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Dualism in cybernetics refers to systems or problems in which one or more intelligent adversaries attempt to exploit the weaknesses of the investigator. Examples could include a game-playing opponent, adversarial law, evolutionary systems of predator/parasite and prey/host, or politics/enslavement attempts.
Dualism in cybernetics emerged from the notion that there is another form of dualism besides the classical mind-matter dualism and this is the form-matter variant first proposed by the philosopher Anaxagoras and further developed by Plato and Aristotle. [1] Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, used this as the basis of his position that information is a different reality from matter and energy. [1] In the foundational discipline of cybernetics that he developed, Wiener also drew from the Cartesian dualism, which differentiated non-cognitive body and non-extended/disembodied mind. [2] He outlined a dualism that opposed matter/energy with information and proposed that it is possible for the living and non-living to be within the same wall that once divided them.[ clarification needed ] [1]
Gregory Bateson contributed to the development of this notion of dualism through his theory of mind, which proposed that the mind extends the boundaries of the brain and body so that it is able to take multiple feedback loops, which then creates the link between organisms and the rest of the natural world. [3] The key element here is the concept of feedback, which allows the identification of causal loops so that a system can change its behavior and receive information back from the environment concerning the external changes resulting from that changed behavior, using it as a basis for future actions. [3] This cybernetic idea challenged the traditional subject/object dualism.
Wiener contrasted "Manichean devils" (dualistic adversarial systems) with "Augustinian devils"—systems or problems that, though very complex and difficult to figure out, did not feature an adversary with contrary intent. [4] [ irrelevant citation ] Victories or "expansions of knowledge" in the latter type of system were able to be built upon incrementally, through science (experimentation expanding empirical knowledge bases). Wiener noted that temporary weaknesses (such as errors to perceive all components of a system) were not fatal in attempts to defeat "Augustinian devils" because another experiment could simply be pursued (and he noted that he had personally defeated many "Augustinian devils" with his contributions to science and engineering). By contrast, Wiener observed that temporary lapses in judgment against "Manichean devils" were more often fatal or destructive, due to the desire of the opponent to "win/survive at all costs", even by introducing deception into the system. He said that he had been defeated by many "Manichean devils", such as on occasions when he was temporarily careless in chess.
Although this duality between complexity (in the case of the Augustinian devils) and opposition (in the case of Manichean devils) may seem obvious, it holds deep implications for many areas of science, such as game theory, political science, computer science, network science, security science, military science, evolutionary biology, and cryptography. [5] [ irrelevant citation ]
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent parts that can be natural or human-made. Every system is bounded by space and time, influenced by its environment, defined by its structure and purpose, and expressed through its functioning. A system may be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior.
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.
Teleology or finality is a reason or explanation for something as a function of its end, purpose, or goal, as opposed to as a function of its cause. A purpose that is imposed by a human use, such as the purpose of a fork to hold food, is called extrinsic.
Heinz von Foerster was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice a Guggenheim fellow and also was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1980. He is well known for his 1960 Doomsday equation formula published in Science predicting future population growth.
Negative feedback occurs when some function of the output of a system, process, or mechanism is fed back in a manner that tends to reduce the fluctuations in the output, whether caused by changes in the input or by other disturbances.
W. Ross Ashby was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby.
Ștefan Odobleja was a Romanian physician and scientist, considered in Romania to be one of the precursors of cybernetics and artificial intelligence.
Arturo Rosenblueth Stearns was a Mexican researcher, physician and physiologist, who is known as one of the pioneers of cybernetics.
Psycho-Cybernetics is a self-help book written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz. Many of the psychological methods of training elite athletes are based on the concepts in Psycho-Cybernetics as well. The book combines the cognitive behavioral technique of teaching an individual how to regulate self-concept, using theories developed by Prescott Lecky, with the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann. The book defines the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining personal goals.
Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask was an English author, inventor, educational theorist, cybernetician and psychologist who made significant contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and educational technology. Pask first learned about cybernetics in the early 1950s when the originator of the subject, Norbert Wiener, spoke at Cambridge University, where Pask was an undergraduate student. Pask was asked to be of assistance during Wiener's talk.
The Macy Conferences were a set of meetings of scholars from various disciplines held in New York under the direction of Frank Fremont-Smith at the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation starting in 1941 and ending in 1960. The explicit aim of the conferences was to promote meaningful communication across scientific disciplines, and restore unity to science. There were different sets of conferences designed to cover specific topics, for a total of 160 conferences over the 19 years this program was active; the phrase "Macy conference" does not apply only to those on cybernetics, although it is sometimes used that way informally by those familiar only with that set of events. Disciplinary isolation within medicine was viewed as particularly problematic by the Macy Foundation, and given that their mandate was to aid medical research, they decided to do something about it. Thus other topics covered in different sets of conferences included: aging, adrenal cortex, biological antioxidants, blood clotting, blood pressure, connective tissues, infancy and childhood, liver injury, metabolic interrelations, nerve impulse, problems of consciousness, and renal function.
Peter Andrew Corning is an American biologist, consultant, and complex systems scientist, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, in Seattle, Washington, and is known especially for his work on the causal role of synergy in evolution.
In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs, without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The term can be used to refer to many inner workings, such as the ones of a transistor, an engine, an algorithm, the human brain, or an institution or government.
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with regulatory and purposive systems. The core concept of cybernetics is circular causality or feedback—where the observed outcomes of actions are taken as inputs for further action in ways that support the pursuit and maintenance of particular conditions, or their disruption. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causality, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson maintains a steady course in a changing environment by adjusting their steering in continual response to the effect it is observed as having. Other examples of circular causal feedback include: technological devices such as thermostats ; biological examples such as the coordination of volitional movement through the nervous system; and processes of social interaction such as conversation. Cybernetics is concerned with feedback processes such as steering however they are embodied, including in ecological, technological, biological, cognitive, and social systems, and in the context of practical activities such as designing, learning, managing, conversation, and the practice of cybernetics itself. Cybernetics' transdisciplinary and "antidisciplinary" character has meant that it intersects with a number of other fields, leading to it having both wide influence and diverse interpretations.
Robert Vallée was a French cyberneticist and mathematician. He was Professor at the Paris 13 University and president of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC),.
The Human Use of Human Beings is a book by Norbert Wiener, the founding thinker of cybernetics theory and an influential advocate of automation; it was first published in 1950 and revised in 1954. The text argues for the benefits of automation to society; it analyzes the meaning of productive communication and discusses ways for humans and machines to cooperate, with the potential to amplify human power and release people from the repetitive drudgery of manual labor, in favor of more creative pursuits in knowledge work and the arts. The risk that such changes might harm society is explored, and suggestions are offered on how to avoid such risk.
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine is a book written by Norbert Wiener and published in 1948. It is the first public usage of the term "cybernetics" to refer to self-regulating mechanisms. The book laid the theoretical foundation for servomechanisms, automatic navigation, analog computing, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and reliable communications.
Kenneth M. Sayre is an American philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Notre Dame (ND). His early career was devoted mainly to philosophic applications of artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and information theory. Later on his main interests shifted to Plato, philosophy of mind, and environmental philosophy. His retirement in 2014 was marked by publication of a history of ND's Philosophy Department, Adventures in Philosophy at Notre Dame.
Adversarial machine learning is a machine learning technique that attempts to exploit models by taking advantage of obtainable model information and using it to create malicious attacks. The most common reason is to cause a malfunction in a machine learning model.
Cybernetics in the Soviet Union had its own particular characteristics, as the study of cybernetics came into contact with the dominant scientific ideologies of the Soviet Union and the nation's economic and political reforms: from the unmitigated anti-Americanistic criticism of cybernetics in the early 1950s; its legitimisation after Stalin's death and up to 1961; its total saturation of Soviet academia in the 1960s; and its eventual decline through the 1970s and 1980s.
