forth of Dialogue: Latour versus Maturana, Timon Meynen starts from the question of objectivity and the role that can be played by scientific explanation in a 'constructivist' context. He makes explicit some deficiencies with Maturana and shows in which way the infrareflexivity of Latour can counter these. The article of Arno Goudsmit, A one-sided boundary: on the limits of knowing organizational closure, delineates the limitations in observing and knowing self-organizing systems, i.e. the impossibility of controlling autonomous systems we mentioned above. On the basis of Maturana's distinction between openness and closure, he develops meaningful and very nuanced concepts which make us aware of the impossibility to observe the internal states of an autopoietic 8 G. VAN DE VIJVER system in an empirical way. The 'one-sided boundary' is used as a metaphor to give expression to that particular form of inaccessibility. This taking up again of certain phenomenological insights, especially those of Merleau-Ponty, is quite crucial in this context and can be called characteristic for the way in which new cybernetic theories are developed nowadays. What Paula Burghgraeve states in Mechanistic explanations and structure determined systems. Maturana and the human sciences quite clearly concurs with the points of view and conclusions of Arno Goudsmit, although her starting-point, the interpretation of the mechanistic explanation of Maturana, is different. This article can be of some help to understand the difference between structure determined systems and systems which interact on the basis of instructive interactions. It also points out which are the consequences of the postulates of the autopoietic theory within the domain of explanation. iii) Sociological Issues

We have already mentioned that the problem of meaning proved to be central in the cybernetics of second order. This quite naturally led to problems of an ethical and political nature. Once again theory and praxis are seen as inseparably intertwined. Gordon Pask deals with this aspect, starting from the difference in truth as correspondence, coherence and consensus in Correspondence, consensus, coherence and the rape of democracy. This discussion has become more topical than ever within the framework of democracy. The text of Eric Rosseel, Writers of the lost I: second-order self-observation and absolute writers hip, describes and inquires into the psychic consequences of an excessive self-observation. It is quite obvious that this is in line with second order cybernetics. Starting from the problems of the observer, one almost naturally arrives at those of self-observation, and so even, as Rosseel puts it, at 'self observation of second order'. Within the framework of what we would call a radical constructivist approach, where objects are seen as 'pretensions' (as something which is never given in advance, but which is on the contrary always 'pre-tended'), he describes in which way self-observation can lead to self destruction, in which way self-observation is changed to its own detriment into second order self-observation. Herewith he does not only concur with the psychic experience which has been so often described in literature and poetry, but he also points out in which way the ability to act is connected to this.

Ghent, September 1991 PREFACE 9

• Senior Research Assistant Belgian National F\Uld for Scientific Research

References

Ashby, W.R., 1962, Principles of the self-organizing system, in H. Von Foerster and G.W. Zopf (eds.), Int. tracts in computer science and techTIIJlogy and their application, vol. 9: Principles of self-organization, Pergamon Press, Oxford, pp. 255-278.

Maturana, H.; Varela, F.J., 1980, Autopoiesis and cognition. The realization of the living, D. Reidel Pub. Co., Dordrecht, Boston Stud. in the Phil. of Science, vol. 42, pp. 140.

McCulloch, W.S., 1965 (1961), Where is Fancy Bred 7, reprinted in Embodiments ofMind, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 72-142.

McCulloch, W.S.; Pitts, W., 1943, A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity, Bulletin of mathematical Biophysics, vol. 5, pp. 115-133.

Rosenblueth, A.; Wiener, N.; Bigelow, J., 1943, Behaviour, Purpose and Teleology, Philosophy of Science, vol. 10, no. I, pp. 18-24.

Varela, F.J., 1979, Principles of biological autonomy, North Holland Elsevier Company, New York (Oxford), The North Holland Series in Gen. Syst Res., vol. 2, pp. 306.

Von Foerster, H., 1960, On self-organizing systems and their environments, inM.C. Yovits en S. Cameron (eds.), Int. tracts in computer science and technology and their application, vol. 2: Self-organizing systems, Pergamon Press, Oxford, pp. 31-51.