Cybernetics

Cybernetics is a technique that must be practiced as an artform. While the word evokes ideas of computer networks, the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition is ‘of relating to’. The ‘relating to’ is a reference to information as a relationship between observer and the observed.

Cybernetics makes the observation that observers are not separate from their reality. We are humans in universe and our observations ultimately impact our reality.

While the thermostat may feature prominently in cybernetic literature as an example of control and feedback, the dance of a honeybee as it signals resource location is more evocative. Once the realisation that we are an inseparable part of nature dawns on an agent, then the cybernetic artforms practiced by that agent will be modified accordingly. In the words of Mushin, we will seek a Metastable Coordination Dynamics.

To explore the topic further, I’ve left resources from three contemporary Cyberneticians below –