1️⃣ Kihbernetic #System with
2️⃣ fundamental #Processes: a recursive #Autopoietic self-production for growth and learning, and a linear #Allopoietic production of "other things", such as behavior and waste, distributed in
3️⃣ Control #Levels, of #Regulation, immersed in, and dealing with things in the system's environment, #Control for managing the workload of different regulators, and #Guidance to provide long-term goals and preserve the identity of the system, all using
4️⃣ #Variables: sensory #Input of data and other resources, motor #Output of behavior, #Information as the difference that will make a difference in the subsequent (updated) #Knowledge state, all interconnecting
5️⃣ #Functions: the #Control-ed #Reaction to external stimuli, the #Perception of sensory states, the #Prediction of the expected outcome of past behavior, and the repeated #Integration of new information into an updated knowledge state.
People often "blame" Shannon's theory of #communication for completely ignoring #meaning, maybe also because Shannon himself stated that "*the semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering aspects*"😀
However, if one recognizes that the #information content as defined by the #entropy is the measure of #uncertainty in a receiver about the sender's #state when producing the message, can it perhaps be interpreted that the receiver is trying to #understand what the sender was #meaning to send?
The information the sender encodes in the message is never the *same* as that the receiver decodes from it on the other side of the channel.
Below is Shannon's description of the standard #transducer used for encoding and decoding the information in messages. The block diagrams are my rendering of the description (F is a "#memory" function):
Introducing the *qualitative* category of #Wisdom in the triad made of *quantifiable* #Data, #Information, and #Knowledge items adds nothing to the better understanding of the matter.
Saying someone or something is "wise" is just a subjective judgment made by an external #observer about another (#observed) system's behavior *appropriateness* to the given situation in the environment without knowing anything about the observed system's internal state, goals, or motives.
In addition, a really "wise" entity would never identify itself as such.😀
The #control functions in a dynamical system such as a living organism are distributed on three levels:
1️⃣ The automated and predominantly *unconscious* #regulatory functions are responsible for any *immediate* response and maintaining the system's *homeostasis* in the face of external disturbances.
2️⃣ The working parameters for these "regulators" are changed based on actions planned, directed, and modulated by the *conscious* #control functions seeking to optimize the use of the regulators and fulfill "high-level" goals, aspirations, and other *needs* that originate on
3️⃣ The "highest"#governance control level which maintains *long-term* drives that the system may be either aware (conscious) of (voluntary), or deeply ingrained in some unconscious habits, or innate.
It is evident from this short presentation that #consciousness resides primarily on the *middle* control level that has the ability to make *predictions* of future events and compare such expectations with the *perception* of reality as provided by the regulators. All in order to extract the *difference* between the two, or the #information that will be subsequently *integrated* into the #knowledge structure of the system to improve control.
#HvFoerster on the origins of #computational_neuroscience
>For reasons that still baffle me, it was the pragmatic American engineers and scientists, not the romantic Europeans, who began to toss anthropomorphic sand into the gear box of evolving notions and ideas. To name two such cases, the computer people began to talk about a machine's storage system as if it were a computer's #memory, and the communication engineers began to talk about signals as if they were #information.
>Perhaps these were the precursors for the second derailment which, ironically, was the inverse of the first. lt worked as follows. The first phase was #anthropomorphization: mental functions projected into machines. However, we knew how these machines worked because we built them and wrote the programs. Consequently, an appropriate "#mechanomorphization," the concepts dealing with computer hard- and software were projected back into the workings of the brain and, presto!, we knew how the #mind worked.
*Heinz Von Foerster
*To know and to let know - an applied theory of knowledge*
Canadian Library Journal, Vol. 39, No. 5, October l982.*
The #Rythm of #Life is in the #Recursion process where #Information is generated when:
>"our rhythmic #expectations are violated, (*and*) our brains behave in a different manner because of our inherent (*innate*) internal sense of rhythm."
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-extraordinary-ways-rhythm-shapes-our-lives/
Reading this recent (2022) article from Fritjof Capra:
The organization of the living:
Maturana’s key insights
included in the latest Constructivist Foundations volume 18(1): 005–011
https://constructivist.info/18/1/005
and I am continually bewildered by the fact that no one in the #Constructivist field figured out yet that #Autopoiesis, although necessary, is not the sufficient condition for #Life.
All #LivingSystems are in fact #DynamicalSystems with memory made of #Material, #Energy, and #Information structures participating continually in both auto- and allopoietic processes.
In fact, the recursive, #Autopoietic processes of learning and growth depend only on (are "structurally coupled" with) the linear #Allopoietic work processes dealing with all the things (resources, waste) in the system's environment and producing the externally observable #behavior of the living (dynamical) system.
A momentous recent paper from the most consequential thinker on the matter of the #originoflife, #information, and #biosemiotics has only 124 views and I must be responsible for at least a dozen.
"Folding is entirely a lawful physical process, leaving neither freedom nor necessity for interpretation. Similarly, the initial converse action-to-symbol conversion of sensory inputs also leaves no freedom for interpretation until after the action-to-symbol conversion"
A #control #hierarchy is just the folded "#flow" of #information.
#Causation is #linear, while #control requres #recursive #feedback loops.
"#Cybernetics might, in fact, be defined as the study of systems that are open to #energy but closed to #information and
control—systems that are “information-tight”."
W. Ross Ashby (1956): An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London): now available electronically.
#Kihbernetics is the study of #Complex #Dynamical #Systems with #Memory which is very different from all other #SystemsThinking approaches. Kihbernetic theory and principles are derived primarily from these three sources:
1️⃣ #CE_Shannon's theory of #Information and his description of a #Transducer,
2️⃣ #WR_Ashby's #Cybernetics and his concept of #Transformation, and
3️⃣ #HR_Maturana's theory of #Autopoiesis and the resulting #Constructivism
Although applicable to any dynamical system with memory (mechanisms, organisms, or organizations) we developed our Kihbernetic worldview mostly to help people navigate their #organization through times of #change.
We define* an organization as:
"An integrated composite of people, products, and processes that provide a capability to satisfy a stated need or objective."
*Definition of the word "system" in MIL_STD_499B
#People are at the forefront of our thinking (the #who and #why are we doing this for and/or with?).
We then focus our efforts on understanding all the functions or #Processes in your organization (#how and #when something happens or has to happen?).
Finally, we get to analyze the #Products and/or services that you put on the market but are mostly interested in the tools that you use or may need to buy or develop in order to fully integrate your production system (the plan for #what and #where things will happen?).
Our goal is to make the people of your organization self-reliant to the point that they shouldn't need our assistance with the continuous maintenance and adaptation of the system.
In any case, we've got your back while you do the heavy lifting of establishing a better future for your organization!