Gregory Bateson's interdisciplinary work in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution and Epistemology was profoundly influenced by the ideas set forth in systems theory, communication theory, information theory and cybernetics. Bateson used the single term cybernetics in reference to an aggregate of the ideas that grew together shortly after World War II. For him, cybernetics, communication theory, information theory, and systems theory, together constituted a unified set of ideas. Many scholars and practitioners of the social/behavioral sciences, and the humanities, were first introduced to the cybernetic paradigm through Bateson's work. Yet, he seldom offered his audience more than a cursory reference to the key principles underlying his particular understanding of cybernetics. Thus, this essay incrementally and historically delineates the fundamental principles underlying the cybernetic paradigm as it was employed by Bateson.

 

The ideas were generated in many places: in Vienna by Bertalanffy, in Harvard by Wiener, in Princeton by von Neumann, in Bell Telephone labs by Shannon, in Cambridge by Craik, and so on. All these separate developments dealt with communicational problems, especially with the problem of what sort of thing is an organized system. (Bateson, 1972, pp. 482-83) [emphasis mine]

Gregory Bateson was among the first to appreciate the fact that the patterns of organization and relational symmetry evident in all living systems are indicative of mind. Here, we must not forget that due to the nineteenth century polemic between science and religion, any consideration of purpose and plan, e.g., mental process, had been a priori excluded from science as non- empirical, or immeasurable. Any reference to mind as an explanatory or causal principle had been banned from biology. Even in the social/behavioral sciences, references to mind remained suspect. Building on the work of Norbert Wiener, Ross Ashby and Warren McCulloch, Bateson realized that it is precisely

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mental process or mind which must be investigated. Thus, he formulated the criteria of mind and the cybernetic epistemology that are pivotal elements in his "ecological philosophy." In fact, he referred to cybernetics as an epistemology: e.g., the model, itself, is a means of knowing what sort of world this is, and also the limitations that exist concerning our ability to know something (or perhaps nothing) of such matters. As his work progressed, he proposed that we consider Epistemology as an overarching discipline of the natural sciences, including the social/behavioral sciences: a meta-science whose parameters extend to include the science of mind in the widest sense of the word.  Clearly, Bateson's interdisciplinary work in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution and Epistemology was profoundly influenced by the ideas set forth in systems theory, communication theory, information theory and cybernetics. Bateson used the single term cybernetics in reference to an aggregate of these ideas that grew together shortly after World War II, and for him, "cybernetics, or communication theory, or information theory, or systems theory," together constituted a unified set of ideas (Bateson, 1972, p. 482). Bateson employed the aggregate of ideas he referred to under the rubric of cybernetics as a unifying model of mental phenomena, and as a tool for "mapping" and explaining the previously inaccessible "territory" of mind. Taking his lead particularly from Warren McCulloch (Lettvin, 1959: 1940-52; McCulloch, 1965), Bateson's work led him to the conclusion that epistemology is, in fact, a normative branch of natural history. For Bateson, McCulloch's work had "pulled epistemology down out of the realms of abstract philosophy into the much more simple realm of natural history," and established that, "to understand human beings, even at a very elementary level, you had to know the limitations of their sensory input" (Bateson 1991, p. 216).  Apparently, many scholars and practitioners of the social/behavioral sciences, as well as the humanities (myself included), were first introduced to cybernetics through Bateson's particular understanding of the cybernetic paradigm. Yet, he seldom offered his audience more than a cursory reference to the key principles underlying cybernetics. Thus, the aim of this essay is both: to present the fundamental principles underlying what is now often referred to as the 'first' cybernetics; and to delineate the cybernetic paradigm as it was employed by Bateson.  The quotation headlining this essay is intended to indicate that our topic deals with essentially communicational problems, "especially with the problem of what sort of 'thing' is an organized system," i.e., a mind system, a communications system, a social system, or an ecosystem. I will proceed chronologically, with the first of these disciplines to emerge (i.e., systems theory); then move to consider how the recursive regularities of negative and positive feedback mechanisms, and circular causal systems-- principles established first in mathematics, communication theory, and information theory (Shannon & Weaver, 1964, p. 1, n 1)--led Norbert Wiener to coin the term cybernetics, and serendipitously offered a firmer theoretical foundation for systems theory. Following Bateson, it is my conviction that the patterns of organization and symmetry embodied in living systems are indicative of mental process; and, that the cybernetic paradigm--with its focus on communication and information as the key elements of the self-regulation and self-organization--best exemplifies these hierarchical patterns of epistemic organization.  The Classical Paradigm of Science, and the Emergence of Systems Theory Systems theory emerged out of the need to map and explain biological phenomena that cannot be suitably understood using the classical mechanistic model of reality. "The analytic, mechanistic, one-way causal paradigm of classical science" (Bertalanffy, 1968a, p. xxi), as Austrian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy describes it, assumes that reality can be quantifiably analyzed; that a whole can be understood

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in terms of its parts; and that the nature and function of a substance or an organism can be comprehended by reducing it to its material, externally observable components.  Systems theorists acknowledged the impressive gains in scientific inquiry, and the subsequent technological advances, afforded by the classical scientific paradigm. Granted, highly sophisticated methods of dissecting and quantifiably analyzing natural phenomena provided important insights into the construction of our world. Such insights also afforded a considerable, though limited, capacity to predict and control small pieces of reality, at a given moment in time. Yet, these gains were achieved at considerable costs, costs that notably include: overspecialization and narrow professionalism in scientific research; the fracturing and fragmentation of science's vision of nature; and a subsequent sense of alienation from the beauty of nature's underlying unity.  Systems analysis observes that with the classical paradigm of reality, wider more inclusive patterns of interaction are disregarded as immeasurable. Also, virtually all considerations of purpose and plan, e.g., mental process, and final causes, are a priori excluded as non-empirical, or again, immeasurable. Coupled with Cartesian mind-body duality, the one-way causal paradigm of classical science assumes the nature of a substance--and this includes organisms--is reducible to forces, impacts and regularities that are inevitably subject to the second law of thermodynamics. It also assumes that all causes, effects and potentialities can be traced back, in linear fashion, to initial conditions.  While these assumptions are adequate for explaining carefully isolated phenomena, and the causal relationships between one "thing" and another "thing," science has found it difficult to apply this model of reality in situations displaying more than two variables (Ervin Laszlo, 1972, pp. 5- 6). Mapping multivariable complexes in terms of linear relations involves a piecemeal, fragmented analysis, in which the units involved are reduced to sequences of interacting pairs. Any process that is more complex than a hydrogen atom, with one electron orbiting its nucleus, embodies a complexity that escapes sufficient explanation. This method affords useful information, but it cannot sufficiently map the flow of an interactive complex.  Moreover, the successes garnered by the classical scientific paradigm revealed its inadequacies. As refined tools have opened wider panoramas of research, exhibiting data of increasing complexity, science has been driven to search for new ways of conceptualizing reality. In short, the classical paradigm of science has proven inadequate to the task of mapping the natural world. It is particularly inadequate when applied to describing and explaining the multivariable processes of human interaction, e.g., communication, and humankind's intricate interrelationship with local and global ecological systems.  Under closer observation, it has become evident that natural phenomena do not behave as they are though subject to the narrow determinism postulated by the paradigm of classical science. This has led to a tangential or corollary view, a view that completely abandons causality and envisions the cosmos as random. As Joanna Rogers Macy has noted, the unidirectional paradigm of classical science has culminated in two distinct alternatives: "either we live in a clockwork universe, wholly predetermined by initial conditions, with no scope for genuine novelty, or the cosmos is a blind and purposeless play of atoms, and determinable only statistically, by the laws of chance (Macy, 1978, p. 58)." Macy, identifies these dismal alternatives as a major contributing factor in the spiritual and psychic dislocation, or the sense of alienation experienced by contemporary humankind. These limited alternatives also serve as key barriers, blocking meaningful dialogue between science and religion.  I should also note that while the classical scientific paradigm has provided a capacity to predict

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and control the natural world, the impressive gains it has afforded the pseudo-science of technology are largely responsible for a familiar litany of alarming environmental crises: overpopulation, pollution and degradation of the environment, global warming and ozone depletion, etc.(Brown, et al.,1989). We must also recognize the role played by religion, as well as economics and other cultural factors, in shaping the attitudes that have fostered the ecological crisis we now face. Still, the now commonly held mistaken notions (concerning humankind's relationship with the biosphere, as well as what constitutes an appropriate and thoughtful application of scientific knowledge) are directly attributable to myopic applications of the classical scientific paradigm.

General Systems Analysis: Homeostatic and Self-Organizing Open Systems in the Phenomena of Life Systems theory first originated in biology, a science where the need to move beyond a reductionist and atomistic approach is perhaps most evident. In the 1920's, von Bertalanffy directed his attention to the organization of organisms, rather than their substance--focusing on wholes, and the manner in which wholes function, rather than on parts. Concerning the early stages of his work he wrote:

[I] became puzzled about obvious lacunae in the research and theory of biology. The then prevalent mechanistic approach . . . appeared to neglect or actively deny just what is essential in the phenomena of life. [I] advocated an organismic conception of biology which emphasizes consideration of the organism as a whole or system, and see the main objective of biological sciences in the discovery of the principles of organization at its various levels. (Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 344)

Of course, von Bertalanffy's thinking was not entirely isolated. Process-oriented, holistic approaches were being considered in many places. Whitehead's process philosophy, Gestalt therapy, and more to the point, Cannon's work on homeostasis (an integral element of systems thought) first appeared at this time (Allport,1968, p. 344).  Von Bertalanffy's work established that the behavior of living phenomena is best comprehended in terms of wholes, rather than parts. He also discerned that biological wholes--animal or vegetable; cell, organ, or organism-- are best described as systems. The system, as described by von Bertalanffy, is less a "thing" than a pattern of organization. Systems are comprised of a unified pattern of events, and their existence, as well as their character are derived more from the nature of their organization, than from the nature of their components. As such, a system consists of a dynamic flow of interactions that cannot themselves be quantified, weighed or measured. The pattern of the whole is "non-summative" and irreducible. Hence, as a pattern of organization, the character of a system is altered with any addition, subtraction or other form of perturbation in any of its constitutive elements.  Doubtless, a living system is more than simply the sum of its parts. However, this more is not something extra, such as an elan vital or a vitalist principle. Even after significant disruption, an organism in nature can continue to develop in a manner normal for its species-- evidence the fact that organisms can heal themselves. Since this sort of phenomenon seems to contradict the classical laws of physics, giving organisms an aspect of independence from the external operation of cause and effect earlier biologists attributed it to a soul-like vitalist factor.  Having found this sort of explanation inadequate and unwarranted, von Bertalanffy attributed the phenomenon to a function of the dynamic organization of the system as a whole (Bertalanffy, p. 40).That is, through the combined interaction of the differentiated elements that comprise the system, a new level of operation is formed. Namely, a unique status of

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existence is facilitated by the fully integrated interdependence of its "parts." Thus, the very nature of a system is immanent in the combined interaction of the system as a whole, and hence, the system's true character is lost from view when its distinguishable components are investigated independently of each other. Von Bertalanffy came to understand that the organic interdependence which governs the internal functioning of a living system also exemplifies its relations with its environment. Whether an organism or an organ, a cell or an organelle, a living system functions and evolves within a larger system--linked in relationships which embody both dependence and indispensability. Living systems both envelop, and are enveloped by, other living systems with which they are in steady communication, thus forming a natural hierarchical order.  Thus, the diverse morphogenesis apparent in the discernable wholes studied by the biological sciences--organelle or cell, organ or organism, vegetable or animal, species or genus, etc.--are not only systems, they are open systems (Bertalanffy, 1968b, pp. 44-47). They organize and sustain themselves by exchanging matter, energy and information with their environment. Moreover, it is precisely the processes involved in these exchanges that constitute the life and continuity of such living systems. For although a living system may replicate itself, no single component of the system is permanent.  The manner in which these exchanges and transformations take place, the principles by which an incessantly changing pattern both retains its configuration or identity and evolves its order, have been a central focus of systems inquiry. As for what exactly is exchanged, since the distinctions between matter, energy, and information have become blurred, answers to this question are not entirely clear. Yet, it is clear that all three flow through the system and are subsequently transformed by it. Von Bertalanffy's major discovery was that regardless of a system's material ingredients or external appearance, in their relational patterns and processes, the regularities or invariances which govern these operations are essentially the same. Furthermore, in maintaining and organizing itself, an open system is distinguished by what von Bertalanffy identified as Fließ-Gleichgewicht (literally, "flux-balance"), or steady state. Because a living system is incessantly involved in processes of exchange and transformation--in states of inflow and outflow--the system is recognized as maintaining a continual state of flux. Never stationary or fixed in chemical or thermodynamic equilibrium, its components are constantly altered by metabolic events.  The terms balance and steady are here most significant. These terms underscore the fact that the system maintains itself in tension between opposing forces--between the formation and the dissolution of its constitutive components, i.e., its "substance." A system compensates for its deterioration by importing and processing energy. Thus, it attains and sustains a steady balance--a dynamic equilibrium-- between its own improbable state and the surrounding environment (Bertalanffy, 1968b, pp. 46-48). While its elements dissipate, its pattern endures and can even evolve in complexity. The morphogenesis embodied in living systems exemplifies negentropic or anti-entropic qualities that apparently defy the physical laws of nature. Living systems represent a successful maintenance and increase of order within the prevailing thermodynamic drift toward randomness and disorganization. Their orderliness persists, not only in spite of disintegrative forces, but actually by means of utilizing them.  The self-organizing and homeostatic (self-stabilizing) processes exhibited by open systems constitute evidence of persistent phenomena which are contrary to the mechanically and statistically demonstrable dissolution of the universe, postulated by the second law of thermodynamics. Also, open systems provide evidence that demonstrates the existence of anti-entropic (negentropic) tendencies within our perceived universe--negentropic tendencies in which

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order, complexity, and improbability are sustained and increased. Hence, we may safely assume that the existence of open systems resolves the apparent contradiction between data from physics which supports dissipation, disorganization and randomness, on the one hand, and ample documentation of increased order and complexity in biological evolution, on the other.

Cybernetics: Circular Causal Systems in Biological and Social Systems Gregory Bateson embraced the concepts and vocabulary of cybernetics because this interdisciplinary field offered a more rigorous formulation of theoretical concerns with which his work had already been dealing. In fact, Bateson's biography offers ample evidence that long before he first encountered cybernetic theory, a systems approach to the biology and the behavioral sciences were for him not a foreign concept (Lipset, 1982, pp. 142-159). His father William Bateson was a preeminent British biologist and a pioneer in the study of genetics (he coined the term). Of his father, Bateson has written that he, "was certainly ready in 1894 to receive the cybernetic ideas" (Bateson, 1972, p. xvi). It is also interesting to note that as early as 1906, the elder Bateson had written:

We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing. The orderly relations of their parts are as much under geometrical control as the concentric waves spreading from a splash in a pool. If we could in any real way identify or analyze the causation of growth, biology would become a branch of physics. (W. Bateson, 1928, p. 209) [emphasis mine]

Judging from the above, it does appear that Bateson was raised in an atmosphere where the concerns and ideas central to systems analysis, and later cybernetics, were familiar topics. Moreover, at Cambridge University in the 1920's, the pattern of his education in science had encouraged broad, general, interdisciplinary interests (Heims, 1977: 141). No doubt, having been raised and educated in such an environment favorably prepared Bateson for the advent of cybernetic ideas.  Well before 1946, when he was invited to attend the first formal conference on cybernetics sponsored by the Macy foundation, Bateson's work in cultural anthropology dealt with the processes by which social systems organize and stabilize themselves. However, he was not satisfied with his interpretations of his own social anthropological fieldwork (Bateson, 1965, pp. 1-5). It was not until cybernetics offered the possibility of extending the precision of mathematics to these processes, that he became actively involved in the movement to apply a variety of concepts originating in mathematics and engineering to biology and the behavioral sciences (Heims, 1977: 142-44; 1975: 368-373). Still, Bateson was by no means a mathematician. He understood relatively little mathematics and his distaste for engineering is well documented (Bateson, 1979, p. 207):

. . . his interest was in the concepts from logical and mathematical theories which he could use, as metaphors or in an heuristic way, to formulate conceptual schemes in the behavioral and social sciences. His tool was and is the English language, and he tried to achieve clarity and precision in its use, as far as was possible, but never mathematical rigor. (Heims, 1977: 146)

Bateson not only assimilated the conceptual schemes of cybernetics into his work, during the remainder of his career he refined the newly developed lexicon of cybernetics, so that it could be used with both scientific rigor and poetic imagination (Wilder-Mott & Weakland, 1981), and cybernetic principles became the central metaphor in his proposed meta- science of Epistemology. James Watt's invention of the governor on a steam engine (given precise mathematical

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analysis by Clerk Maxwell in 1868) and Cannon's discovery of homeostasis in the maintenance of the chemical balance of the blood, had already revealed the principles underlying the processes of self-regulation (Bateson, 1979, p. 106). These principles were more rigorously clarified through research initially carried out on the improvement of anti-aircraft artillery during World War II. To delineate further the operation of self-corrective or "Teleological Mechanisms," research was directed to the ways in which such devices receive, exchange and use information to adjust to multivariable contingencies in the environment. Devices were built that could monitor their own performance, correct for deviations and changing conditions, and within set parameters, alter their goals. The method used to accomplish all of this utilized the properties of closed self-corrective circuits, referred to as feedback mechanisms, and in time as cybernetics.  The term Cybernetics was coined by Norbert Wiener, at the end of World War Two, in reference to the, "entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal" (Wiener, 1948, p. 11). He was, of course, referring to a remarkable set of discoveries concerning the nature of self-corrective machines that he and many others had made while working on defense projects. During the war Wiener had been part of an interdisciplinary team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had worked on the mathematical aspects of guidance and control systems for anti-aircraft fire. His earliest public use of the term Cybernetics was in March 1946, at the first of the Macy conferences, entitled, "Feedback Mechanisms and Circular Causal Systems in Biological and Social Systems" (Lipset, 1982, pp. 179-181). Ironically, it was their consideration of guided ("purposeful") anti-aircraft projectiles, and other weapons being developed for the war, which had alerted Wiener and his associates to the similarity of organisms and machines:

Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow had, in effect, announced a new paradigm in science, according to which one seeks an overarching theory to include machines and organisms; the theory would clearly involve ideas of information, control, and feedback. (Heims, 1977: 142-143; Rosenblueth, Wiener and Bigelow, 1943: 18-24)

The introduction of cybernetics as an interdisciplinary field led to considerable enthusiasm among the scientists who attended the Macy conferences. Many, including Bateson, believed the ideas offered were sufficiently deep, yet acceptably overarching, that out of them might come a vocabulary suitable as a unifying conceptual framework for the biological and social sciences. Bateson unequivocally stated that membership in the conferences was "one of the great events of my life" (Brockman, 1977, pp. 9-10). Norbert Wiener perhaps best captured the mood of enthusiasm when he wrote:

If the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are the age of clocks, and the later eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries constitute the age of steam engines, the present time is the age of communication and control. There is in electrical engineering a split . . . between the technique of strong currents and the technique of weak currents, and which we know as the distinction between power and communication engineering. It is this split which separates the age just past from that in which we are now living. Actually, communication engineering can deal with currents of any size whatever . . . what distinguishes it from power engineering is that its main interest is not economy of energy but the accurate reproduction of a signal. (Wiener, 1948, p. 50) [emphasis mine]

Here, I want to call particular attention to the fact that this quotation emphasizes the accurate reproduction of a signal, i.e., communication, as the separation that distinguishes cybernetics from the laws of thermodynamics. Later, when Wiener stated that "the study of messages, and in particular effective messages of control,

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constitutes the science of Cybernetics," (Wiener, 1950, pp. 8-9) he was referring to the principles exhibited in the recursive processes of feedback.  According to Wiener, the operations of biological and technological systems are precisely parallel. "Feedback" indicates the operation of a system whereby its actions are scanned by sensory receptors as one state in its cycle of operation. The system can monitor itself and direct its behavior: it must have a special apparatus for collecting information at low energy levels, and for making information available in the operation of the system. The messages are not selected and conveyed in an unaltered state. Rather, through transforming operations that are integral to the system, the information is translated and encoded into a form that is available for further stages of the system's performance. Thus, the system can modify its future behavior. "In both the animal and the machine this performance is made to be effective on the outer world. In both, their performed action on the outer world, not merely their intended action, is reported back to the central regulatory apparatus" (Wiener, 1950, p. 15). This description of feedback indicates the extent to which the cybernetic paradigm employed Shannon and Weaver's theory of communication, in which the pivotal concept is codification, i.e., the transformation of perceived events into information (Shannon & Weaver, 1964, pp. 1-12).  Positive Feedback, Negative Feedback and Mutual Causal Loops As we have seen, feedback is a recursive process whereby a system's behavior is scanned and fed back through its sensory receptors. Data about the system's previous actions, as a part of the input it receives, is monitored, allowing the system to "watch" itself, and thus signal the degree of attainment or non-attainment of a given operation relative to pre-established goals. This process allows a system to alter its output and thereby regulate or steer its behavior in relation to its pre-encoded goals. Hence, two forms of feedback are recognized, negative and positive.  Ideally, feedback signals the absence of deviation, or the absence of any perceived mismatch, between the system's actual behavior and its targeted goal(s). In effect, negative messages of "no problem" are reported back to the systems central regulatory apparatus (servomechanism, computer, autonomic nervous system, brain, etc.,) signaling that no change in the system's output is necessary. However, when the system perceives a mismatch between its actual behavior and its targeted goal(s), due to a disturbance acting on any variable monitored by system's feedback loops, negative feedback gives rise to an effect at the point of disturbance which opposes the effect of the disturbance. Thus, negative feedback represents self-stabilizing messages of control that allow the system it to remain steady or constant within its prevailing course of trajectory. Conversely, positive feedback signals any mismatch between the system's actual behavior and its intended performance. Positive feedback messages initiate modifications (e.g., negative feedback) in the system's operation, until the system is on target. In fact, within highly complex systems, repetitious or incessant positive feedback signals can actually modify the goal(s), and hence the aim(s), of the overall system.  Before further considering the properties of negative and positive feedback, I should again underscore the fact that cybernetics has opened new horizons for the examination and explanation of living systems. Charting the traits of negative and positive feedback loops has unveiled pattern-building, or isomorphisms and invariances unlike any accepted by the linear, or lineal paradigm that continues to dominate Western culture. Hence, phenomena such as circular and mutual causality, dynamic stability, and complexly interrelated systemic hierarchies are now open to more rigorous investigation. The analogy of feedback as a circle or "loop" may tend to suggest a "vicious circle," or

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reversion to a pre-existing state--an incessant return to the same point, and the exclusion of novelty. However, feedback generates information and innovates novelty. Through the recursive operation of negative and positive feedback, elements within a system, be they cells in a body or members of a society, become informed and differentiated. Hence, they are able to grow and evolve.  An accessible example of the cybernetic model is the thermostatically controlled heating system. The entire unit, weather-house-heater-thermostat-homeowner, is here understood as a system of communication. The thermostat contains a thermometer (a receptor or a sort of sense organ), which responds to messages or transforms of difference (e.g., information) between a specified ideal temperature and actual changes in room temperature. Note that it is the homeowner who specifies, sets or encodes, the thermostat's ideal temperature. The thermostat will respond to its own codification of the change--not to a physical energy transfer- -and will signal the heater to turn off or on, thereby equilibrating to conserve the system's ideal temperature. This typifies the interactive oscillation between messages communicating the real to the ideal and the ideal to the real within the comprehensive circuitry of a cybernetic system--exemplified in steady state, homeostasis or morphostasis. In this system the messages of temperature change, i.e., deviation from the ideal, represent positive feedback, and are counteracted through self-stabilizing messages of control, e.g., negative feedback, which activate or deactivate the heating element so as to maintain a balanced approximation of the system's encoded ideal.  Feedback "mechanisms" are circular and self-referential by nature. In the closed "circuitry" of a feedback loop, "cause" and "effect" cannot be categorically isolated. They modify each other in a continuous process where input and output, percepts and performance, interact. This complex interaction between perception and action, evident in exploratory and learning behaviors, is the means by which a system--animal or machine--has the capacity to adapt, organize and increase its complexity. It is the key to a system's self- organization and its self-stabilization. Thus, cybernetic models mandate explanation in terms of serial and reciprocal sequences of cause and effect (Bateson, 1965, p. 288).  Precisely because lineal one-way causal premises--with categorical distinctions between cause and effect--can only be applied piecemeal to two variables at a time, they have proven inadequate for explaining the properties of circular or more complex than circular systems. The interactions of cybernetic pattern-building disclose a different kind of causality, one involving interdependence and reciprocal relationships between causes and effects. The recursive processes involved in feedback serve to link causal variables in a continuous flow of information and energy. Not unlike an electrical circuit, feedback loops connect output with input, and the information they communicate sustains an interactive oscillation between the systems targeted ideal(s) and the success or failure of its behavior(s). Consequently, the circular or more complex than circular processes of feedback exhibit properties that far exceed the general notion of interaction, or the mere presence of influences in two directions. They function in terms of mutual causal loops, and as such, these influences actively influence each other--both within a given system, or a subsystem, and between systems. A may affect B in a way that is unrelated to B's influence on A. Yet, only where A's effect on B is qualified by B's effect on A (or, where A is modified by its effect on B), is there a feedback loop and mutual causality in a strict sense (Maruyama, 1968, pp. 80-81).  Regenerative Feedback, Deviation Amplification, and Cybernetic Stability Although developed from work with self-corrective, purposive or "teleological" machines, the application of feedback principles was

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quickly recognized as a valuable tool for describing the function of living open systems. (Evident in the title of the Macy conferences on Cybernetics, e.g., ". . . in Biological and Social Systems.") In an organism, sensory signals, such as the pain which results from touching a hot object, constitute feedback. In social relations, feedback reports the result--or the perceived result--of our behavior on other persons, such as our perception of a smile or frown in return for our own (Kramer, 1968, p. 140). Particularly in relation to the self-stabilizing and self-organizing nature of a system (i.e., cybernetic stability), the mutual causal effects of feedback have been recognized as invaluable tools for appropriately explaining the interaction observed in the relationship of a system with its environment. They also offer concepts with which the extraordinary self-regulative capacities of living systems can be comprehended and investigated. Hence, cybernetics serendipitously provided a firmer theoretical foundation for systems theory.  Nevertheless, it should be noted that some systems theorists adopted cybernetic principles with firm reservations. For example, von Bertalanffy asserted that:

Cybernetic systems are "closed" with respect to exchange of matter with environment, and open only to information. For this reason the cybernetic model does not provide for an essential characteristic of living systems whose components are continually destroyed in catabolic and replaced in anabolic processes, with corollaries such as growth, development, differentiation, etc. (Bertalanffy, 1968b, pp. 42-43)

According to von Bertalanffy, the cybernetic model introduced circular causality by way of the feedback loop, which accounts for the self-regulation, goal directedness, etc., of the system. Yet, the feedback model is only one, "rather special," type of self-regulating system; and it is too "mechanistic" in the sense that it presupposes structural arrangements (receptors, effectors, control center, etc.). In contrast, he maintained, the concept of general systems is broader and non-mechanistic, in that regulative behavior is not determined by structural or "machine" conditions, but a dynamic interaction between many variables. John Milsum and others seem to have resolved these issues, but von Bertalanffy's resistance persisted (Milsum, 1968, p. viii).  Von Bertalanffy's remarks highlight some of the key objections voiced when the cybernetic model is applied to living systems. Once again, the general confusion regarding information, matter, and energy is apparent; and although von Bertalanffy neglects the crucial point that matter may serve as information, his objections underscore the fact that a sharp distinction must be drawn between matter and energy, on the one hand, and information, on the other. Clarification of the concept "information" is one of Bateson's major contributions to this field of enquiry, and drawing an unobstructed distinction between matter, energy, and information is a key element of Bateson's proposed meta- science of Epistemology. As for von Bertalanffy's claims that the cybernetic model does not provide for growth, development or differentiation, and that regulative behavior in the feedback model is too structural and mechanistic, they are simply overdrawn. In their ground breaking paper, Rosenblueth, Wiener and Bigelow (1943: 22-23) clearly acknowledge the distinctions between animal and machine; and, W. Ross Ashby's work also indicates that early cybernetic theory provided for adaptive behavior, differentiation and growth (Ashby, 1963, pp. v-vii).  Von Bertalanffy made use of the cybernetic model, and he was well aware that it is intended as an analogy. His objections cannot have been an instance of mistaking map for territory. Yet, as one of the founders of systems analysis, he was inclined toward maintaining its uniqueness and superior compre- hensiveness. In his favor, we should recognize that as a conscientious pioneer of scientific thought he was also concerned

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with avoiding overly ambitious applications of both systems analysis and cybernetics (Bertalanffy, 1968c, p. 22). Here, it is interesting to note that Bateson chose to avoid this particular mode of systems/cybernetics controversy, and was among those who integrated the elements shared in common by these related disciplines. Von Bertalanffy's objections are echoed in the criticisms leveled at employing a cybernetic model in the social/behavioral sciences, a topic I will deal with in a subsequent essay. My aim here is to delineate the premises upon which cybernetics is based, and attempting to resolve these issues moves beyond our present topic.  As systems theory assimilated cybernetic principles, the self-stabilization of a system came to be understood as an operation of the deviation-counteracting processes of negative feedback. Consider the example of homeothermy, the maintenance of body temperature in the homeostasis of warm- blooded animals. Contrary to the rules of physical chemistry, where a decrease in temperature leads to a slower rate of chemical reaction, body cooling stimulates thermogenic centers in the brain which "turn on" the heat-producing mechanisms of the body. Cold is offset by an increased metabolic rate. Similarly, in the thermostat, a relationship between a minimum of three variables--the temperature readings, the control center, and the furnace switch--maintains a systemic balance; the lower the heat in the house, the more the fuel is used. In both cases, mutually affecting variables work to counteract or balance each other (Bertalanffy, 1968c, p. 17). Natural systems respond to change in the environment in much the same way as a thermostat. Both adjust their behavior so as to minimize deviations between their perceptions or measurements of the environment (the input) and their internal requirements encoded in a control center (brain, servomechanism, etc.). Thus, they maintain a steady state of morphostasis in the ongoing relationship of their systems' mutually affecting variables, the continuity of their pattern is ensured, and their systemic integrity is actively "stabilized."  Yet, cybernetic systems exhibit a capacity for pathology and self-destruction. In the example of a home thermostat, if the polarity of the system's codifier is reversed so it responds to positive feedback with positive feedback-- increased room temperature triggers the heating element, which raises room temperature and triggers the thermostat, etc; the system will shift into a state of runaway, like a steam engine without a governor, and exponentially self-destruct. This attribute of positive feedback is termed regenerative feedback. If left uncorrected, it leads to pathology and ultimately self-destruction. Mapping and explaining the capacity for systemic pathology is a recognized contribution of cybernetics. Indeed, it seems Wiener focused on the study of effective messages of control, as constituting the science of cybernetics, precisely because he assumed that self-regulating systems tend toward entropy. Thus, in cybernetic explanation questions are framed in terms of what restraints are activated in order to maintain a system in steady state (Bateson, 1967, pp. 29-32).  Although degrees of pathology are a potential consequence of positive feedback, a related phenomenon, oddly enough, is the system's capacity for self-organization. This particular aspect of positive feedback is a result of the deviation-amplifying processes of regenerative feedback. Recognized in growth, learning, and evolution, it is perhaps the most significant consequence of positive feedback. If there is a persistent mismatch in the mutual causal relationship between the environment and a system's configuration (between a system's input and its code), such perturbations may trigger modifications in the code and the overall "structure" of the system, itself. Messages of deviation may be "interpreted" by a system to require increased deviation. Hence, the deviation-amplifying process of positive feedback, through which a system may destroy itself, may also trigger morphogenesis--changes that reorganize and complexify the system's overall pattern of operation, transforming it to a thermodynamically less probable, but a contextually    37 more viable order of configuration and interaction (Maruyama, 1963: 164-79; 1960: 251-96).  Cybernetic research has convincingly demonstrated that through the deviation-amplifying mutual causal process of positive feedback, starting anywhere except the thermo-dynamically most probable equilibrium, open systems will complexify in response to enduring perturbations from the environment. In short, "whenever a lasting deviation from uniformity (thermodynamic equilibrium) develops," a system will move toward increased differentiation and complexification, and therefore, a more tenuous steady state (Makridakis, 1977: p. 3). It will adapt itself to environmental conditions by altering and complexifying its organization, and increased complexification in all natural systems represents movement away from systemic stability. That is, as a system's configuration becomes more intricately organized and more intimately interrelated with increased external variables, it becomes more sensitive and responsive to change, and thereby less stable. However, the emergence of increased differentiation and complexification also manifests a corresponding increase in the system's array of available responses, or what Ervin Laszlo terms cybernetic stability--the system's capacity for effective adaptation (Laszlo, 1973, p. 269).  Note how the cybernetic paradigm shifts the focus of our discourse away from: discreet material substances, oneway causality, structure, and summativity. Rather, a cybernetic explanation focuses on: process and behavior, dynamic or animated organization, circular or more complex than circular causality, the mutual causal loops of feedback cycles, interaction between multiple variables, and emergent morphogenesis. Hence, the cybernetic stability of a system must be understood not as an inactive structure, but as a pattern of events--an animated organization of exchanges and transformations within the system's parameters. Hence, it is not the characteristics of the "parts" alone that are basic to any whole. Rather, it is the manner in which the system's differentiated components are interrelated that gives them their distinctive properties. Furthermore, within more complex systems the "differentiated parts" exhibit properties which they owe specifically to being components of a larger whole.  Through its receptors, a cybernetic system acquires and processes information and energy according to its needs or code. Information, energy and matter may spread through the system following a fixed pathway, but they do not trigger responses and produce systemic behavior (output) directly. Rather, they are subject to the dynamics of the system's configuration, and in the circular or more complex than circular operations of a cybernetic circuit or network, events at any position in the circuit may be expected to have effect at all positions on the circuit at later times. Incoming messages are received as encoded transforms of perceived events, and such information is translated or "interpreted" (sifted, sorted, evaluated and recombined) before it is conveyed to effectors and translated into action. The cybernetic system does not passively undergo the effects of external causes, but actively transforms them. It is not simply input that determines a system's behavior, but what happens to the input within the system, how the input is interpreted and used in terms of the system's organization. As Laszlo notes, "this is directly contrary to linear-causality input-output systems (Laszlo, 1973, p. 25)."  Focusing on the deviation-counteracting aspects of a system's mutual causal process discloses negative feedback, through which a system maintains morphostasis, or steady state. Still, although a system's overall configuration (including its code) must remain "stable," it is not static. In the fluctuating context of a changing environment, a system's code must determine how it uses or "interprets" its input, and through the deviation-amplifying messages of positive feedback, morphogenesis may

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emerge. Triggered by perturbations of a persistent mismatch in the mutual causal relationship between a changing environment and a system's overall configuration, a system may transform itself. Thus, a system has the capacity to maintain cybernetic stability precisely by altering its code and reorganizing its overall operation into a more complex order of configuration and performance.  Here, I should also introduce and underscore the fact that in Bateson's understanding of cybernetic explanation the ongoing relationship between a system and its environment is discerned as not only stochastic, but also essentially communicational, and thus nonsubstantial. Cybernetic systems aim at sustaining a viable steady state of interaction within changing contexts through the stochastic process of trial and error. Bear in mind that such a system must respond to the effects of its own output, as well as other alterations in its environment. These processes include exchanges of energy, and generally, exchanges of matter as well. Still, it is through exchanges of information, e.g., messages of effective control, that systems restrain and govern themselves. Thus, the processes that together comprise the pattern of events discernable in whole systems, and within the continuing relationship between a system and its environment, exhibit regularities that are not primarily subject to the physical laws of energy transfer and the second law of thermodynamics. Rather, they proceed according to regularities discovered in the transformation of perceived events into symbolic information. This is the realm of existence, the universe of discourse, that Bateson referred to as "the Berkeleyan world of communication."  Systemic Invariance and Isomorphisms: Whole Systems and the Hierarchy of the Observable Cosmos As we have seen, Norbert Wiener proposed Cybernetics as a general study of control and communication theory in both the machine and the animal. As such, cybernetics became a master concept which assimilated a number of analytic methods, including computerization and simulation, set theory, graph theory, net theory, automata theory, decision theory, queueing theory, game theory, and general systems theory, as well. Indeed, with the introduction of the cybernetic paradigm, systems theory was more readily accepted and applied to numerous fields of research. Hence, as is apparent in the wealth of available literature, cybernetic processes became discernible to many theorists, not only in biological systems, but also in the sub-organic and supra-organic world--from microphysics to organic life, through social groups, to the biosphere of our planet, and beyond.  In short, the introduction of cybernetic principles led to the identification of systemic invariance or isomorphisms throughout the observable cosmos. Still, whether or not employment of the cybernetic paradigm has been appropriate in each instance remains an area of dispute. Nevertheless, recognition of such isomorphisms has fostered a valuable epistemic shift: from consideration of "entities," to the discernment of whole systems. The recognition of systemic isomorphisms also initiated further disclosure of the logic evident in the behavior and interaction of systems, enabling theorists to frame the formal characteristics inherent in whole (cybernetic) systems.  Moreover, the system is understood as a differentiated sub-whole within a systemic hierarchy. The "environment" in which a system exists is also a whole system, a meta- system. Whether ecosystem, animal, organ or cell, systems consist of subsystems that operate within a hierarchy of progressively inclusive meta-systems. As a subsystem, the system's characteristics and operations are co- determinative components of the larger system within which it is an integral component. Thus, a system may be understood as Janus-faced. As a whole, it faces inward, i.e., the system is concerned with maintaining its internal steady state;

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as a sub-whole, the system faces outward, responding to its environment (a meta- system) in a potentially infinite regression of relevant contexts.  Spurred by the enthusiasm with which cybernetics was received, systems research has been applied to many fields of scientific enquiry. Such research supports the evolutionary view that through self-organization and mutual adaptation, systems tend to form structural hierarchies, i.e., they fashion progressively larger, more inclusive systems out of preexisting sub-systems or microhierarchies. Such research has also revealed that this phenomenon is delimited by hierarchical restraints of a morphic nature (Whyte, 1973, p. 275). In the patterns they exhibit, these new systems generate unique qualities, including more complex organization and inherently novel forms of operation.  The view which subsequently emerged, discerns a complementary relationship between the morphic nature of systemic integration and systemic differentiation within a hierarchical universe. Systemic differentiation and integration are conventionally understood as delimited by the channeling of energy, matter and information to maintain and generate form. Also, through the cybernetic interaction of their patterns of operation, systems tend to complexify and form hierarchies. Hence, in the realm of astronomy, hierarchical restraints are understood as gravitational; in the hierarchy from microphysics to organic life, these cybernetic restraints are understood as electrochemical forces; and in social and cognitive hierarchies, such constraints are understood as operating in the communication of symbols (Laszlo, 1973, pp. 57-117; 177- 180).  In contrast, Bateson rejected the use of energy and matter in this context--except in those instances where they act as information and thus have communicational value. As is well known, Bateson's work aimed at clearly drawing the distinction between energy and matter, on the one hand, and information, on the other, by pointing out that information represents a difference, and unlike energy or matter, difference is a non-substantial phenomenon that cannot be located in space or time. Hence, he maintained that cybernetic systems best exemplify mental process. That is, given the unique status of information and communication, as nonsubstantial phenomena which nevertheless govern and control cybernetic systems, he insisted that cybernetic models and metaphors are most appropriately applied to the mental realm of cognitive systems, i.e., mind systems--both artificial and natural.  Bateson felt that in this context, the use of energy and matter as explanatory principles is clearly inappropriate--except in those instances where they function as information and thus have communicational value. Recall that in cybernetics, zero has a "causal" value, because zero represents a difference, it is different from one, and zero (quite literally, no thing) may thus be used to explain a response in this realm of mental process. The holistic systems under discussion cannot be effectively measured or studied in quantitative terms. Quantifiable concepts such as power, gravity, and energy, etc. are applicable only in what Bateson referred to as the Pleromic realms of explanation, i.e., the physical sciences (Bateson, 1979, pp. 91-94). Atoms, molecules and stones do not respond to information. They do not scan their behavior for its result, nor do they modify future behavior on the success or failure of such information. Thus, in contrast to Laszlo and others, Bateson rejects the application of cybernetic principles in describing and explaining atomic, subatomic and electrochemical realms of physical existence.  In Bateson's cybernetic epistemology, mental process emerges out of certain types of organization of matter, and the mental properties of the system are understood as immanent, not in any one part, but within the system as a whole. Mental process (e.g., mind) is understood as immanent in the circuits of the brain which are complete within the brain; mental processes are similarly immanent in the circuits which are complete within the system, brain-plus-body;

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and mind is immanent in the larger system--person-plus-environment (Bateson, 1972, p. 317). The resulting image requires that we eliminate the commonly held notion that mind is to be identified as residing only within the boundary of our physical body, and is somehow radically separate from others.

. . . there is no requirement of a clear boundary, like a surrounding envelope of skin or membrane, and you can recognize that this definition [of mind] includes only some of the characteristics of what we call "life." As a result it applies to a much wider range of those complex phenomena called "systems," including systems consisting of multiple organisms or systems in which some of the parts are living and some are not, or even to systems in which there are no living parts. (Bateson and Bateson, 1987, p. 19)

To be sure, mental process requires collateral energy. However, the interactions of mental process are triggered by difference, and "difference is not energy and usually contains no energy" (Bateson, 1979, p.100). Mental process requires some amount of energy, apparently very little, but as a stimulus the nonsubstantial phenomenon of difference does not provide energy. The respondent mind system has collateral energy, usually provided by metabolism. If we kick a stone, it receives energy and it moves with that energy. However, if we kick a cat or a dog, our kick may transfer enough energy to move the animal. (We may even imagine placing the animal into a Newtonian orbit.) However, a living organism responds with energy from its own metabolism. In the control of animation by information, energy is already present in the respondent, the energy is available in advance of the "impact" of events.  Moreover, the phenomena of coding, is centrally incorporated into Bateson's epistemic model; and here we should note that his cybernetic epistemology assigns unequivocal limitations as to what mind systems are capable of knowing, largely due to this phenomena. The process in which information is translated and encoded into a new form (only then is information available for further stages of a system's performance) limits the perception of all mental systems to images that are reminiscent of the shadows in Plato's allegory of the cave.  The perspective thus added to Bateson's work emerges out of the information theory and communication theory developed by Shannon and Weaver, and it effectively places his epistemic model in what Bateson refers to as "the world of communication." This world of communication is to be understood as a realm of explanation wherein the only relevant entities or "realities" are "messages." For Bateson, this is the realm of mind, in which relationships and metarelationships, context, and the context of context--all of which are complex aggregates of information or differences which make a difference--may be identified in a potentially infinite regress of relevant contexts. Consider Bateson's comparison of the Newtonian world and the world of communication:

The difference between the Newtonian world and the world of communication is simply this: that the Newtonian world ascribes reality to objects and achieves its simplicity by excluding the context of the context--indeed excluding all metarelationships- -a fortiori excluding an infinite regress of such relations. In contrast, the theorist of communication insists upon examining the meta-relationships while achieving its simplicity by excluding all objects. (Bateson, 1972, p.250)

Bateson goes on to suggest that the world of communication is a Berkeleyan world, but the good bishop was guilty of understatement, "relevance or reality must be denied not only to the sound of the tree which falls unheard in the forest but also to the chair that I can see and on which I may sit" (Bateson, 1972, p. 250). Our perception of a chair is communicationally real, but in the realm of mental process--the world of communication--the chair on which we sit is only an idea, a message in which we put our trust. There are no chairs or tables, no birds or

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cats, no students or professors in the working circuitry of the mind, except in the form of "ideas." Dinge an Sich or things-in- themselves are inaccessible to direct inquiry. Only ideas (difference, news of difference, images or maps) and information (differences which make a difference) about "things" are accessible to mind:

Ideas (in some very wide sense of that word) have a cogency and reality. They are what we can know, and we can know nothing else. The regularities or laws that bind ideas together--these are the (eternal) verities. These are as close as we can get to ultimate truth. (Bateson, 1979, p. 191)

Be that as it may, in each of the previous examples (astronomy, microphysics, organic life, and social and cognitive hierarchies), the hierarchical constraints are of a morphic nature, e.g., they deal with pattern, not substance. Each step between the hierarchies may be recognized as an advance the development of form toward increasingly complex organization. Furthermore, in asserting the irreducibility of levels, the hierarchical view of cybernetic theory conflicts with traditional monism, as well as with dualism and pluralism (Laszlo, 1973, pp. 57-117; 177- 180). Since hierarchical constraints produce both novelty and organization, causal or generative relations necessarily exist between the levels, and this suggests a non-summative, or holistic alternative.  Hence, the cybernetic view of observed reality is hierarchical: the universe is understood as a hierarchy of systems, wherein each higher level of system is composed of systems of lower levels. Yet, as Joanna Macy notes, this is not the hierarchy of rank and authority associated with organized religions or an army, nor is it the hierarchy of being and value found in the thought of Plato and Plotinus (Macy, 1978, p. 69). It is more a like a set of self- organizing Chinese boxes, each one neatly fashioned to fit inside the other, ad infinitum. The hierarchy of observed reality is thus maintained through structured interaction, with self-organization and mutual adaptation acting as hierarchical restraints; regulating an "osmotic" flow of energy, matter, and information exchanged between its differentiated levels.  In this view, each level of the hierarchy cybernetically builds on more basic levels of organization: integrating pre- existing subsystems and micro-hierarchies into novel patterns; and fashioning new, more inclusive systems. As observed in embryology (e.g., epigenesis), evolution and child development, growth and learning occur incrementally or step- wise. Whole systems never begin from scratch. Their growth is inevitably based upon the organization of pre-organized components. They are both delimited and enabled by hierarchial constraints that permit stability, economy, and speed in the unfolding of new forms of life and more inclusive hierarchical levels (Simon, 1973, p. 7).  Since their introduction, investigation of the holistic / non-summative, self-stabilizing, self-organizing and hierarchical traits formally identified in cybernetic systems has spread into the social/behavioral sciences. Thus, the informational nature of cybernetic processes: including the concepts of feedback, mutual causality, and self- regulating systems have been adopted and fruitfully employed in these fields. Here, we should note that this shift in methodology and theory is more than a mere attempt to take the common sense notion of communication as having something basic to do with the social/behavioral sciences and give it a firm scientific status. Following Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, W. Ross Ashby, and Gregory Bateson, we may safely assert that cybernetics discloses a new paradigm of science; a paradigm which, as Bateson often insisted, initiates at least four fundamental advancements that should radically reframe theoretical reflection in the social/behavioral sciences (Bateson, 1977, pp. 336-37):

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1. Rather than focusing on the substance and content of isolated phenomena, as in the reductionist, mechanistic, one-way causal paradigm of classical science, cybernetics focuses on form, pattern and redundancy in whole systems.  2. The cybernetic paradigm clarifies the operational significance of information and communication--i.e., mental process--in biological, social and behavioral phenomena.  3. With its focus on communication and information, the cybernetic paradigm illuminates the negentropic realm of living systems. This is realm of mind in the widest sense of the word, and this realm must be approached through its own set of preconceptions and premises. When we wish to describe and explain the negentropic processes evident in living systems, physical analogies are inadequate, and the analogies of method taken from the "hard sciences" are inappropriate.  4. The cybernetic paradigm provides a rigorous model of mental process with a unified vocabulary and a unified methodology which serve as an effective counterbalance to the charge of subjectivism aimed at the methodologies used in the social/behavioral sciences, as well as the currently fashionable assortment of "vicious criticisms" aimed at all forms of linguistic discourse (Bernstein,1983, p. 16).  The above four points suggest the problem solving values claimed for cybernetics by its proponents in the social/behavioral sciences. Although not without reservations concerning uncritical applications of the cybernetic paradigm, I believe the characteristics formally identified in cybernetic systems offer significant advances for the human sciences. In continuing the line of inquiry presented in this essay, I am preparing an essay that details the problem- solving values claimed for cybernetics by its advocates in the social/behavioral sciences. Inasmuch as the utilization of cybernetics principles in these disciplines has not gone without its critics, this companion piece will also focus on the major criticisms leveled at employing cybernetics in these disciplines, while exploring the manner in which insights from Bateson's work confront and resolve these often valid criticisms.

REFERENCES

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------. "Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia." A.M.A. Archives of General Psychiatry 2 (1960): 477-491; reprinted in Bateson (1972), pp. 244-270.  Bateson, Gregory and Bateson, Mary Catherine. (1987): Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. New York: Macmillan.  Bateson, William. "Gamete and Zygote," in William Bateson, F.R.S., Caroline Beatrice Bateson,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928.  Bernstein, Richard. J. (1983): Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.  von Bertalanffy, Ludwig. (1968a): General Systems Theory. New York: George Braziller.  ------. (1968b) Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory. Barre, Massachusetts: Clark University Press.  ------. (1968c) "General Systems Theory A Critical Review." In Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist, pp. 11-30. Edited by Walter F. Buckley. Chicago: Aldine, 1968.  Brockman, John, ed. (1977): About Bateson. New York: E. P. Dutton.  Brown, Lester R., et al, (1989): State of the World 1989. New York: W. W. Norton.  Buckley, Walter F. (1968): Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist. Chicago: Aldine.  Heims, Steven. "Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 13 (1977): 141-159.  ------. "Encounter of Behavioral Sciences with New Machine-Organism Analogies in the 1940s." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 11 (1975): 368-373. For a detailed and highly informative account of this topic, by the same author, see:  ------. The Cybernetics Group. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.  Kramer, Ernest. "Man's Behavior Patterns." In Positive Feedback, pp. 139-48. Edited by John H. Milsum. London: Pergamon Press, 1968.  Laszlo, Ervin. (1973) Introduction to Systems Philosophy. New York: Harper Torchbook.  ------. (1972): Systems View of the World. New York: George Braziller.  Lettvin, J. Y.; McCulloch, W. S.; Maturana, H. R.; and Pitts, W. H.; co-authors. "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain." Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 47 (1959): 1940-1952.  Lipset, David. (1982): Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist. Boston: Beacon Press.  Macy, Joanna. R. (1978) "Interdependence." Ph.D. Dissertation, Syracuse University.  Makridakis, Spyros "The Second Law of Systems." International Journal of General Systems 4 (1977): 1-12. According to Makridakis, "organization starts whenever a lasting deviation from uniformity (thermodynamic equilibrium) develops." He generalizes this principle as the "Second Law of Systems," which he submits as an antithetical complement to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the employment of which is restricted to closed systems. His "First Law of Systems" is that the relation between organization and energy is non-linear; more complex systems do not require more energy to self-organize and often much less.  Maruyama, Magoroh. "Mutual Causality in General Systems." In Positive Feedback, pp. 80-100. Edited by John H. Milsum. London: Pergamon Press, 1968.

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------. "The Second Cybernetics." American Scientist 51 (1963): 164-179.  ------. "Morphogenesis and Morphostasis." Methodos 12-48 (1960): 251-296.  McCulloch, Warren S. (1965): Embodiments of Mind. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.  Milsum, John. H., ed. (1968): Positive Feedback. London: Pergamon Press. Milsum's preface to this volume acknowledges that, "semantic and conceptual problems have arisen between control specialists and life scientists over use of the term feedback for living systems," and asserts that "the synthesis attempted in this volume should help clear up confusion on this matter."  Rosenblueth, Arturo; Wiener, Norbert; and Bigelow, Julian. "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology." Philosophy of Science 10 (1943): 18-24.  Sayre, Kenneth M. (1976): Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press.  Shannon, Claude E. and, Weaver, Warren. (1964): The Mathematical Theory of Communication. 6th. ed., Urbana: University of Illinois Press.  Simon, Herbert A. "The Organization of Complex Systems." In Hierarchy Theory, pp. 1-28. Edited by Howard Pattee. New York: George Braziller, 1973.  Whyte, Lancelot L. "The Structural Hierarchy in Organisms." In Unity in Diversity: A Festschrift for Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, pp. 271-285. Edited by W. Gray and, N. D. Rizzo. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1973.  Wiener, Norbert. (1950): The Human Use of Human Beings. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press.  ------. Cybernetics. (1948): New York: John Wiley & Sons. David Lipset (1982, p. 180) notes that the word cybernetics historically had three diverse sets of reference: "to automated control mechanisms, to men controlling vehicles such as ships, and to political control in Society. Writing in 1948, as if he was widening the implication of the word, Wiener attributed his use of the term solely to the Greek for 'steersman.' Yet in Plato, this word was already used to refer both to nautical and to social control."  Wilder-Mott, Catherine and, Weakland, John H., editors. (1981): Rigor & Imagination. New York: Praeger.

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First Published in:

 CYBERNETICS & HUMANKNOWING:
 A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics & Cyber-Semiotics