Abstract: Cybernetics (cybernetics) emerged over a long period, based on technological and scientific advancements, and rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, influencing design theory and research. Cybernetics (cybernetics) was initially regarded as a discipline in 1970, developing a more thoughtful and philosophical perspective, evolving into second-order cybernetics (second-order cybernetics). This approach provides a method for self-organizing systems that negotiate their own goals in an open process. In other words, design as an introduction to design cybernetics (design cybernetics) outlines the evolution of cybernetics from a technical engineering discipline to a design philosophy perspective.
1.1 Introduction#
Since cybernetics has been widely associated with engineers establishing mechanical feedback in monitors, guidance circuits, and other control systems, it has made significant progress. Over the past half-century, the scope of cybernetics has reached everyday life, encompassing broader human-related fields: biology, management, social sciences, anthropology, education, therapy, and more recently, design. Cybernetics offers an abstract philosophical approach to design as an epistemological practice, described as cybernetics in practice. The background analyzes our discussions on developmental topics.
1.2 World War II and the Rise of Systems Traditions#
Even before the outbreak of World War II, Norbert Wiener (Norbert Wiener), known as the "father of cybernetics" (father of cybernetics), had groundbreaking insights. Wiener realized a clear distinction between the "strong" (strong) currents of electrical systems and the "weak" (weak) currents that were transforming the sounds and sights of the Roaring Twenties. He discovered that in communication and control systems, currents (and radio waves) could be weakened as long as they served the function of signal transmission. After the war broke out in Europe, Wiener and his collaborators Arturo Rosenblueth (Arturo Rosenblueth) and Julian Bigelow (Julian Bigelow) had another profound insight: Western thought has prohibited circular causality (circular causality) since ancient Greece, as it could produce paradoxical conditions that traditional logic could not resolve. However, the team realized that certain systems, such as the metabolism of higher organisms, respond "purposefully" (purposefully) to the effects of their own behavior in a circular causal manner. Although circular causality still posed a logical puzzle, it could no longer be ignored in practice. Through these insights, Wiener grasped the key knowledge and technological transformations of his time. Compared to other military conflicts, World War II was more determined by insights into signals and causality; thus, it was not only a war of power and force but also a war of communication and control. The rise of the Nazi regime was largely due to new means of communication, albeit in a linear relationship. Installing inexpensive radio receivers in German households established a one-way propaganda dissemination network, which largely replaced social mutualism (social mutualism) with a hierarchical authoritarian structure.
Wiener attempted to contribute to the war effort in the field of defense technology. Together with Bigelow, he tried to develop an anti-aircraft system that could predict the trajectory of bombers in an attack and "lead" (ahead of) the projectiles to target the aircraft, hitting the target when the fired projectiles reached their altitude. Their system demonstrated a "positively uncanny" (positively uncanny) ability to predict the trajectory of aircraft within seconds. However, the system did not provide any combat advantage compared to existing methods over the longer time required, and thus was never applied in battle.
Meanwhile, the Germans integrated internal guidance systems into aerial weapons, such as the Fritz X and V-1 flying bombs. Using gyroscopes as attitude sensors, this method had been applied decades earlier in the Whitehead Torpedo (Whitehead Torpedo). It was based on the self-regulating and "negative feedback" (negative feedback) described by cyberneticians: Once a goal is set and a path to that goal is mapped out, a self-correcting cyclical signal structure system known as a "feedback loop" (feedback loop) can be established between motion output and sensory input to regulate its continuous movement along this path. This system ensures that it ultimately reaches the set goal by minimizing the deviation between the actual path and the mapped path, known as "error" (error).
When the V-1 flying bombs crossed the English Channel, they encountered a defense system with negative feedback loops—automated radar tracking stations and projectiles containing proximity fuses (projectiles containing proximity fuses): this was an unprecedented autonomous weapon conflict with minimal human interference. When the V-1's successor, the faster V-2 rocket, was used to attack London, the British managed to apply "positive feedback" (positive feedback) to amplify the errors in the missile targeting control, allowing double agents to feed incorrect impact points back to the Germans, leading to subsequent missiles targeting areas away from densely populated regions, reportedly saving many lives.
Other groundbreaking developments during World War II occurred in the fields of cryptography and cryptanalysis, with key contributions from British Alan Turing (Alan Turing) and American Claude Shannon (Claude Shannon). Shannon had also worked on the aforementioned air defense challenges, developing his signal analysis work into the famous Mathematical Theory of Communication (Mathematical Theory of Communication) (sometimes referred to as Communication Theory (Communication Theory) or Information Theory (Information Theory)). In this work, Shannon benefited from Wiener’s guidance, particularly from the statistical methods Wiener developed for the air defense project.
The rise of authoritarianism in Germany, Italy, and Japan prompted the establishment of the Committee for National Morale. This committee provided the president with advice on propaganda and public morale, formulating strategies to prevent the resurgence of dictatorship. It explained the psychology of National Socialism by separating emotion from reason, amplifying emotion while suppressing reason through mass media propaganda. This perspective would soon inspire a new media that allowed individuals to make their own, emotion- and reason-based choices freely. Members of a democratic society should not be constrained from above but should be free and guided by internal values. Thus, the government found itself facing the contradictory challenge that what must be authorized from the outside must arise from within.
After the war, the relevance of control and circular causal feedback systems did not diminish. When a group of scholars gathered to discuss brain inhibition, Bigelow showcased the work he had done with Rosenblueth and Wiener on purposeful circular causal systems, generating much excitement. This led to a series of meetings held on the topic from 1946 to 1953, with a core group and a constantly changing roster of invited guests from various disciplines. Sponsored by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, this series of meetings is commonly referred to as the Macy Conferences (Macy Conferences). In addition to Wiener and his two collaborators, core participants included neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch (Warren McCulloch) and Walter Pitts (Walter Pitts), mathematician John von Neumann (John von Neumann), physicist Heinz von Foerster (Heinz von Foerster), and anthropologists and alumni of the National Morale Committee Margaret Mead (Margaret Mead) and Gregory Bateson (Gregory Bateson). Participants in the Macy Conferences overcame the terminological barriers of their different disciplines to develop a common new language to explore their shared interest in circular causal feedback systems. Thus, the Macy Conferences became a cradle for what is now referred to as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work.
Margaret Mead (Margaret Mead) had already practiced circular causality in the 1920s during field studies in the South Pacific. Mead rejected the scientific necessity of linear causality, "objectively" (objectively) eliminating observation, possibly being the first American to conduct anthropological research as a participant observer. In contrast, Wiener, in an article published during his tenure as a visiting professor at Tsinghua University from 1935 to 1936 (The role of the observer), rejected the concept of the objective observer and described observation as active participation.
At one Macy Conference, invited British cybernetics expert W. Ross Ashby (W. Ross Ashby) presented his "Homeostat"—a structure consisting of four interconnected boxes—where the role of the observer became a contentious issue. Each box had a movable indicator. When the experimenter moved one or more of these indicators from their neutral positions, the indicators on the remaining boxes would move in the opposite proportion, maintaining a stable overall average, similar to how organisms maintain glucose levels and body temperature. Ashby described the "Homeostat" in terms of the relationship between the organism and its environment. When Bigelow and other attendees asked where the boundary between the organism and the environment lay in the "Homeostat," Ashby felt frustrated, as he had not set any specific boundaries between the four devices and the experimenter. Two years later, he wrote:
When the organism and its environment are treated as a single system, the dividing line between "organism" and "environment" becomes partly conceptual, and to that extent arbitrary. (As the organism and its environment are to be treated as a single system, the dividing line between “organism” and “environment” becomes partly conceptual, and to that extent arbitrary.)
Based on this perspective, Ashby agreed with Mead and Wiener on the observer-dependent viewpoint. He also anticipated that the understanding of the term "system" (system) would change, which is central to cybernetics and its broader family of systems traditions. The etymology of the term "system" (system) points to "putting together," which conceptually parallels the scientific tendency of "taking things apart" (take things apart). After early systems theorists described "systems" (system) in objective terms as "sets of elements standing in interrelation," cyberneticians would ultimately describe systems in subjective terms, distinguishing what is relevant when observers determine their observations. According to this recent perspective, the boundaries of a system are projected through observational behavior, negotiable rather than properties observed.
In 1948, Wiener published a groundbreaking work titled Cybernetics (Cybernetics). Participants in the Macy Conferences adopted Cybernetics (Cybernetics) as the name for their field, with its subtitle "The Science of Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine" (control and communication in the animal and the machine) becoming a prominent definition of cybernetics, along with many other definitions proposed later. The term "cybernetics" (cybernetics) is derived from the Greek adjective "κυβερνητικός," which describes the ability to steer, and is also the root of the word "government." Despite the success of this book and its widespread dissemination, its suitability as a foundation for the new field was ultimately questioned. Glanville (Glanville) argued that Wiener first published Cybernetics (Cybernetics), followed by the more philosophically significant The Human Use of Human Beings (The Human Use of Human Beings), which was a "massive tactical error" (massive tactical error). The technical and mathematical nature of Cybernetics (Cybernetics) led to it being widely regarded as a technical engineering discipline. If the more philosophical The Human Use of Human Beings (The Human Use of Human Beings) had been published first, or, as Glanville speculated elsewhere, if Gregory Bateson (Gregory Bateson) had written the first book on cybernetics instead of Norbert Wiener (Norbert Wiener), this field might today be understood more appropriately as one related to living human beings rather than one solely related to technology.
In Britain, Ashby (Ashby) helped formalize "control" (control) by introducing "variety" (variety) as a measure of the number of states a system can assume. Ashby (Ashby) wrote in his personal diary at the time:
I want to get away from the Shannon method of entropies [and] averaging over infinitely long messages; I want something I can count. (I want to get away from the Shannon method of entropies [and] averaging over infinitely long messages; I want something I can count.)
Ashby (Ashby) explained that traffic lights have three signals: red, yellow, and green, each with an on (on) and off (off) state, which together can yield eight states. However, in its traffic control application, only four actual variants of states were used—for example, the combination of red and green was not utilized. The difference between potential states and actual states is what constitutes a constraint (constraint). Ashby (Ashby) also recognized that reliable control requires specific conditions to be met in the feedback loop, as reflected in his Law of Requisite Variety (Law of Requisite Variety): the variety of the controller must be equal to or greater than the variety of the controlled (the variety of the controller must be equal or greater than the variety of the controlled).
As the world split into the "Eastern bloc" (Eastern bloc) and the "Western bloc" (Western bloc) and fell into the Cold War, cybernetics once again became the tone. Now, conflict was both an academic challenge and a political and military challenge. In academia, most notably cybernetics expert John von Neumann (John von Neumann) developed game theory (game theory)—a mathematical method simulating competition among rational decision-makers. Conflicts, whether in the form of an arms race or outright violence, were now understood as positive feedback (positive feedback), which, if left unchecked, could lead to catastrophic escalation. The development of nuclear weapons and rocket technology in past wars was aimed at ensuring "mutually assured destruction" (mutually assured destruction) on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Both the Soviet Union and the United States occupied most of the resources responsible for the German rocket development research center during World War II. Now, the space race emerged as a symbolic battlefield where competition would amplify innovation rather than direct violence. In the early stages of this competition, the Soviets made rapid progress, launching the first Earth satellite, which plunged the West into the Sputnik Shock (Sputnik Shock).
The beeping radio signals emitted by the Sputnik satellite (Sputnik) and its visibility at night led Americans to begin questioning their superiority in science, technology, and education. The perceived "missile gap" (missile gap) and the anxiety it provoked sparked a wave of profound reflection that spread across the United States. After a few years of optimism in the "space age" (space age), American scientists and engineers lost confidence in the nation's innovative edge, and policymakers and the public began to question the standards and methods of the American education system. The U.S. fell behind in a competition where both sides made scientific development and technological advancement aimed at benefiting their own people a core principle. This allowed them to reach a consensus on how to disagree and provide common conditions and standards for measuring and comparing national achievements. Due to the U.S. lagging behind Soviet accomplishments, President Kennedy promised in 1961 to send humans to the moon and back within a decade. In doing so, he not only defined this competition as a goal-oriented governance challenge, utilizing a systems engineering approach to address it from the perspective of path-goal management theory; he also drew a finish line that had so far been omitted in the space race. The location of this finish line and the technological challenges it implied redefined the competition as a long-term developmental challenge favoring American advantages. In fact, President Kennedy had addressed "the difficulty facing every systems designer, which is in determining the overall system specification, or 'statement of objectives'" (difficulty facing every systems designer [which] is in determining the overall system specification, or ‘statement of objectives’).
The systems engineering (systems engineering) approach (referred to as the systems approach) was first adopted in early ballistic missile development and was embraced by NASA's entire lunar program. As a distant relative of cybernetics within the family of systems traditions, systems engineering adheres to scientific reductionism and linear causal utilitarianism. The technical focus of systems engineering is on pre-specification, rationalization, and optimization, which is inherently compatible not only with the modularity of space exploration systems, such as multi-stage rockets and space station components, but also with the hierarchical organizational management structures responsible for their production and operation. For example, allowing spacecraft to be divided and subdivided into propulsion, communication, navigation and guidance, life support, and other systems and subsystems is based on the assumption that once each subsystem meets its respective sub-goals, the overall goal will be met once all subsystems are integrated into the whole.
1.3 Limitations of Control, Instrumentalism, and Design Methods#
Shortly after the end of World War II, technological innovation, organizational management, task operations, and international conflicts were all incorporated into the realm of strategic governance. An increasing number of people believed that cybernetics was not only a theory describing control but also a theory of purposefully exerting control. Ideological rifts emerged around moral and instrumental issues. For instance, while many celebrated the impending era of industrial automation, Wiener warned that ordinary workers were about to become obsolete. The contrast between Norbert Wiener (Norbert Wiener) and John von Neumann (John von Neumann), two prominent mathematicians and founders of the new field of cybernetics, reflects this ethical divergence. Wiener had never participated in the Manhattan Project; he opposed the secrecy of war research and abhorred the use of nuclear weapons against civilians, while von Neumann played a leading role in the Manhattan Project, was a member of the committee that chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki as nuclear attack targets, and advocated for a nuclear first-strike policy against the Soviet Union.
In the post-war period, it was believed that a wide range of challenges could be purposefully managed through scientific and systematic approaches. The "Sputnik Shock" (Sputnik Shock) stimulated the development of "creativity techniques," and soon, systematic methodologies and management were applied to innovation and design. When Wiener was invited to write a book on the philosophy of invention, an early cybernetic preface on creativity emerged. In a manuscript he wrote in response (but abandoned in 1954 due to other projects), Wiener explained that "the really fundamental and seminal idea is to a large extent a lucky and unpredictable accident" (the really fundamental and seminal idea is to a large extent a lucky and unpredictable accident). He rejected the notion that invention is a rational decision:
The most critical stage of invention [......] is the change in intellectual climate which produces and is produced by a new idea. This may be of untold value to the community, but in the essence of things it is not subject to actuarial work. (The most critical stage of invention [. . . ] is the change in intellectual climate which produces and is produced by a new idea. This may be of untold value to the community, but in the essence of things it is not subject to actuarial work.)
Wiener also compared the emergence of new ideas to lightning. He believed that due to their incidental nature, both lightning and new ideas could be understood and utilized to promote or suppress them under favorable and unfavorable conditions. In this view, invention can be cultivated but cannot be controlled or decisively triggered. However, other pioneering aspects of design cybernetics can be found in Wiener’s work. He defined feedback as "the property of being able to adjust future conduct by past performance" (the property of being able to adjust future conduct by past performance), which anticipated Simon's later description of designers as "who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones" (who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones), and Rittel (Rittel) and Webber's (Webber) description of problems (i.e., design challenges) as "discrepancies between the state of affairs as it is and the state as it ought to be" (as discrepancies between the state of affairs as it is and the state as it ought to be).
Wiener’s work also metaphorically and philosophically foreshadowed the future of design-cybernetics (design-cybernetic). The wartime air defense system he developed with Bigelow integrated the two types of causality described by Aristotle: causa efficiens (explanatory description: "because...") and causa finalis (control: "for..."). These two types of causality correspond on one hand to the descriptive agenda of the natural sciences and on the other hand to the prescriptive, interventionist agenda of engineering and design. Simon (Simon) explained: "The natural sciences are concerned with how things are [. . . ] Design, on the other hand, is concerned with how things ought to be, with devising artefacts to attain goals." (The natural sciences are concerned with how things are [. . . ] Design, on the other hand, is concerned with how things ought to be, with devising artefacts to attain goals.)
If there was a decisive moment when the spark of cybernetics jumped into the field of design, it was the moment when design theory adopted Ashby’s (Ashby) concepts of variety and constraint. Interestingly, this moment occurred twice and essentially independently, when British Gordon Pask (Gordon Pask) and German Horst Rittel (Horst Rittel) both found inspiration in Ashby’s work. Rittel soon described the design process as "the generation of variety, and the reduction of variety" (the generation of variety, and the reduction of variety). These two operations are often simply referred to today as the "diverging" (diverging) and "converging" (converging) phases of design, as illustrated in design process models (such as the double diamond model).
In the 1950s and 60s, there was a desire to "scientise" design. Buckminster Fuller (Buckminster Fuller) announced a "World Design Science Decade" (World Design Science Decade) starting in 1965. The first Conference on Design Methods (Conference on Design Methods) was held in London in 1962, launching the design methods movement, a decade-long academic attempt to rationalize and scientize design. The following year, Horst Rittel (Horst Rittel) moved from the Ulm School of Design (Ulm School of Design) to the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a leading advocate for the design methods movement. He later recalled:
In the beginning, outsiders from architecture, engineering, and business heard about the methods of the systems approach and thought that if it were possible to deal with such complicated things as the NASA programmes then why couldn’t we deal with a simple thing like a house in the same way? Shouldn’t we actually look at every building as a mission-oriented design object? ([I]n the beginning, outsiders from architecture, engineering, and business heard about the methods of the systems approach and thought that if it were possible to deal with such complicated things as the NASA programmes then why couldn’t we deal with a simple thing like a house in the same way? Shouldn’t we actually look at every building as a mission-oriented design object?)
However, within a decade, the design methods movement had run its course and faced opposition from many, including some of its early supporters, who had now recognized that prescriptive methodologies were at odds with the ideals of design. By now, they believed that prescriptive methodologies were opposed to the ideals of design. Jones (Jones) was one of the early supporters of this movement and later a critic, explaining:
Methodology should not be a fixed track to a fixed destination, but a conversation about everything that could be made to happen. The language of the conversation must bridge the logical gap between past and future, but in doing so it should not limit the variety of possible futures that are discussed nor should it force the choice of a future that is unfree. (Methodology should not be a fixed track to a fixed destination, but a conversation about everything that could be made to happen. The language of the conversation must bridge the logical gap between past and future, but in doing so it should not limit the variety of possible futures that are discussed nor should it force the choice of a future that is unfree.)
With appropriate methods and techniques, the concept of systems that can be reliably predicted and controlled was also abandoned in other fields, particularly in ecology. With the failure and abandonment of the design methods movement, design research presented a less prescriptive and more reflective stance, referred to by Rittel as "design methods of the second generation" (design methods of the second generation). This shift coincided with the expansion from first-order cybernetics to second-order cybernetics, perhaps not coincidentally, which will be discussed in the next section.
1.4 First-Order to Second-Order Cybernetics#
Although considered a decisive, instrumental control technology science during the Cold War, we believe that the initiators of this field had different motivations. The work of Margaret Mead (Margaret Mead) as a participatory researcher, along with Wiener’s early recognition of the role of the observer, circular causality (circular causality), and non-determinability (non-determinability) indicate that cybernetics, at its origins, was more reflective than the general understanding and application of mid-20th century cybernetics suggests. To further illustrate this, let us look at Figure 1.1, which shows Norbert Wiener (Norbert Wiener) and his robot Palomilla developed at MIT in the late 1940s.
Palomilla was equipped with sensors, circuits, and motors, navigating purposefully (purposefully) in spaces related to light sources. If you are not familiar with Wiener’s biography, you can see from Figure 1.1 that a mathematician at MIT was striving to achieve vehicle automation, a work that would one day be applied to robotic vacuum cleaners, self-driving cars, and drones on battlefields. While these systems do have some origins in Wiener’s work, we propose a different interpretation of this image, one that aligns more with Wiener’s broader work and the spirit of design cybernetics. We believe that Wiener’s interest in Palomilla was not in its instrumental utility but rather as a metaphor for his own cognitive navigation, which he described in his 1936 article on the role of the observer (role of the observer):
The practicing mathematician knows very well that mathematics as a living investigation is inductive and experimental, whatever it may be when stuffed and mounted in text-books. When I want an auxiliary function to do a definite job, I try one after another, finding the first too big here, the second too small there, until by grace of luck and a familiarity with the habits of the species, I come on an exact fit. Nine-tenths of the possibilities are eliminated on the basis of a general feeling for the situation before it comes to a matter of any real deductive logic whatever. The tenth suggestion slips into place in a way which convinces an old hand that there is something in it – it resolves the difficulties at just the right points, but not so readily as to excite suspicions of a sheer blunder. Once the key will go into the lock, and the bolt begins to show signs of turning, it is a matter of mere filework and oil to get a perfect fit. (The practicing mathematician knows very well that mathematics as a living investigation is inductive and experimental, whatever it may be when stuffed and mounted in text-books. When I want an auxiliary function to do a definite job, I try one after another, finding the first too big here, the second too small there, until by grace of luck and a familiarity with the habits of the species, I come on an exact fit. Nine-tenths of the possibilities are eliminated on the basis of a general feeling for the situation before it comes to a matter of any real deductive logic whatever. The tenth suggestion slips into place in a way which convinces an old hand that there is something in it – it resolves the difficulties at just the right points, but not so readily as to excite suspicions of a sheer blunder. Once the key will go into the lock, and the bolt begins to show signs of turning, it is a matter of mere filework and oil to get a perfect fit.)
Next to this passage, consider another photo of Palomilla, as shown in Figure 1.2. It displays a long exposure photo of Palomilla navigating in space. The glowing vacuum tubes of the robot trace a winding, forward-seeking path, like tracks in the sand, illustrating its trajectory and operational logic. We believe that the light path in Figure 1.2 is significantly related to Palomilla's movement in space, much like Wiener’s description above. They are traces left by transient processes, recorded for others to read, linking to forward-looking exploration and engaging in reflections on how we venture into and explore the unknown. In this way, Palomilla is not only a precursor to today’s Roomba vacuum cleaners but also a means to understand the formation processes of Roomba and other things and processes—a "machine for showing" (machine for showing), a reflection of cognition, and a precursor to design cybernetics.
As a "practicing mathematician" (practicing mathematician), Wiener remained largely committed to the representationalist paradigm (representationalist paradigm) until his death in 1964. He did not live to see the self-reflection he implied emerge as an explicit foundation of his discipline. Primarily, Heinz von Foerster (Heinz von Foerster) proposed a behavioral cybernetics that applied to itself and matched its content with its form: second-order cybernetics (second-order cybernetics). Later, when asked how he "came upon" (came upon) second-order cybernetics, von Foerster credited Margaret Mead (Margaret Mead) and her 1968 speech at the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC). In this speech, Mead retrospectively named it "the cybernetics of cybernetics" (Cybernetics of Cybernetics), urging the ASC to apply the insights and techniques of cybernetics to its own organization and operations.
Recognizing the role of the observer and circular causality, von Foerster explained that any description or theory must account for the observer (observes) and the describer (describes), as well as their descriptions (describing) and theorizing (theorizing). For those who accept it, this is a research attitude, an ethical stance guided by an intrinsic responsibility, ultimately an aesthetic desire. Von Foerster’s ethical concept of second-order cybernetics is based on the subjective responsibility of the self, defined by his/her system boundaries. Based on this view: ". . . freedom always exists. At each and every moment, I can decide who I am" (... freedom always exists. At each and every moment, I can decide who I am). Von Foerster explained that the choice of action is internally determined, and thus responsibility is also internal. Another choice is action motivated by external incentives, which is the basis of authoritarianism and the rejection of individual responsibility observed in the Nuremberg trials (Nuremberg trials): "I had no choice. I was merely following orders!" (I had no choice. I was merely following orders!). Thus, von Foerster distinguished ethics (ethics) from morals (morals). In this view, (linearly) guiding others on what to think and do ("though it should...," "though it should not...") constitutes morals (morals), while ethics (ethics) (circular) pertains to oneself ("I should...," "I should not..."). Therefore, ethics (ethics) cannot become explicit but is manifested in action. To help promote the necessary freedom, von Foerster proposed his Constructivist Ethical Imperative: “I shall act always so as to increase the total number of choices” (I shall act always so as to increase the total number of choices).
For most of the 1960s, cybernetics, particularly von Foerster’s Biological Computer Laboratory (Biological Computer Laboratory, BCL), benefited from research funding provided by the U.S. Department of Defense (Department of Defense, DoD) for the development of computer technology. This situation changed when the Mansfield Amendment (Mansfield Amendment) of the 1970 Defense Procurement Authorization Act (Defense Procurement Authorization Act) restricted the DoD's support for basic research "with a direct and apparent relationship to a specific military function or operation" (with a direct and apparent relationship to a specific military function or operation), and ethically-oriented cybernetics experts, led by von Foerster himself, were not prepared to provide such support. Others, particularly in artificial intelligence, responded with bold commitments—often based on technological concepts originating from cybernetics—to achieve applicability of research outcomes on the battlefield, thus securing generous support. Although this Pentagon policy was later relaxed, its reallocation of funding strengthened AI research at MIT, Stanford, and elsewhere, and was seen as a contributing factor to the closure of the Biological Computer Laboratory in 1974 and von Foerster's retirement in 1976.
The transition from first-order cybernetics to second-order cybernetics is better understood as an expansion than a shift. Cybernetics as a control engineering discipline can be seen as a constrained subset of cybernetics as a broader, more universal spirit, akin to the position of Newtonian mechanics within Einsteinian mechanics. In other system-oriented research traditions, this broader, newer form of cybernetics starkly contrasts with the assumptions underlying traditional empirical sciences, acknowledging "holism" (holism), context, relationships, circular causality, uncertainty, subjective observers, and self-organization.
To illustrate the non-determinacy and observer dependence of circular causality, von Foerster (Von Foerster) introduced two automata, the trivial machine (trivial machine, TM) and the non-trivial machine (non-trivial machine, NTM). Both machines are thought experiments rather than suggestions for technical implementations. They both have an input and an output channel, but their internal mechanisms for transforming input into output differ. TM predictably transforms input into corresponding output, allowing an external observer, after a period of observation, to establish a clear relationship between possible inputs and resulting outputs, as shown in the "assignment table" (assignment table) on the left side of Figure 1.3. A complete assignment table is a reliable model that can predict TM's output response to given inputs, regardless of how long the machine has been running. In contrast, NTM contains methods for remembering machine states (marked as z in Figure 1.3). This state is influenced not only by each input-output transformation but also jointly determines the output of subsequent transformations.
This leads to a multitude of continuously changing input-output mappings. One could argue that the operational history of NTM leaves traces in the machine, effectively transforming it into a different machine with each input-output transformation. Von Foerster posed the challenge of determining the two machines from the perspective of an external observer, who, without understanding their internal workings, must construct a mental model of how they operate—what Glanville (Glanville) referred to as "whitening" (whiten) a "black box" (black box). This is straightforward for TM but nearly impossible for NTM. This inability to understand and predict the observed system is satisfying and delightful, as it is the source of magic and wonder. Von Foerster used the juxtaposition of his two machines to distinguish between trivial input-output systems and non-trivial input-output systems. Non-trivial systems, including humans, are equipped with memory and circular paths through which the outputs of earlier operations can re-enter as inputs for subsequent operations, thereby influencing themselves in unpredictable ways through their interactions. Using mechanisms (mechanisms) to question cultural preoccupations with mechanical causality has been a sly rhetorical device in the past and continues to be so today. However, to avoid misunderstanding, we must emphasize that the mechanistic cybernetic metaphors (mechanistic cybernetic metaphors) of biological and social systems are merely metaphors. Comparing NTM to human thought does not imply that thought operates like a mechanism or that such a mechanism can function like human thought. This analogy merely indicates that with the recognition of circular causality re-entry and memory, there is also an understanding of simple mechanisms and the uncertainties encountered by humans.
Von Foerster (Von Foerster) mentioned the distinction between triviality (triviality) and non-triviality (non-triviality) in the context of his criticism of educational institutions that treat children as trivial systems (trivial systems), training them to provide reliable known answers to old questions. In this context, he also used another example of non-triviality (non-triviality): when a schoolchild answers the question "What is 2 times 2?" with "Green!" she would be reprimanded and "trivialized" until she provided the expected answer "4." The child's spontaneous expression of novelty, transcending the expected variety, captures the lightning-like creative moments that Wiener described. While von Foerster’s description of NTM does not explain the principles at work in such moments, they are elucidated in conversation theory (Conversation Theory), which will be outlined in the next section.
1.5 Conversation and Design#
Jones (Jones) is not the only design researcher to describe the design process as a "conversation" (conversation). Both internal and external design researchers in design cybernetics later recognized the cyclical structure of the design process, describing it as an "argumentative" (argumentative) "conspiracy" (conspiracy) characterized by "symmetry of ignorance" (symmetry of ignorance), being "dialectical" (dialectical), "discursive" (discursive), "dialogical" (dialogue), or "negotiation" (negotiation).
The cyclical structure of the design process must break away from the linear structures of Western logic and Shannon's communication theory (Communication Theory). Gordon Pask's (Gordon Pask) conversation theory (Conversation Theory) provides such a structure. Conversation theory (Conversation Theory) explains the cognitive processes, the gradual understanding we achieve in learning, design, and research. It is a radical constructivist theory (radical constructivist theory) based on circular exchanges (circular exchanges). It does not view "knowledge" (knowledge) as a commodity that can be stored and transferred but sees knowing and the process of knowing as a subjectively executed process. Pask's work is sometimes considered difficult to understand, but his students Ranulph Glanville (Ranulph Glanville), Paul Pangaro (Paul Pangaro), and Scott (Scott) further developed his work, making it more accessible.
Unlike Shannon's symbols transmitted linearly from sender to receiver through a channel affected by noise, conversation theory (Conversation Theory) describes the circular causality between two or more conversants. Out of a desire to explain more with less (Occam's razor), conversation theory (Conversation Theory) typically illustrates and explains with two conversants: a subjective self (self) and an other (other). These two roles can occur in one person, who may engage in a dialogue with an imagined other, or among two or more groups, where multiple individuals may play the role of one person. A key challenge in establishing this model of interpersonal communication is that meaning (meaning) is private. Shannon's communication theory (Communication Theory) recognized this challenge by explicitly excluding meaning from its focus. Conversation theory (Conversation Theory) addresses this issue by describing a process in which conversants pursue mutual understanding through timely comparisons and rephrasing of each other's ideas. This process continues until the conversants feel that their respective understandings are close enough to warrant further dialogue, as if their meanings were shared, as if they were addressing the same issue. When they do not reach such consensus, they must seek common ground while acknowledging differences. This process is illustrated in Figure 1.4.
Everyday exchanges are "out of control" (out of control) in "accidental errors" (same as above), adjusting and synchronizing thoughts and understandings by reducing the negative impact of "errors" (errors). Differences in understanding challenge previous notions, expanding the variety of other ideas, and utilizing positive feedback to stimulate new thoughts through "errors." These two conversational modes reflect how the design process is both "converging" (converging) and "diverging" (diverging), and how designers can reliably achieve expectations (for example, in terms of time, space, and rules) while unexpectedly challenging those expectations (for example, through invention, speculation, and challenge). A design-oriented self may engage in a dialogue with a cunning other. As shown in Figure 1.5, life can be a person, a character in a drama, a physical model, a pen and paper, or a brilliant technology.
What qualifies such contact to become a dialogue is that the self is not only prepared to influence the other but also ready to be influenced by the other in a circular causal manner. For example, a designer might mark a sketch on paper (influencing another person), and then, perhaps viewing the sketch from the side, discover something unintended and consider this idea in the creative process (being influenced by another person). Fantini and Ranulph Glanville (Ranulph Glanville) emphasized the importance of this openness by highlighting the role of "listening" (listening) (metaphorically applicable to all modes of perception). Von Foerster (Von Foerster) followed a similar line of thought, proposing his "hermeneutic principle" (Hermeneutic Principle): "It’s the listener, not the speaker, who determines the meaning of an utterance" (It’s the listener, not the speaker, who determines the meaning of an utterance). As a complement to this principle, he also proposed his aesthetic imperative (Aesthetical Imperative): "If you desire to see, learn how to act" (If you desire to see, learn how to act). As the Latin root of the word conversation suggests (conversare = to turn together, or to dance), from this perspective, design is a feedback loop of influencing and being influenced, a feedback loop of expression and listening, or more broadly, a feedback loop of action and understanding, with negotiable goals. We believe this characteristic is a sufficient definition of design.
Scott (Scott) considers conversation theory (Conversation Theory) to be "a pioneering achievement in modeling cognition as an evolutionary, self-organizing process" (pioneering achievement in modelling cognition as an evolutionary, self-organising process). This description highlights a key feature of conversation: it is a process completed in a timely manner. Thus, conversation contrasts with some principles of the West, particularly the reasoning of the natural sciences. Feedback and dialogue run counter to formal logic, through which we evaluate declarative statements and draw conclusions in terms of "true" or "false." For thousands of years, Western logicians have avoided circular causality to prevent the paradoxical conditions they might produce. Statements like "This is a lie" (This is a lie.) are prohibited in traditional formal reasoning. This is because formal logic is sequential; according to the principle of excluding middle factors, a statement cannot be both true and false. In contrast, cybernetics acknowledges temporal processes. For example, a thermostat can alternately turn on and off over time. What seems paradoxical from the perspective of formal logic is a direct oscillation from the perspective of cybernetics. The temporal structures recognized by cybernetics can further produce ideal dynamics, such as sustained self-stability (observable in technical control systems) and spontaneous novelty (observable in dialogue). Many feedback loops in cybernetics are not aimed at "concluding" (conclude) but rather at continuing forward. This is one of the barriers to fairly addressing the behavioral nature of design in the rational language of academic research.
"Conversational cycles" (Conversational cycles) unfold "out of control" in everyday dialogue, developing in unpredictable directions, leading to unexpected ideas and new concepts. Neither requiring nor aiming for necessary diversity, the conceptual grasp of the conversants (variety) differs, and the dialogue itself generates new diversity interactively at certain moments while reducing diversity at others, prompting familiar individuals to do things previously unknown (at least subjectively) rather than stimulating them to pursue known goals. While technical control systems are constrained by the available diversity of control, dialogue is limitless. In dialogue, diversity may (and often does) vary due to the conversants. It is itself variable, influenced by the dialogue it shapes. Errors, differences, and misunderstandings between self and other are seen as potential sources of insight and inspiration rather than necessarily needing correction or avoidance.
Perhaps digital computers, traditionally viewed as logical machines, can simulate the transformation of given inputs into outputs, if approached in this way, becoming a simulated computational process over time. This allows for circular human-machine interaction. Bateson (Bateson) observed that "the computer is merely an arc of a larger circuit that always includes a person and an environment" (The computer is merely an arc of a larger circuit that always includes a person and an environment). Glanville (Glanville) expressed this with a digital surrealist technique: one can close their eyes, randomly input text into a computer's word processor, and then the computer can flag the material as misspelled, allowing the poet to select preferred lyrics and recommendations from the spell checker to collaboratively create poetry. Achieving this way is an interaction between self and self: "the intermediary is the source of interaction and also its pattern and site" (the intermediary is the source of interaction and also its pattern and site). In this design-cybernetic view, I (media) encounter uncertainty and error, noise and harm because we are harmed by what we experience as incorrect, "the irrationality we experience [...] may lead to [...] novelty" (the inaccuracies we experience [...] may lead to [...] novelty). Glanville (Glanville) compares this way of relating the design process and its outcomes to the relationship between neighbors.
1.6 Conclusion: Adjusting New Perspectives#
From a macro perspective, cybernetics can be defined as a discipline studying the processes by which the states of events are adjusted based on other states (the process of studying the adjustment of states of affairs based on other states). The perception of reality is a practice of adjustment.
One is the adjustment to the recognition of circular dynamic relationships (AB, B), which includes the self-regulating feedback that plays a role in monitoring and guiding systems over time. Accompanying this relocation from a video perspective to a panoramic perspective, another non is the shift from a conceptual process perspective to a dynamic focus. Rather than producing deterministic expressions, statements articulated in real and imagined ways are temporal. Determinism is present. In simple mechanical systems, outcomes can be determined by prior causes. As more "active cells" (moving) influence each other in a circular flow, the improbability of actions further adjusts the principles of cybernetics.
In addition to these adjustments, there is also continuity in the expansion from first-order to second-order cybernetics. Early control engineering terminology proved applicable to describing various aspects of uncontrolled processes: reactions, interventions, needed strikes, suppressions, errors, etc. Proponents argue that cybernetics is a spirit. Particularly, the ethical ambition of design cybernetics (ethical ambition) is the overall ambition to increase choices. These two goals apply to the design process, the results of design, and the control programs adopted in design methodologies, thus not providing a prescriptive methodology for design while pursuing more choices and enjoyment in our personal and collective selves.
Compiled from: Introduction to Design Cybernetics