Topic · 5 articles
Observers and Knowledge
What changes when the observer is part of the system being described.
Third-Order Cybernetics
A contested and still-forming idea. Four proposals for what comes after the observer, and what they have in common.
Second-Order Cybernetics
The cybernetics of observing systems. What changes when the observer is included in the description?
Paul Pangaro: Cybernetics as Conversation
A Pask student who found AI unsatisfying and cybernetics human. How Paul Pangaro presents the field today: purpose, conversation, and design.
The Protagonists of Second-Order Cybernetics
Von Foerster, Maturana, Varela, Pask, von Glasersfeld, Bateson, Luhmann, and Glanville: where their thinking came from and what they were trying to do.
The Philosophy Behind Cybernetics
Purpose without mysticism, mind as pattern, and the observer who cannot step outside: how cybernetic philosophy developed through the first, second, and third orders.