AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CYBERNETICS NEWSLETTER Number 6 - December 1, 1980 edited by Roger Conant 1108 SEO, UICC, Box 4348, Chicago Ill. 60680 (312) 996-2308 President of ASC: Stuart Umpleby, 2131 G St. N.W., Washington DC 20052: (202) 676-7530 PASK ON TOUR GLOBAL 2000 REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT by Stuart Umpleby The Council an Environmental Quality has exhausted its supply of the report "The Gordon Pask, an internationally Global 2000 Report to the President: known British cybernetician, spoke on Entering the Twenty-First Century." his current research on October 29, at Copies may be purchased from the US George Washington University in Washing­ Government Printing Office .. Mailing ad­ ton, D.C. He had earlier on this trip dress is: Supt. of Documents, US Govt. visited San Francisco, New York and Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. Boston. Gordon has written several books, Prices: $3.50 for Val. 1, The Summary including An Approach to Cybernetics, Report; $13.00 for Vol. 2, The Technical Humanities Press, 1961; Conversation, Report; $8.00 for Vol. 3, The Government's Cognition, and Learning; A Cybernetic Global Model. Theory and Methodology, Elsevier, 1975; The Cybernetics of Human Learning and Stuart plans to have a panel discussion on Performance: A Guide to Theory and this report at the next ASC conference. Practice, Crane-Russak, 1975; and Conver­ sation Theory, Applications in Education and Epistemology, Elsevier, 1976. Gordon reviewed his work on teaching GOING TO WEST COAST COMPUTER FAIRE? machines, expanded on the story of "the ----------------------~------------ night the colloid solution grew an ear", and said that he thinks of hirnself as an We are trying toset up literature tables, epistemologist. He said that given with ASC promotional brochures etc., ot current conceptions of science, it may be conferences attended by folks who are easier for people to understand what likely prospects for ASC membership. Com­ cybernetics is about if we call it a puter conferences seem to be natural tar­ philosophy rather than a science. gets. Is anyone in ASC going to the 6th West Coast Computer Faire, April 4-6, 1981? If so would s/he be willing toset up and care for such a literature table? If so, contact Stuart Umpleby. ... ASC PANEL AT THE ACAPULCO CONFERENCE by Stuart Umpleby much attention has been focused an micro-computers, more important s~rvi­ The American Society for Cybernetics ces will result from a combination of was a co-sponsor of the International communication and computation. Before Congress an Applied Systems Research and too lang we can expect harne information Cybernetics held in Acapulco, Mexico, retrieval services, printing an demand, December 11-16, 1980. George Lasker, the computer conferencing and electronic chairman of the conference, asked me to mail. But cybernetics is not only chan­ arrange a panel on cybernetics. The mem­ ging the amount and kind of information bers of the panel were Howard Hilton, available to us. It is also changing Mark Ozer, Joseph Goguen and Ernst von our assumptions about how we live and Glasersfeld. how we know. New perspectives in epi­ At the festival in Maine in July stemology promise to have important im­ 1980, it was decided that an effective plications, particularly in the social way to spread the idea of cybernetics sciences. As just one example, cyberne­ was to arrange panel sessions at confe­ tics continues to be a source of innova­ rences arranged by other societies in tion in the field of psychiatry. This addition to having our own annual confe­ panel will review current trends in a rence. Below are the introduction to nurober of areas from the implications of the Acapulco panel and the abstracts new information retrieval systems to the of the papers presented. If you would latest developments in epistemology. like copies of· these papers, please write The members of the panel are a diver­ to the authors. If you would like to se group of people. They come .from diffe­ comment on the panel or any of the ab­ rent disciplines and focus an different stracts, send a short article to News­ applications. What is the interdisci­ letter editor Roger Conant. plinary interest that this group has in common? To find out, we have tried to use a common outline for our presenta­ tions. Each member of the panel will Session on define what he means by cybernetics. CURRENT TRENDS IN CYBERNETICS Then he will explain how he uses cyber­ netics within bis particular area of Arranged by interest. Finally, each member of the Stuart A. Umpleby panel will explain what cybernetics con­ tributes that would not otherwise be present in bis field •. During its first decades cyberne­ tics advanced an several fronts. Com­ puter technology has moved forward at a remarkable rate, with capabilities SOME IMPLICATIONS OF CYBERNETICS increasing and costs decreasing. A FOR THEORIES OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS nurober of modeling languages have been developed, and computer simulation Stuart A. Umpleby is beginning to be accepted as a rou­ Department of Management Science tine part of the management process. George Washington University Progress in artificial intelligence Washington, D.C. 20052 has not been as spectacular as many forecast, but important advances have Abstract: been made. Work on theoretical foun­ Cybernetics, the science of communi­ dations has moved beyond a concern with cation and control, bad its origin in a information and rr.odels and is now desire to explain the physiological basis pushing the study of cognition into of knowledge. The study of how people the area of ethics. know what they know soon runs into the Current trends in cybernetics in­ ambiguities produced by self-reference. volve making computer technology avail­ In social systems self-reference can be able to the general public. Although illustrated by self-serving observations 2 .... FEEDBACK, INDUCTION, AND EPISTEMOLOGY and theories. Self-reference confounds Ernst von Glasersfeld our attempts to produce descriptions of Dept. of Psychology social systems with which most people University of Georgia can agree. An understanding of these Athens, GA 30602 difficulties is important for the manager as well as the social scientist. The Abstract: concept of self-reference illustrates The author argues that control devi­ how cybernetics is extending science into ces based on the principles of negative the domain of management and calling feedback and inductive learning are an attention to ethical considerations as illustration of an epistemology that con­ well. siders knowledge a system-specific inter­ nal construction. This theory of know­ ledge is inherent in Piaget's analysis of cognitive development and requires a VIDEOTEX, CYBERNETICS, AND HUC radical shift in our view of the relation between knowledge and ontological reality. Howard J. Hilton Instead of iconic correspondence or iso­ 5480 Wisconsin Ave. N.W. morphism, which sceptics have always held Chevy Chase, Md. 20015 to be impossible to ascertain, the crite­ rion for the assessment of knowledge is Abstract: its fit within the constraints of expe­ Videotex is a development that will rience. Cognitive constructs are seen involve millions of people in the daily as the result of an organism's active process of selecting and retrieving, with interpretation of experience, analogaus the aid of computers, information in their in principle to interpretation in lin­ homes. Cybernetics, being the science of guistic connnunication. control and communication, will have a multitude of new applications and data for study. The Hilton Universal Code (HUC), an information concept for the PLANNING WITH PATIENTS: unique identification of all recorded A FEEDBACK LOOP ENGENDERING HEALTH knowledge and information, can provide an interface and feedback mechanism Mark N. Ozer between the videotex user and the com­ George Washington School of Medicine puter. 3000 Connecticut Ave. NW Videotex and cybernetics are terms Washington, D.C. 20008 that are subject to various definitions. This paper presents definitions in the Abstract: context of the information process, re­ The collection of da~a about a per­ views the present state of development, son in medicine has as its ultimate goal and suggests some of the implications the enhancement of the health of that for the future. It also reviews the person. Eliciting a history from the experiment with "HUC Access to Knowledge" patient - both the process used and the on the British viewdata, later Prestel, content of the data sought - could itself which was the beginning of videotex. enhance health. The present system for Other videotex systems have been data collection may be made more effec­ developed in France, Canada, and Japan. tive in reaching the goal of health en­ Various experiments are in progress in hancement if there is explicit use of the the United States. A comparison of principle of mutual causality. several major systems is provided. Some applications of cybernetic principles to these developments are indicated to­ gether with a description of the HUC hardware and software. 3 . =-=·- . ---··- .. / / SaME NEW DIRECTIONS IN EPISTEMOLOGY Joseph A. Goguen SRI, Room L3078 linear causality. The presuppositional 333 Ravenswood Avenue structures of whole cultures have been Menlo Park, CA 94026 compared by a careful study of certain central 'texts'; for example, see the Abstract: Beckers' study of the Javanese shadow Western thought has been obsessed with theatre and its music, which exhibit cy­ epistemology for over two thousand years, clic rather than linear strategies of and it may be that nothing new remains to organization. See also Gregory Bateson's be said. Yet there seem to be some new new book Mind and Nature: a Necessary questions, some new doubts, some new ways Unity. of trying to find out, having radical im­ plications which we are only beginning Mathematicians (such as Newcomb to discover. The sources of this ferment Greenleaf and Gabriel Stolzenberg) are are varied: the biology of Humberto Ma­ questioning the bases of mathematical turana and Francisco Varela; traditional truth.