The Second Cyberbetics

Which came first? The second or the first? “The Second Cybernetics” is the title of a 1963 paper by Magoroh Maruyama which I discover from a bit of googling around was considered seminal in shifting the focus of cybernetics from machines and mechanistic systems to the biological and social sphere. Much referenced in many later … Continue reading “The Second Cyberbetics”

Teal & the Spiral Model

Been picking-up links and hits on the blog that had me confused until today. Firstly several Spiral Model hits – presumably from Ken Wilber’s “Intergal” AQAL metaphysical ontology (dervived from Graves, Beck & Cohen) – then several colours including TEAL which at first I suspected to be another acronym, but then realised Teal just another Wilber colour … Continue reading “Teal & the Spiral Model”

Throwing Ishmael Out With The Bathwater @SamiraAhmedUK @RevRichardColes

A little microcosm today of why I find myself (as an atheist) arguing in defence of religious theists, particularly more sophisticated theologian types, when they’re confronted with the stereotypical “flying spaghetti monster” or Dawkins / Krauss  attack formations. You know the kind, since god is clearly a ridiculous supernatural invention, everything you believe or say … Continue reading “Throwing Ishmael Out With The Bathwater @SamiraAhmedUK @RevRichardColes”

It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid

(Editorial Note : This paper was originally prepared for the 2005 Liverpool Conference on Robert Pirsig and his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). It is a personal non-technical view of the MoQ, and indeed the first part of paper is an entirely subjective and naive account of the author’s “thought journey” that led to reading Pirsig … Continue reading “It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid”

Post of Posts Catch-Up

A month or so couple of weeks ago, I posted a holding post for a whole collection of posts I need to write. Despite more than a dozen significant posts since then, not to mention Tweets and Facebook posts, I’ve still barely acknowledged those I telegraphed then, even though some of the subject matter clearly … Continue reading “Post of Posts Catch-Up”

Cybernetics

The term Cybernetics tends to be associated with computer control systems and AI these days, but when the term was first coined it was originally about how systems of any kind – social systems – governed themselves. It was back in 2002 I read Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s work on the origins of cognitive science “The Mechanization … Continue reading “Cybernetics”

Post-Autistic-Memetics

Or even plain old post-autistic-rationality. I keep using the “scientific” meme in scare quotes … the idea that being hyper-rational, fundamentally-objectivist … the meme of using entirely deterministic and reductionist scientific arguments and logical induction … cannot be the basis of a high quality explanation in all but the simplest “scientific” context. (Every debate of … Continue reading “Post-Autistic-Memetics”

The Tao of Physics

1976 book by Frijtof Capra (with 1992 updated afterword). Written slightly after, but published slightly before, Michael Talbot’s Mysticism and the New Physics (Blogged earlier and originally read even earlier.) Excellent books both of them. Capra is a best-seller which has a surprisingly detailed description of state-of-the-art particle physics, together with a summary of the … Continue reading “The Tao of Physics”