Cybernetics of cybernetics: complex adaptive systems?

Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations (Part #9)

[Parts: First | Prev | Last | All | PDF] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx ]

First order cybernetics: It is the systems sciences, and notably cybernetics, that explore negative feedback loops between the elements of well-bounded systems leading to an objectivist positivist approach. Cybernetics was initially the study of the "objective" control of machines (artificial and natural). Heinz von Foerster (Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics, 1991) has suggested a form of "zero-order cybernetics" when activity becomes structured; when 'behaviour' emerges, but without reflection upon the 'why' and the 'how' of this behaviour. Cybernetics is then implicit

Second order cybernetics: However, notably as a result of the work of Heinz von Foerster in the 1950s, the value became apparent of exploring the "cybernetics of cybernetics", the "cybernetics of observing systems", or "reflection on reflection on cybernetics" -- the observation of the observer observing his/her own observations. This was acknowledged in a phrase of von Foerster that is significant to any approach to knowledge organization: "Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him". In a keynote speech in 1972, Margaret Mead consecrated the field as 'Second Order Cybernetics'.

Second order cybernetics extended cybernetics to include the interface with the observer, the "subjective" feature of cognitive methodology -- a theory of the observer based on functional-constructivism. Partly inspired by the work of Gestalt psychology, the question that emerged was the extent to which an inner representation of the outer world was a valid portrait of the macrocosm "outside"? How should this internal microcosmic representation be used in order to avoid illusions and abusive action? That which is observed cannot be neatly abstracted and separated from the observer's own biological, nervous and cerebral structuration (cf Sara B. Jutoran. From Observed Systems to Observing Systems, 1985/2005). Related explorations are associated with constructivist epistemology (Humberto Maturana, Paul Watzlawick and Ernst von Glasersfeld), the hypercycle (Manfred Eigen) and the self-referential calculus (Francisco Varela, A Calculus for Self-reference, International Journal of General Systems, 2, 1975, pp. 5-24). A journal (Cybernetics and Human Knowing) is now devoted to the issues of second order cybernetics, autopoiesis and cyber-semiotics.

However it had in fact been sociologist Magoroh Maruyama (The Second Cybernetics: deviation-amplifying mutual causal process. American Scientist, 1963) who had named "second cybernetics" to differentiate it from "first cybernetics" with its emphasis on the negative feedback process fundamental to self-correcting homeostasis. This enabled him to highlight the peculiar effects of recursive positive (deviation amplifying) feedbacks implicated in shaping the dynamics of organizational forms in response to environmental turbulence. He distinguished two processes on which he considered that every living system depended:

• 'morphostasis': namely the maintenance of system constancy through negative feedback mechanisms. '...constancy in the face of environmental vagaries'
• 'morphogenesis': referring to deviation and system variability through positive feedback mechanisms. '...at times a system must change its basic structure'

According to Maruyama: '...it is possible to have both positive and negative mutual causal loops counterbalancing one another in any given situation". This understanding of the function of both positive and negative feedback loops is clearly of relevance to the hundreds of thousands of such loops documented under the auspices of the Union of International Associations -- available, as hyperlinks, to exploration (and visualization) online (cf Feedback Loop Analysis in the Encyclopedia Project, 2000)

The very large networks of looping functional relationships documented and visualized there, bring the user literally "face-to-screen" with the cognitive limitations to significant knowledge management in relation to strategic challenges. Such representations, notably of value networks or of subtle human development concepts (and modes of awareness) from many disciplines, raise issues which highlight the relevance of second order cybernetics.

In this respect, Brian Holmes (Network, Swarm, Microstructure, Multitudes, May 2006) argues:

On the one hand, the use of social network analysis tools is giving us pictures of very complicated interlinkages between individuals and groups. These pictures are quite simply fascinating, because they aggregate lots of data and allow one to glimpse patterns, or at least, the possibility of patterns, of regularities. But the maps are not enough. One needs an understanding of the quality of the links themselves, of what encourages a group to cooperate even when its membership is atomized and dispersed in space.... This is where the questions asked by complexity theory become so interesting and timely. What gives form and pattern to emergent behavior ? ....

To describe the specific contents out of which richer and vaster worlds of meaning are made, and to detail the effects of the specific tools and procedures that make it possible to continuously transform them and to coordinate actions within their horizons, are the tasks of a complexity theory which seeks to understand how groups organize their own behavior, when they are no longer decisively influenced by traditional institutions. Bateson pointed the way to this possibility of a cybernetic understanding, an understanding of feedback processes, with his "Steps to an Ecology of Mind."

Wolfram Lutterer (Systemics: the social aspects of cybernetics, Kybernetes, 34 Issue: 3/4, Mar 2005) proposes the term 'systemics' instead of 'second-order cybernetics'.

Third order cybernetics, in principle represents the current state of the art. Here the observer is understood to be part of a coevolving system -- the focus is on how observers and systems co-evolve across different social systems. The dominant discourse isunderstood to be reproduced and transformed through local interactions. As noted by Chris Lucas (Complexity Theory: Actions for a Better World, 2001):

This is a more intrinsic (embodied) methodology and shows the ongoing convergence of all the various systemic disciplines, as part of the general world paradigm shift noticed recently towards more integrated approaches to science and life. In 21st Century systematics, boundaries between systems are only partial and this implies that we must evolve with our systems and cannot remain static outsiders. Thus our mental beliefs echo our systemic behaviours, we co-create our realities and therefore internal and external realities become one. Understanding this mutual control, exhibited by us on our world and our world on us, takes us into the metaview outlined here, where we can see ourselves as being part of the system under examination.

Because of the intimate connection with reflection on social constructivism and constructivist epistemology, the use of "second order cybernetics" has been interwoven with various proposals for a "third order cybernetics". David Pocock (Loose Ends), offers a critique of such usage in family therapy -- an obvious example of "mutable worlds". Another discussion speculated on the distinction: 1st order cybernetics is spectacular; 2nd order cybernetics is simulating potential fields with request/response; 3rd order cybernetics is potential fields, smell [more]. Note also the discussion by Kent D Palmer (On the Social Construction of Emergent Worlds: the foundations of reflexive autopoietic systems theory. 1996).

Concern has been expressed that any third order human system configured on the metaphor of autopoiesis would necessarily be oppressive, inhuman, and parasocial (William P. Hall, Are Third Order (i.e. Social) Autopoietic Systems Necessarily Autocratic? 2003). Discussion of "observers observing observers", namely certain forms of strategic management consultancy, is held to require such a third order cybernetics by Vincent Kenny and Philip Boxer (The Economy of Discourses: a third order cybernetics? Human Systems Management, 1990).

Fourth order cybernetics: Helpfully summarizing the contrasts between the above, M. Zangeneh and E. Haydon (The Psycho-Structural Cybernetic Model, Feedback, and Problem Gambling: a new theoretical approach, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1, 2, 2004) propose a fourth order cybernetics as follows:

Central to this effort is the application of a unique, critical theory inspired by the works of Anthony Giddens (1971, 1990; see discussion on modernity and reflexivity) and John Francois Lyotard (1979; see discussion on postmodernity) to the cybernetic theoretical framework. The epistemological orientation of the theory proposed here is that of multiple realities shaped by social, cultural, economic, ethnic, gender and disability values, which centralize on the asymmetric power relations in society

Fourth order cybernetics is thus understood as concerned with how multiple realities are shaped by, and impinge upon, power relationships within society.

Complex adaptive systems: Some of the confusion in relation to the above distinctions is helpfully clarified by Chris Lucas (personal communication, 2007):

I'm rather amazed that third-order cybernetics seems not to have 'taken-off' as it were, few people seem to mention it now.... It is interesting to note how much this unwillingness to recognise the 'outside influence' on self is based upon current scientific dogma, this is well illustrated by a foreword from Bruce Lipton [to Louise LeBrun, Phoenix Rising! The Freeing of Human Potential].

Yet the actual idea of co-evolution between system and its environment is very much to the fore today. I think perhaps the term 'cybernetics' has itself a poor, mechanical, feel to many people, so the term used in complexity theory for perhaps the same idea is 'Complex Adaptive Systems' (CAS). This is frequently now used in organizational contexts (e.g. see my review of the book Open Boundaries: creating business innovation through complexity by Howard Sherman and Ron Schultz)

When I write on these themes nowadays I tend to use other terms, for example my 2006 essay "Complex Living Tensegrities" (2006) used "Complex Interacting Systems" (of which CAS was 1 of 4). In "Integral Intersubjectivity" (2006) I contrasted the third person (objective) view (1st order), with the first person (subjective) view (2nd order) , to generate a middle way (intersubjective) which is close to 3rd order. Finally in... "Qualitative Living and Thinking" (2006) I brought in three forms of knowing, 'knowing how' (1st order), 'knowing that' (2nd order) and 'knowing from' (3rd order).

Whilst the terms aren't common perhaps the understanding is getting more so, the environmental crisis highlights the coevolution of people and planet in a way perhaps never before part of the public mind... I tend to stress recently the need to take three levels into account, these aren't the three cybernetic levels as such, but as Stan Salthe notes, our focus on one level cannot ignore the level below (N-1) which gives rise to level N, nor the level above (N+1) which constrains its behaviour. In human cultural terms the biosphere sustaining planet is N+1, the organizational greed is N and the genetically fear driven human is N-1. A potent mix !

Human ecologies: Holmes points to the innovative work of Félix Guattari (Cartographies Schizoanalytiques, 1989) in trying to create even more dynamic models of human ecologies. He considers Bateson and Guattari as being:

...probably the most important references for the art of composing mutable worlds, where the goal of the participants is to carry out continuous transformation of the very parameters and coordinates on which their interactions are based (this is also understood as 3rd-order cybernetics, where the system produces not just new information, but new categories of information)

However Holmes considers the work of sociologist Karin Knorr Cetina (Complex Global Microstructures: the new terrorist societies, Theory, Culture and Society, 2005), which he reviews, to be more accessible and strategically relevant. It is questionable whether such insights could be effectively applied to the static networks documented by the Union of International Associations rather than to the challenge of the dynamically gated communities they imply (Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities, 2004).

Such communities exemplify the challenge recognized by Magoroh Maruyama (Peripheral Vision: polyocular vision or subunderstanding? Organization Studies, 2004) of enhancing "polyocular vision" to avoid the dangers of "subunderstanding". A mathematical clarification of this challenge has been provided by Ron Atkin (Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space? 1981) and by D. Dubois, H. Prade and P. Smets (Representing partial ignorance. IEEE Trans. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 26, 1996, pp. 361-378).

Maurice Yolles (Knowledge Cybernetics: a new metaphor for social collectives 2005) has developed an approach to complex systems drawing on work of Cohen and Stewart (The Collapse of Chaos: discovering simplicity in a complex world, 1994). It derives from epistemological antecedents, created by Stafford Beer (1959, 1985) in his Viable System Model (VSM), and explored through concepts of ontology by Eric Schwarz (Towards a Holistic Cybernetics: from science through epistemology to being, Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Vol. 4, 1997). It suggests a new form of knowledge management that is connected with the notions of S P Marshall (Schemes in Problem Solving, 1995) and her new radical classifications for knowledge. For Yolles:

These ideas can be closely associated with concepts of lifeworld and the ideas of communicative action by Habermas, and leads to a useful knowledge cybernetic framework.... Just as the system is normally seen as a metaphor, knowledge cybernetics is metaphorical in that it: (a) explores knowledge formation and its relationship to information; (b) provides a critical view of individual and social knowledge, and their processes of communication and associated meanings, (c) seeks to create an understanding of the relationship between people and their social communities for the improvement of social collective viability, and an appreciation of the role of knowledge in this.

[Parts: First | Prev | Last | All | PDF] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx ]