Heinz von Foerster, Margaret Mead and JCR Licklider

and the Conceptual Foundations for the Internet:

The Early Concerns of Cybernetics of Cybernetics

by Ronda Hauben

First Annual Symposium ofthe American Society for Cybernetics

1967

Heinz von Foerster gave Margaret Mead the title for her talk

Cybernetics of Cybernetics1967

American AnthropologistMargaret Mead

PurposiveSystems

Proceedings of theFirst Annual Symposium

of theAmerican Society for Cybernetics

I. Man as a Purposive SystemII. Machines as Purposive SystemsIII. Man and Machines Together as as Purposive Systems

JCR Licklider

Information Processing Techniques Office

(IPTO)1962-1986

JCR LickliderIvan SutherlandBob TaylorLarry RobertsRobert Kahn . . . . Saul Amarel

May1942

Joshiah Macy, Jr. Foundation ConferenceOn Cerebral Inhibition

Among the Participants G. Bateson L.K. Frank F. Fremont-Smith L. Kubie W. McCulloch M. Mead A. Rosenbleuth J. von Neumann

Norbert Wiener

Anthropologist

"As an anthropologist, I have been interested in the effects that the theories of cybernetics

have within our society.”

Margaret Mead

Different names for the Phenomenon

1. ‘feedback’

2. ‘teleogical mechanisms’

3. ‘cybernetics’

1. This set of ideas made it possible for members of many different disciplines to communicate in a language they could share.

2. Cybernetics would make it possible for scientists in the U.S. and the Soviet Union to communicate.

3. A language to bridge the borders between scientific specialties to support collaboration in attacking the complex problems of large scale systems.

4. The need to apply the science of cyberneticsto the organizational arrangements of the newly formed American Society of Cybernetics.

Hope that cybernetics would make it possible for scientists in the U.S. and the Soviet Union to communicate.

"we should use cybernetics as a cross-cultural vocabulary for expressing the relevant differences between the two systems." Mead

"down-to-earth political interaction among the citizenry, the elected officials, and the urban planners in the city." Mead

(Time Mag 84(19) 1964)

Edmund Bacon, Urban Planner

Edmund Bacon began to plead, persistently and stubbornly, for teaching general systems theory in every university in the world.... Planners would be furnished at the same time with a method for communication and tools for thinking about complex systems.

Responsible Attentionto

Complex Systems

"the fundamental human quality ofresponsibility based on accurate

reasoning."

Howard Raiffa explains:The Russians wanted the name of the new institution to include

the concept of “cybernetics”, or “operations research”. The Americans disagreed.

Instead, they proposed “systems analysis”.

Howard Raiffa

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

IIASA

Beginning third from left: Lord Solly Zuckerman, UK, Jermen Gvishiani, USSR, Chairman of the IIASA Council until 1987, Andrei Bykov, USSR, Secretary to IIASA until 1979, Alexander Letov, USSR, IIASA's first Deputy Directory.

Signing of the IIASA Charter, October 4, 1972

The Workshop on Data Communications 1975 included researchers from:

Austria, Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic,

Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Soviet Union,

the UK, and the US.

IIASAWorkshop on Data Communications 1975

Peter Kirstein, UK Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski, DDR

People to be trained to be responsible researchers

able to collaborate to solve the problems of large scale

complex systems.

It means that many public spirited individuals must study, model, discuss, analyze, argue, write, criticize, and work out each issue and each problem until they reach consensus or

determine that none can be reached -- at which point

there may be occasion for voting. Licklider

“Computer power to the people is essential to the realization

of a future in which most citizens are informed about,

and interested and involved in the process of government.” Licklider

Decisions ”’in the public interest’ but also in the interest of giving

the public itself the means to enter into the decision-making processes

that will shape their future.” Licklider

Netizens

They are people who understand it takes effort and action on each and everyone's part to make the Net a regenerative and vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our world, a better place.

Michael Hauben, 1995

The concept of net.citizen or netizen to identify and describe

the emergence of Netizens

Mead’s hope was that cybernetics would . . .

1. make it possible for members of many different disciplines to communicate in a language they could share.

2. make it possible for scientists in the U.S. and the Soviet Union to communicate.

3. bridge the borders between scientific specialties to support collaboration inattacking the complex problems of large scale systems.

4. be applied to the organizational arrangements of the newly formed American Society of Cybernetics.

The Internet is a cybernetic system, and as such requires automatic and

human feedback processes to continue its development.