Saturday, 31 December 2011

Resposibility: a cybernetic model

What could be a definition (explanation) of "Responsibility"?
Starting with an operational definition by Silvio Ceccato (1970) and inspired by what Humberto Maturana called a "generative mechanism" I have tried to draft it here: as "a proposition which consists in a process or a mechanism that if it were to be allowed to operate" (Maturana 1992) would give as a consequence, as a result the concept of resposibility.

Generative mechanism of "Responsibility":

Responsibility for any process (or activity), for example "my life", is constituted by the following steps (operations):
  1. to make the process (i.e. "my life") become the OBJECT of a feedback loop (control loop) constituted by a sequence of three activities: A, R and C (ARC loop).
  2. the loop begins with activity A: the AWARENESS of the OBJECT
  3. it continues with activity R: a REFLECTION on the OBJECT of AWARENESS
  4. finally it ends with activity C: an intervention of reflected CHANGE of the OBJECT.
References:
Ceccato, S. (1970) Cibernetica per tutti. Milano: Feltrinelli, Vol. 2.
Maturana, H. (1992) Explanations and reality. Talk in Heidelberg. See: http://www.weknow.ch/marco/A1992/Heid/Maturana921018.htm

Wednesday, 14 December 2011

What means Cyber Ethics?

... I guess the discipline dealing with "ethical computer use and behavior" in all application domains; for the domain of education see

Sunday, 11 December 2011

What means "Cybernetics"?

I searched Wikipedia for a definition of the term "Cybernetics" and found a sentence, that in my view is rather wrong and misleading for various reasons (Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics, 11.12.2011).

Then I searched on the website of the American Society for Cybernetics (http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/definitions.htm), but could not find a convincing solution.

Finally, looking in my archive I found a folder with notes of 1988 in which I had tried to define the term "Cybernetics"; I have completed them now, and here is the summary of what came out (an article will follow later):
  • We call Cybernetics the science that considers dynamic systems in terms of OPERATIONS and CONTROL and aims at enabling artificial systems to perform like organisms at 3 levels: physical, biological and mental.

 This definition is based on my experience as engineer in the fileds of System Dynamics and Process Control as well as on my cooperation with Silvio Ceccato and Ernst von Glasersfeld. I have tried to integrate in one sentence the definitions given by three cybernetic pioneers: Norbert Wiener, Heinz von Förster and Silvio Ceccato.