Cybernetics: Some Linkage

Ocmpoma has posted a link to an article called ‘Systemics and Cybernetics in a Historical Perspective‘ which has the following, very interesting, abstract:

 

“Systemics and cybernetics can be viewed as a metalanguage of concepts and models

for transdisciplinarian use, still now evolving and far from being stabilized. This is the

result of a slow process of accretion through inclusion and interconnection of many

notions, which came and are still coming from very different disciplines. The process

started more than a century ago, but has gathered momentum since 1948 through the

pioneering work of Wiener, von Neumann, von Bertalanffy, von Förster and Ashby,

among many others. This paper tries to retrace the history of the accretion process and

to show that our systemic and cybernetic language is an evolving conceptual network.

This is of course only a first and quite incomplete attempt, merely destined to give the

‘feel’ of the process. Systemic concepts and models are underlined in order to enhance

the perception of the process, as well as its systemic significance”

****

Also:

Mash has a post detailing ‘The Cybernetic Explanation” which includes the following section which details reversing entropy:

“

1. Systematic local reversal of entropy is caused by systematic feedback.
2. Systematic feedback is caused by directed behavior.
3. Directed behavior is caused by a Turing machine or the equivalent.
4. There exist Turing machines.
5. Therefore there may exist systematic local reversals of entropy.

Shorter version: life is a computation.

But the explanation is actually broader than life. It begins with a fundamental relationship between feedback and entropy. And this makes sense, because feedback can be seen as a way to reverse the arrow of time in a limited but real sense.”

Mash’s post also ends on the following:

“if you are a cybernetic materialist, naturally there is life, and life reflecting on life” which is one thought to end my weekend.

 

 

Who Am I?: An Update

With a new project and new visitors to the blog I thought it was about time I updated the info about myself. Please read on.

 

My name is Benjamin Manktelow and I’ll be honest with you, I won’t tell you everything, but whatever I say will be truthful.

I’m from London, the south east, Greenwich in particular, but I don’t sound it. There’s a ‘london’ accent, one which I am only able to identify recently, and I don’t sound like that. But just because I don’t drop all my h’s, t’s and th’s when I speak doesn’t mean I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth or went to school with a top hat.

Why I’m here reading this to you: Ideas: the why’s and how’s of the world, especially the people within it, at any point in time, fascinate me. Thats why I’m an anthropologist, I study being human in any way i find interesting or relevant. There is so much going on here, there, everywhere and i haven’t even finished examining, and enjoying, a single molecule of it yet.

Right now I have two long(ish) term research projects:

(1) The first is building a new framework for how, and what it means, to study the material history of humanity. I am doing this by dis-unifiying the discipline of archaeology and seeing what I find. It is the differences, conflicting ideas, and what is between the cracks of the different approaches to humanities material history that most excites me. This way of investigating archaeology means we have to change how history is talked about and (re-)presented. – The beginning of this research will see the light of day through my MPhil thesis currently in preparation.

(2) My second project is the contexts, people and stuations that gave rise to the cybernetics movement, and I am doing this with Matt Webb. At the time of Cybernetics something special seemed to be happening, but appears lost to the here and now. Many of the ideas and insights seem to have been either fed into other things or subverted. My aim is to plumb the depths and find out what happened. – See this post for details

 

 

A Beginning: Cybernetics and I

So Begins a new research project and it started like this:

A couple of weeks ago Matt Webb of Berg, posted on his work log that he was interested in the interconnected history of cybernetics from the 1940’s and 50’s, and if anybody was interested, in researching the subject, to get in touch, which I did.

After a couple of back and forth emails, in which i blabbed about who I was and what I did, we met, got on well, it didn’t seem to matter I was half an hour late to our first meeting, and we decided working together was a good idea. And then we met again this morning to sort a few things out, and of course talk and make connections until matt announces he has to get back to work, this may be a trend forming.

So, now we’re ready to go public, and share a little. Which means that  you are all now looking at a researcher delving in to the secret forbidden history of cybernetics and the people, ocassions and situations which gave birth to an, at the time, revolutionary way of looking at the world. It must be said cybernetics is still influencial today, the reason we don’t notice it may have to do with something Webb said this morning ” Do we not talk about cybernetics because it  now pervades everything? like fish don’t talk about water”. I like the idea of swimming in cybernetics and diving under the surface to find a world not explored by many.

Right now my main aim is to assimilate, pull apart, and decant to computer, a core selection of texts which deal with the birth of cybernetics. Once this is done we’ll see where to go later.

I plan to write weekly updates which discuss and reveal a little bit about what what is happening and what kind of paths are appearing in front of Webb and I. I’m sure somewhere down the line Webb will have something to say.

Today also sees the commencement of a scrapbook, or research process platform over, at Haunting Thoughts my Tumblr log.

My name is Benjamin Mankteow and now I have a new research project to obsess over.

 

 

Sao Paulo Parkour

The below video is a parkour (also known as urban flow or free running ( think of the beginning of casino royale)) video shot in Sao Paulo, and if this isn’t public space and architectural hacking I don’t what is( save for actually taking power tools to the infrastructure).

SAMPARKOUR from Wiland Pinsdorf on Vimeo.

Guys like this make me jealous of how i move around the world i live in.

Via Coilhouse who have more details

 

Archaeological philosophics

One of my views on the ‘living landscpaes’ section in the ‘Handbook of Landscape  Archaeology’

“The work on offer is not simply an engagement with or application of philosophy but instead, a creation and dissemination of the contributors own philosophy. In many ways a positive act for archaeology. A positive act because twelve years ago, as well as before and since, Thomas’ ‘Time, Culture and Identity’ was heralded by some authors in ‘Archaeological Dialogues’ as mis-appropriating Heidegger, or of creating an application for Heideggerian thought. The same has often been said of Tilley and Karlsson. The point I make here is that by offering chapters that reference only archaeologists, and present a mature thought structure for each approach, the move from applying philosophy to actively creating it has become more apparent.”

 

Star Wars!

Just when I thought star wars really was exhausted of anything good (minus the clone wars cartoon naturally), this video (below) is released. I don’t much care for online games, but the video is brilliant if only for a short film, and prelude to things. Why didn’t the films (the prequels (still hate that word)) have this kinda action choreography?

(Right! the video won’t embed, so please go to this link. Thank you very much) Star Wars: Old Republic Trailer

 

PHD comics and the humanties

I love PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper) comics, and being an anthropologist I had to share:

I am really enjoying the tongue in cheek nature of this plot line too.

 

Notebooks

This post is a little late, namely due to my forgetting it was in this notebook. I realise that this actually makes sense in relation to how i treat notebooks. Something I go into further below.

(Originally written 09/04/02009)

For the last nine months or so I have carried around and scribbled in a black, hardback, slightly larger than A5 size notebook. Instead of keeping separate notebooks for separate projects, writing in pads which i could detach the individual pages and keep all related pieces together, I kept this one notebook so that I didn’t have the chance of losing or destroying bits of paper as I have often done in the past.

Now of course If had lost or destroyed this notebook I was using I would have lost everything, but luckily I didn’t, I filled each page and now it is full and time to move onto scribbling ink into in to a new, different notebook.

I started my new book, a week ago, and as the now filled notebook had all my project(s) notes in it I kept it on me along with my new notebook so that I could flick through it and find pieces that I need to back to and consult.

Today I only took my new notebook as the plan was to only scribble down what had been dancing around my thoughts since i woke up this morning.

However, as it always goes, as I was in the cafe I had need to consult my, now filled, old notebook, and go over a few sections I had scribbled down mainly in the recent past. The problem of course was that it really was the past I couldn’t remember anything I had written on the subject beyond the general theme. So, alas, I realised perhaps for the first time, that my notebook was not simply a place that I scribbled down thoughts, to ‘exorcise’ them from me, but, instead, the notebook acted as some sort of external record for what I have been working on for the last nine months, a much more faithful residue than my memories perhaps.

- Now the point of this piece, I have become very attached to my notebooks and rely on them more than I realised. I wouldn’t function or research in the same way if I didn’t carry one around with me. And, as I have shown it is not simply the carrying of a notebook that is important, but the collection of notes and observations that goes along with carrying one.

- Now I just need to honour my notebook properly by going through it and ‘excavating’ and ‘rescuing’ the pieces that I have fully forgotten about. I did this recently with an even older notebook and found pieces I had no recollection of ever writing. Finding such pieces brought back ideas of the time and places I had written the pieces, and in some cases the people I had been writing with.

 

On The New Police Posters

I have been meaning to post these for a few days but I have been busy, and now I notice that Boing Boing have another post up about the new police posters turning up around Britain. Boing Boing’s previous posts are here and here . The reason I am posting about this is because the posters seem so poorly designed. The big words on the posters are the words you really don’t want to pay attention to. If you do, they come across as very authoritarian and scary. However, what you have to pay attention to is the small print. These posters are part of the police’s attempt to become more transparent in society. Take for example the poster below.

The large text of this poster is scary, like everybody it is addressing is guilty of something. However, the small text is the bottom is the one to read. It says ” The Police now pledge to keep you informed on how they’re tackling neighbourhood crime. To find out more go to directgov.gov.uk/policingpledge or text PLEDGE to 66101″. Below this text is the title “The Policing Pledge”. Therefore, the poster is not meant to be part of the anti-terror posters that have crept in to the UK (here ,and here for fun remixes of the posters , noticed how all the links are to Boing Boing?)

The point I am trying to make is that this is the police is trying to make itself more personable and transparent yet they seem to be hiding the meaningful information behind intimidating wording and fonting. If you don’t spend the time reading the posters top to bottom, then you won’t get the message, which in advertising is a major problem i would think.

How about another poster to illustrate my point:

Here the text underneath reads ” The police pledge to listen and respond to residents’ concerns about neighbourhood crime, To find out more go to directgov.gov.uk/policingpledge or text PLEDGE to 66101″. Again the big, bold type and words don’t help matters, and you have to spend time stopping and reading the small print.

Oh I should add that I am in Sheffield as are these posters.

 

My YAPG 02009 Presentation

Below you will find the slides from my 02009 YAPG presentation. It deals with what I am calling a disunity of archaeology model. The ideas and influence come from the disunity of science thesis within the philosophy of science. The ideas contained within the presentation are working notes torwards the first part, of three, that will make up my PhD.

[Edit] I have dug out my original presentation abstract (written  in academic).

‘Trading Zones’: archaeology and the disunity of science thesis

A ‘trading zone’, as defined within the philosophy of science, is an ad-hoc academic grouping that exists outside of traditional disciplinary boundaries. Such trading zones are never swallowed by a parent discipline. Members either perform research into the same phenomena, but using different approaches, or they utilise the same approaches, but to investigate different phenomena.

This working paper will take the above as a starting point and present the idea of archaeology as a trading zone, thereby questioning the affects this has on current conceptions of landscape archaeology. Such a viewpoint would open up the possibility of dialogue, and potentially bridge the gap, between the humanities (post-processual) and sciences (processual), which have increasingly become segregated within archaeology, especially in studies of the landscape.

This presentation will be drawn from the first section of ongoing research into a ‘disunity of archaeology’ model.

I hope to have some lengthier notes on the 02009 YAPG, and my evolving research, soon.