Hey hubski
Over the past few weeks I have been immersing myself in cybernetic theory, which is both enlightening and surprisingly underdeveloped. However, I feel like it offers us the foundations for a global concept of freedom. Admittedly, this concept is not only dependent on policy, but also on relative scarcity/abundance. Here is the motion:
Cybernetic Freedom: the degree to which a society can be judged "free" is the degree to which an individual has the choice and opportunity to individually explore (or not explore) societal functionality.
This may be not that fundamentally different from versions of freedom proposed in other social sciences, but it offers us the potential to roughly quantify "freedom", and move towards a more objective understanding of what we want from our governments. Thoughts?
If you are interested in the theoretical ground work for cybernetics, check out:
Popular: The Human Use of Human Beings
Academic: Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine
The article "How the 'Ecosystem' Myth Has Been Used for Sinister Means" discusses the political implications of some similar ideas. Basically, the author argues that cybernetic systems do not allow for change.
Thanks, I will definitely check out this article. I would argue that cybernetic systems utilize control and communication functions to maintain evolved structural integrity. However, if their goal state becomes too far removed from environmental reality, they do risk the stability of their structural complexity. In these scenarios the cybernetic entities control and communication infrastructure can be internally/externally re-organized, and brought back in-line with an environmentally-stable goal state. I think the complexity if this re-organization should be expected to increase, decrease, or stay the same, dependent on the control system's ability to harness and utilize energy.author argues that cybernetic systems do not allow for change.
I have to say my first reaction is 'How abstractable are these ideas from computer science and the natural sciences to people?' It seems like there's been some research on it, so I'm a little less skeptical than I initially was. EDIT: NotPhil touched on what I was trying to voice - when you start taking ideas from the computer and natural sciences and try to abstract them to other areas, a lot of context gets glossed over and ideas misunderstood. Most notably, the fact that evolution occurs in nature has been used in a particularly nasty instance of the is-ought fallacy to suggest that we should not help people in need because they are somehow 'unfit', and humorously, altruism has considerable evidence behind it suggesting that it is evolutionarily adaptive.
Theories are tools. This particular cybernetic theory of freedom would suggest very specific things in terms of policy and long-term collective organization for the human species. Most notably, all basic individual metabolic functioning should be considered a human right. Second, the option of the individual to enhance cognitive functioning should also be considered a human right. This means that our global goal for governance in the 21st century should be the creation of a world in which every single human has their basic biological needs met unconditionally. Secondly, it means that choice and opportunity to compete in the global market place of ideas be made accessible to all (i.e., free global higher education). These are lofty goals - but they are not goals incompatible with any physical laws. Theoretically we could describe physical and institutional mechanisms to realize it this century. And, unless we achieve such an organization, we are systematically stifling billions of mind/brains of their functional potential. IMO, this is truly unfortunate, not only for the quality of conscious experience, but also for the continued generation of complex living organization.How abstractable are these ideas from computer science and the natural sciences to people?
I've done some very limited reading in the past on cybernetics, but you've just reminded me to go to the American Society for Cybernetics' website and go poke around a little more. I guess what I'm trying to find is a sort of Cybernetics/Control and Systems Theory 101-type textbook, because at least from my admittedly limited perspective on all of this, I'm struggling to understand how all of this entails cybernetics in particular as opposed to merely a lot of at least apparently un-associated, with cybernetics and with each other, ideas of ethics and global development. Without some definitions, standards, and structure, as well as some testable bases on which its fundamentals rest, all of this sounds like fevered speculation. I don't doubt that these exist in cybernetics, but I am trying to assuage my doubts where people are attempting to apply it to human society. EDIT: A bunch of tutorials.