The CYBERNETIC The CYBERNETIC TRADITIONTRADITION

BY MARIBETH CUEVAS JADINA

Note: Some of the wallpapers and photos in this presentation were downloaded from deviantart.com. Credits to the photographers

What characterizes your family?

Cybernetics in HistoryCybernetics was a term popularize

by Norbert Wiener (1948).

This term was derived from the Greek word “kubernetes,” or the art of steering (I correct a wheel,

I operate).

Kubernetes also refers to the science about management,

communication and information processing.

Cybernetics as a concept in society has been around at least since the time of Plato when he used it to refer to government.

The Cybernetic TraditionThis tradition originated from Drs. Claude Shannon and Warren Weavers’ Mathematical Theory of Information.

Mathematical Theory of Information

The Cybernetic TraditionCybernetics is the nonmathematical representation of the theory.

Wiener explains how human communication is parallel to machine communication.

Complex systems in which many interacting elements influences one another.

Theorizes the problem of human-machine communication.

What characterizes your family?A family is more than a collection of persons.

In order to fully understand family life, you need to look at how the members interact with one another, the different ways communication functions in the family, and how the family changes over time.

The Cybernetic Tradition

Communication is a response to an environment, and a message is a form of pattern and organization.

The Cybernetic Tradition

One cannot not communicate

Involves the accompanying notion that one cannot respond.

Cybernetic involves the feedback system

The Cybernetic Tradition

It is the feedback systems that allow the system to have control.

communication consists of feedback and response pattern.

The Cybernetic TraditionGregory Bateson Is another important figure in the

Cybernetic Tradition

He theorizes the problem of metacommunication

His work used concepts from semiotic and mathematical logic to extend cybernetic theory to address distinctive aspects of interaction through signs and symbols in human and higher animals.

The Cybernetic TraditionGregory BatesonAlso studied the double blind pattern of interaction

In this pattern of interaction, the victim is both confronted with contradictory messages at different levels of abstraction and is prevented from leaving the situation or metacommunicating about the contradiction.

The Cybernetic TraditionNiklas Luhmann Theorizes the problem of the

systematic autonomy of communication

Claimed that only communication communicates

Communication depends on the system and what the individual participant in the communication would like to be communicated.

The Cybernetic TraditionCommunication is understood as a system of parts, or variables, that influence one another, shape and control the character of the overall system – like any organism.

Communication in the cybernetic tradition is theorized as information processing and explains how all kinds of complex systems are able to function and why they often malfunction.

The idea of looking how the system works, rather than at the parts of the system individually, is the hallmark of the cybernetic tradition.

From the given definition, can you give me at least 2 concepts in the Cybernetic Tradition?

Concepts in the Cybernetic TraditionSystems Are sets of interacting components that

together form something more than the sum of parts.They are unique wholes characterized by a pattern of relationships.

Characterized by self-regulation and control. Characterized by self-regulation and control. Thus, they monitor, regulate and control their Thus, they monitor, regulate and control their outputs in order to remain stable and achieve outputs in order to remain stable and achieve goals.goals.

Explain how the family system works.

Concepts in the Cybernetic TraditionNetworksNetworks are series of are series of feedback feedback loops that loops that

connects the parts together.connects the parts together.

Give another example of a network.

Concepts in the Cybernetic TraditionConcepts in the Cybernetic Tradition

FeedbackFeedback Is a concept that comes from cybernetics.

A way of knowing whether you have reached your goal (or at least are getting closer to it).

THEORIES IN THE CYBERNETIC TRADITION

Basic System Theory

This approach depicts systems as actual structures that can be analyzed and observed from the outside.

Cybernetics

Is the branch of system theory that focuses on feedback loops and control processes.

General System Theory (GST)Formulated by biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy

This tradition uses system principles to show how things in many different fields are similar to one

another forming a common vocabulary for communication across disciplines.

Second-order Cybernetics

Holds that observers can never see how a system works by standing outside the system itself because the observer is always engaged cybernetically with the system being observed.

This branch is also called the Cybernetics of Knowing/Epistiology because it shows that knowledge is a product of feedback loops between the knower and the known.

Associated with Hienz von Foerster

Thank You!