Background and Motivation
Arkadiy Pitman, Oleksandr Sverdlov, L. Bruce Pearce in Mathematical and Statistical Skills in the Biopharmaceutical Industry, 2019
The challenges of building mathematical models to describe phenomena in economics, social sciences, and even technology were also acknowledged by the originator of cybernetics Norbert Wiener (1894–1964). In his work “God & Golem, Inc.” [102], the famous researcher wrote: “The success of mathematical physics led the social scientist to be jealous of its power without quite understanding the intellectual attitudes that had contributed to this power. The use of mathematical formulae had accompanied the development of the natural sciences and become the mode in the social sciences. Just as primitive peoples adopt the Western modes of denationalized clothing and of parliamentarism out of a vague feeling that these magic rites and vestments will at once put them abreast of modern culture and technique, so the economists have developed the habit of dressing up their rather imprecise ideas in the language of the infinitesimal calculus… Difficult as it is to collect good physical data, it is far more difficult to collect long runs of economic or social data so that the whole of the run shall have a uniform significance.”
Developing resilience potentials
Erik Hollnagel in Safety-II in Practice, 2017
There is a second and more serious obstacle, namely, the question of what it more precisely is that determines how an organisation performs and how well it does relative to some criterion or criteria – such as safety, quality, productivity, customer satisfaction, ensuring availability, etc. This is, clearly, not unrelated to the first obstacle, especially if the model of the organisation goes beyond the mere structure and includes something about the ‘causes’ and the ‘mechanisms’. The understanding of what determines performance is crucial because it is a necessary condition for management and control. Cybernetics formulated that in the 1950s as the Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby, 1956). The Law of Requisite Variety is concerned with the problem of regulation or control and expresses the principle that the variety of a controller should match the variety of the system to be controlled. Effective control is therefore not possible if the controller has less variety than the system. This has also been expressed by saying that ‘every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system’ (Conant and Ashby, 1970).
Complexity, guidelines and ethics
Deborah Bowman, John Spicer, Roger Higgs in Primary Care Ethics, 2018
Cybernetics is about systematic feedback and learning. At the individual level, a good example for biological learning is that of the immune system, which learns what is self and non-self. Orsucci68 offers an analogy of bioethics as an immune system: In this new perspective, ethical thinking should be considered mostly as a subsystem of the semiotic universe, apt to preserve and maintain the boundaries of the (individual and social) self – a function that is quite similar to the functioning of the immune system: preserving the psychobiological self by discerning what is self, what is non-self; the semiotic agent exploring through confusions and intrusions along fuzzy boundaries. Bioethics works on the edge between body, mind and society just in the same area of functioning of the immune system: in fuzzy and transitional areas between private and public.
Biosemiotic medicine: Healing in the world of meaning
Published in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2021
In Chapter 2, a model of cybersemiotics is presented that combines theories from cybernetic science and biosemiotics, as outlined in Chapter 1. The author, Søren Brier, presents a “cybersemiotic star” (Goli, pp. 24–25) as a visual model for diagramming systems of human knowledge in four domains: energy/matter, life, consciousness, and meaning. Here, Brier proposes a solution to the conceptual split found, for example, between describing and studying the brain as a material organ (through neuroimaging and other techniques), and the universal human experience of consciousness, emotions, and self as “I” (through psychology and other means) by providing a “transdisciplinary framework” (Goli, p. 29) and as one support for the why author believes that “brain and experiential consciousness data do not fit (Goli, p. 59).”
A Reflective Cybernetic Study on the Experiences of a Gay Male Teacher in the Free State Province
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2020
Complementing the “how” dynamics of the system, accordingly, this article will also draw on first order cybernetics in accordance to providing observations as an observer apart from the system; however, I acknowledge that while this is not fully possible, it has become a critical part of my own journey to understand scenarios and contexts with less interference from my own personal background. By extracting myself from the narrative as much as possible, I will be able to provide an exploration of what systemic parts relate to the overall system as a means to maintain structural integrity (Banathy & Jenlink, 2003). Emerging patterns identified through my observation of the system as an educator and wider research done in the area allow for the exploration of how componential interaction upholds the structure of how sexuality education is maintained (Becvar & Becvar, 2012). First and second order cybernetics will thus allow for the personal subjective construction of my narrative and experiences, while simultaneously upholding a form of objectivity through analyzing literature based on educational spaces and sexuality education within South Africa as well as the process of more objectively analyzing systems without fully allowing emotions and personal background to guide experiences nor the research process as a whole.
The systems view of life: Undergirding and unifying three philosophies of occupation
Published in Journal of Occupational Science, 2018
A self-organizing pattern is a collection of components networked in a way that meets the needs of each component of a life system and of the life system as a whole (Capra & Luisi, 2014). The network communication is based on cybernetic concepts of feedback and regulation which are described above. As an operationally closed aspect of a life system, the self-organizing pattern shapes the relationships among the components, dictating how they work together. This determines the unique characteristics and identity of the entity. The pattern changes continuously as components are added and discarded by the entity, but identity is retained because the changes are directed autonomously. Wilcock and Hocking (2015) used the term being to express identity according to interest or occupation (e.g., being a gardener).
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