Hi all. I've been in the throws on conducting a survey on modern
cybernetetics in second-order systems, constructivism, relativism,
holism, reductionsim, etc. in which I've found an interesting article
at Principia Cybernetica Web:

<A HREF="http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Cybernetics-
EPST.pdf">http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Cybernetics-EPST.pdf</A>

It provides excellent overview of these systems as an introduction to
second order cybernetics. For anyone with a serious interest in
cyberenetics, the Principia Cybernetica is an excellent place to find
resources such as this for which a relevant perspective could be
built atop of the works of Maltz in particular.

However, it is very surpirsing to see the divide in psycho-
cybernetics and conventional cybernetics and Maltz is seemingly left
out of the main-stay of cybernetics materials that I've been
researching here and elsewhere on the web, its become as if he is
light years ahead as an understanding--even today.

As a former skeptic of psycho-cybernetics, I had thought that such
notions of mind-control in themselves, which had bee nexplored here
at this group, could pose a threat to the average individual wherein
situations could be architected by some out-side force by which the
line between conventional thinking and delusional thinking could
become blurred thus leading to confusion between those who have been
exposed to certain environmental stimuli and those who had not--or
even as an understanding of cybernetics in general. However after
reading Psycho-Cybernetics, I began to perceive these notions as a
way to individualize cybernetics and avoiding the concept of
delusional thinking altogether. In a way that the benefits out-
weighed negative aspects through which mind-control had originally
conjured to my own mind--to include in the experience, certain
factors that have a basis in either the subject or object as an
irrational domain in itself, and that could be almost infinitely
explored as a distinction. I now believe that psycho-cybernetics
would explain such things as psycho-education, telepathy, and
alternative modes of communication through which even transhumanism
as has evolved over the years, as could be interpreted and explained
by the cybernetic system in such domains as the irrational. I began
developing a perspective of connectionisms in modern cybernetics to
which the constructivism vs relativism argument could once and for
all be settled by a solid model for self-realizing and self-
organizing systems--almost a third-order cybernetics have you.

The first question is, is psycho-cybernetics already a third-order
cybernetics already? Well the answer to this question could no
further be answered in time than explained without a primary
understanding of systems theory. What's required is some rethinking
into the way we perceive cybernetics and interact with each other.
Instead of something that is applied to the subject as an object
oriented system (a paradox in itself), we would begin seeing it as
something that is applied to the irrational domain instead, a
canonical system between these two spheres wherein we would begin to
find patterns in the such a domain which could be applied to either
subject or object, and there from, factor in certain stimuli that
could be best described as extra-para-remedial between interactive
systems at greater precisions. Could a world's society be controlled
as the flow of information becomes a flow of objects, and could this
flow of objects be controlled and regulated to the point of virtual
transport without the all the business of the middle-man? A form of
C2C ie. consumer to consumer exchange have you?

The first step that one could take is to use the network in order to
realize his or herself as a truly autonomous system. A so called,
third order cybernetics, reborn to the network in discovering faults
that had existed in the psycho-physical system itself prior to such
existence. The second question here to the previous paragraph is,
what structures could evolve as a result of a social rennaisance that
should cause the way we in which we come to terms with technology, to
change the order to embrace this, objectivism, and come to terms with
each other? Well, this rennaisance in the web, the so called Web 2.0
is the first sign of this. However without an actual upgrade in the
protocols which we use to exchange information on the web, I think
its alot of hot-air. It does not yet allow for the canonical system,
at least as it is understood in digital signal processing, to emerge
with the infinities that determine the domain between subject or
object, as an applied system ie. augmented reality. It would take
total and complete autonomy in order to discover its untold history,
wherein the essence of the constructivism that exists in modern
cybernetics would become just another encapsulation and a means to
filter this encapuslation as an infinite impulse response (and avoid
past mistakes due to these faults in the process). A feed-back loop
between the objective envoronment and its subjective realm that
could 'chisel' from the emergent system, the history of such faults
as they become apparent. A social system of re-cycling in which we
could take the 'garbage' on the net, and turn it into something
useful. Case in point. We learn from our mistakes, and we learn
even more on the net that the emergent qualities can be re-used. I'm
not quite sure if all of this is necessarily 'good', but it exists.

The net has a way of amplifying certain information to affect the
user in ways that are supposed to be predictable. But what happens
when this positive feedback causes the system to become unstable
because the predictions are out-dated, and the out-dated predictions
can be used 'against' something? Nothing can be predicted with one
hundred percent certainty. A greater dynamic range is required to
capture the effective signal, and separate it from the noise, even
the one hundred percent prediction becomes rationalized. As the
range increases, so does the noise, and hence the predictability
decreases, and the irrational number extends. Which is what we
want. A one hundred percent certain and continuous system. And here
exists the 'magic' of cybernetics. It is an effective tool to
control the noise and generate the sub-band. And it is the sub-band
that can be incorporated and filtered by the second-order system
quite effectively, and dynamically, like a non-canonical system (from
what I've read so far). Its quite easy to superimpose an non-
canonical second order IIR filter onto the second-order cybernetic
system, and say that similarities exist, sonservatively speaking.
Both use positive and negative feed-back to attenuate and
discriminate certain qualities of the signal that we could say are
desirable, both work on a stimulus or signal that acts on the circuit
or the environment. And with virtual reality, we have a way of
projecting the objective realm of the user into the network, to
increase the precision of the filter in order to increase the dynamic
range by creating a dual in order to increase the precision of the
prediction instead of the accuracy. So systems become easier to
understand and 'chisel' to conserve the perception mechanism that
proves Maltz's self-success mechanism in psycho-cybernetics.

And to this, I've derived from the second-order system, what I call a
canonical model of the second-order system, separating the
environment into two "spheres" which comprise the physical and psycho-
physical realms. It would extend the second order system in a way
that hope Maltz would be proud.

The question is, are we ready for third-order cybernetics, and do the
opposing trends towards projecting the medium and filtering the
content become too exclusive? Will we ever be ready for third-order
cybernetics? Is there a convergence? Perhaps there is a way to
explain this model in which we could incorporate digital signal
processing in a way that depends less on the environmental system
itself, and increase the chance that for every unique individual,
there is a unique signal. This has been known for years in the
development of psycho-social compendiums and role-playing games.

I'd just like to offer my take on this specific work to conjecture
that there is a third-order cybernetics out there that we've yet to
come together and define. In that, I propose that a future model
exists for which these second-order systems actually derive from that
maps the future onto the past, what I call the reverse transitive
implication of cybernetics, wherein the strict division in the field
could be described in what respects could otherwise be called arcane
to the past system instead of the future. And there is some what,
alot of room for this conjecture. We would see a dynamic topology on
the web become a dynamic geography/cartography through terracentric
realational databases. We would see augmentative systems emerge to
provide a means of survival to the fledgling cybernetic system in
order to expand consciousness and evolve into the higher civilization
as this 'great mind' of technology. We would see the *controlled*
applications of this technology to develop a world in which a real
diversity in virtual environments becomes the object of democratic
terraforming leasing to the actual placement of planets as a quantum
synchrony with the big-bang and the near instantaneous transport of
objects. Dynamic books. For that matter, we would see the
divergence of this single big-bang, into many big-bangs, through the
emergence of phenomena in the psyco-physical environment to account
for so many so called 'multiple realities'--a concept that I had
attributed to different models of the universe that could be unified
into a signle 'univii'.

But it has its limits when confined to the second order system,
taking advantage of the psycho-physical reality of systems more
advanced as an environmental attribute. In the discovery of these
phenomena, the instincts of a person could more or less drive one for
the return of lost objects or time, to such a point that the
individual loses connection to the 'great mind' that has caused the
emergence of these phenomena to become pronounced. Cybernetics could
be used, as it has been programmed, to create an enemy by the reality
that technology, economy, or even an eco-system, could've been
programmed to become just such an entity in order to fulfill its
purpose--in previous generations. With a lack of enemies, lack of
standards, and/or lack of a ratings system, it would lead to the
double bind of these scenarios, itself, to become confused and
deluded by its effective use whereby the reverse transitive
implication becomes an equivalence through that which it has been
designed to project or reject, and devalued--the re-occurences of the
Y2K problem for instance. Manifolds of these systems could allow the
infamous 'hacker' to implant viruses on computers without even a
trace. People could become lost in this virtual environment, losing
ties to the past whereby memories have been virtualized by an
authoritarian system, coming to power by taking advantage of these
autonomous systems wherein broadcast media could become hyper-
manipulated.

However unlikely due to the shear amount of information that is
available on the Internet and the virtues of true autonomy, both the
positive and negative aspects of this dynamicism can revert to the
inherent connectionism that exists in the argument. I personally
believe that constructivism will fade to the truly canonical system
whereby we've learned that the psycho-physical realm cannot be
subjectified. It will take an inclination to the implicit revolution
in thinking that such networks pose to the user, in order to become
truly self-aware systems, and be able to sense such abuses when they
happen. Perhaps with the development of weighted connections. A
truly connectionless Internet is on the order of five to fifty years
away, and the individual system must not be overloaded to that point
before. It will take the development of a subject oriented language
as a role based system for instance that the development of third
order cybernetics to become reality. In effect, we must control the
control in order to realize the reality. So I do believe that psycho-
cybernetics is a third order cybernetics as this group represents its
evolution.

I hope that this article has shed some light for anyone who is
reading it and that we are able to come together to make some
definitions as to the developments that it will require. And for all
that I missed in this, happy belated MLK day.

Patrick Ashley Meuser"-Bianca"
Cyberneticist