I have been a member of the Psycho-Cybernetics discussion forum for
many years, and I never seen anybody with such a profound
understanding of what Psycho-Cybernetics REALLY is, as the people on
this CyberneticsNow forum.

As the Psycho-Cybernetics forum had problems with spam and lack of
moderation, I would very much appreciate of the Psycho-Cybernetics
people would move over to this excellent CyberneticsNow forum where
there seems to be a much better environment for discussing the
essence of Psycho-Cybernetics and Social Cybernetics in general.

Could those who are members both on this forum and on the Psycho-
Cybernetics forum please motivate people to move over to this forum?

There are many interesting questions being asked in the mail below.
Personally, I think I would say that Psycho-Cybernetics is second
order cybernetics as third order cybernetics would probably require
somebody to observe somebody who observeres himself. The idea of
Psycho-Cybernetics is simply to observe oneself (provide feedback),
which, to me, seems to be fully consistent with the idea of second
order cybernetics.

John K. Balor


--- In cyberneticsNow@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ashley Meuser-
Bianca" <cyberperson001@...> wrote:
>
> 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
>