Cybernetic Perspectives on World Order*
by Dr. Bruce Buchanan**
Revised June 11, 1997
Abstract:
Approaches to world peace and order must systematically take account of the actual world which poses the adaptive challenges. Yet the world as it actually exists is beyond man's best understandings of it at any point in time. So, from a cybernetic perspective, there is a continuing need for evaluation and corrective feedback with respect to our knowledge and actions, including the effects of social policies.
In relation to a sustainable world it is also vital to realize our role as participants within it. There is a crucial difference between the points of view of (1) the observer who takes an intellectual position from outside the system and independent of it, and (2) the participant who takes into account his or her role within the system(s) under consideration. Traditional dualisms which separate ideals from tangible realities, and so fail to provide guidance, must give way to a nondualistic and more integrated view of man in the world.
While an understanding of science may guide us in dealing with the world, our responses and plans also depend upon our values, objectives and choices. From a cybernetic perspective a decisive organizing value is a readiness to reassess values at all levels of human endeavour, including our own motives and the adequacy of our current conceptual maps. This is the most reliable source of that stability that we seek and need in relation to our world. We need to include our own values and ideas as parts of the world we must learn to manage. ____________________________________________________________________________
* Presentation to the Interdisciplinary Conference on THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD ORDER held at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto; June 7, 1997.
** Bruce H. Buchanan, M.D., D Psych., is a retired Canadian physician who has had a career in medical practice, public health, psychiatry, and university teaching, with two decades in governmental policy and administrative work, with a lifelong interest in philosophy and cybernetics. He is a member of the Canadian Association of the Club of Rome. ____________________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
This paper considers the potential role and contribution of systems science and cybernetics to the armamentarium of knowledge tools for a sustainable civilization. While it makes specific reference to systems thinking and cybernetics (Weiner,1961), many key concepts have also been described by others in other terms (e.g. Popper,1992; Schumacher,1978; Soros, 1995). But the notion of sustainability involves balances and interactions which systems sciences and cybernetics help us to describe clearly.
The foundations for human knowledge lie in the nature of human perception and thinking in relation to the real world. Many of the most serious problems we confront as a society stem from values and assumptions which create confusion, and methods of thought inadequate to the problems.
Anatol Rapoport (Rapoport,1995) has pointed out the fallacies of a reductionist paradigm which constrains choices within a narrowly conceived model of economic man. He suggested that exclusive use of such models of rational choice would so distort understanding as to make a sustainable civilization impossible.
Of course, approaches to world peace and order must systematically take account not just human values and methods but also the actual world, as this poses the adaptive challenges, and must be the object of human interventions.
A view of the world:
In relation to a sustainable world a first methodological principle must be to recognize that we are participants within it. Heinz von Foerster (von Foerster, 1992) has pointed out the crucial difference between the points of view of (1) the observer who take an intellectual position from outside the system and independent of it, and (2) the observer who takes into account his role as part of the system under consideration. George Soros says: "Reflexivity is a two way feedback mechanism in which reality helps shape the participants' thinking, and the participant's thinking helps shape reality in an unending process..." (Soros, 1995). The value criteria through which we perceive the world shape all our ideas of it. Confusions about such matters allows needless scope for arbitrary or covert value judgments that would not pass conscious scrutiny.
As Schumacher (Schumacher, 1978) has emphasized in some detail, the adequacy of the frame of reference and methods will affect any analysis and conclusions.
Cybernetics and life:
Cybernetics is the systems science which pays special attention to feedback as the organizing principle of living systems as well as those devised by man to imitate such models (Weiner, 1961). Feedback involves the evaluation of an outcome in comparison with some standard, and this evaluation is provided as information which allows the correction of errors, or deviations of aim. Feedback loops involve time and reiterative cycles as systems are adjusted and tend to equilibrium or the converse. Such principles are of very general applicability in biological and environmental systems among others, and also throw light on human mental processes. A continuous reassessment of purposes and progress seems to be part of what constitutes awareness.
Human knowledge itself is a product of ongoing evolutionary pressures and processes. Human evolution includes a cultural dimension, which has taken off largely independent of the forces of genetic evolution. One of the products of this evolution is the systemic view of the world, a kind of intellectual invention, if you will, which may in turn alter our view of the world.
A cybernetic approach to values:
Within a cybernetic framework, values take on operational meaning in relation to goals and organization, and in the decision criteria which inform feedback. Value in this sense refers to a measure or standard against which something is being compared, at whatever level of organization.
Our awareness of ongoing relationships provide a necessary basis for consciousness. At the same time, our systems of observations, theories, beliefs and values are mutually related in many ways, which make them resistent to change. Men and women easily mistake their culturally blinkered views for the actual world, and live in a world of many illusions. So the only possible source of that continuing stability that we seek and need in relation to our world is the willingness to ask inconvenient questions.
Ethical perspectives and economics:
Notions of systemic feedback and complexity may be well appreciated by scientists who study nature and ecological problems. Yet such models are often not understood or utilized by economists and businesspeople. And as we come to question the assumptions of unending growth and progress we begin to realize that the values which we have prized as guides to action may be part of the problem.
If one accepts that there can be no absolute frame of reference, it may seem that value choices are either arbitrary, based upon particular vested interests, or lead to endless circular arguments with no clear decisions. So it becomes clear that the nature and role of higher values are themselves a proper subject of inquiry. We are involved here with theories of reflexivity (Soros,1995) and second-order cybernetics (von Foerster,1992), with implications for the nature of human freedom.
A key question is whether there is a way of accounting objectively for the nature and role of human values. And there is a touchstone in this regard, for the basis of human values is to be found in the vital needs of humankind in relation to their situation on earth (Adler, 1985). The whole range of values necessary for life, involved in these concrete realities, are symbolized for some by the notion of Gaia.
Ethical considerations also point to needs to address all the major global change trends, not just the ones most amenable to conventional analysis. It is vital to make use of open dynamic models in relation to which all relevant factors and conditions can be conceptualized. An analysis of environmental problems that focuses only on isolated issues, such as energy, pollution, technological efficiencies or population alone, cannot be adequate.
The ethical course is to seek out the all available and relevant facts first, to arrive at an accurate diagnosis, and then to consider the management and treatment strategies that may be possible.
The ship of state may sometime in the not too distant future come close to the Plimsoll line, marking a point of no return before it begins to sink. Yet we are far from sure how we might identify this line. An ethical approach would probably, as a priority, seek better understanding with regard to such particulars, to help better future decisions.
Business and government:
Politicians may distrust business as well as other special interest groups, but all governments are in the position that they must either depend upon others for certain kinds of information or act in relative ignorance. But government is the only agency which has an overall perspective, and governments fail all the people when they act as no more than a collection of individual politicians contending for power for its own sake.
For its part, business fears sudden changes and imposed directives which may drastically alter risks. The propensity of governments to change rules in the pursuit of votes, or for whatever reasons, is hazardous to business.
These are a few among many considerations to be faced in contemplating strategies for change. Almost everyone recognizes that changes will be required, so that questions of process may be recognized as key. If rules must be changed, change may be more acceptable if they are made the same for all.
Important systemic problems involving relationships among the major players will perhaps always be difficult to perceive by those most closely involved. Similar problems exist at the level of the overall organization of society.
Ideologies versus Open Systems:
Little improvement can be expected without agreement on conventions of discourse, accepted meanings, or some sense of progress in understanding. The question is not one of legislating conformity but of a useful process which establishes and builds upon points of reference. In this regard both adequate processes and models which are capable of describing the major elements in their important relationships are required.
Many people continue to be satisfied with closed conceptual systems, conceived as ideological values in their own right, not in need of any justification. except by authority. But closed systems are inherently arbitrary and lead to totalitarian societies and governments. The distinction between open systems, which can develop and grow, and closed systems doomed by entropy to decay and death, runs through many of the choices we must make.
For a system to be open to information does not mean that all boundaries and possibilities for selective response are abolished. Open systems must also be selective, and selectivity depends upon appropriate values.
An enterprise must maintain itself and create benefits, but a narrow focus on profit, which may entail a closed system which does not take account of externalities and dependencies on the commons, is like a cancer living off the body politic.
In a society where the leaders are guided almost entirely by opinion polls about what their followers want, the intellectual climate becomes locked in an overheated circle of repetitive discourse which feeds on and is preoccupied with itself, a closed system doomed to repeating disappointments.
In the systems view, values necessary for viability and sustainability are always multi-dimensional and are not precisely calculable. Moreover they must all be managed at the same time, for longevity depends upon keeping a number of crucial variables within certain limits despite the hazards of an open environment.
The problems in life are various, and a variety of methods are required if they are to be managed successfully.
What Can Be Done?
As a general principle, few people would disagree with the need for truth in the pursuit of human freedom. Yet too many are unwilling or unable to tolerate the necessary light on the problems they face and equivocate, as did Pontius Pilate, about the nature of truth. This is a special problem to the extent that those who will not accept change insist upon dominating societal decisions. Yet the view that everyone is entitled to an opinion has its limitations, and high noise levels may prevent the important messages from getting through.
Established values which provide current social stability should not be challenged lightly. But many of the contributions to this conference are consistent with and may be potentiated by coordination with other suggestions, in terms of the the kind of systems perspective offered here.
It does seem evident that leverage exists through the hearts and minds of citizens looking for hope and new ideas that resonate with their own experience, that they know to be true for human nature, and that can be clearly explained. Thus the crucial question is that of how to grow a social movement which can actually move us in the direction of sustainability.
It is not difficult to organize and protest against particular problems. But to develop a consensus view which is coherent and realistic is a different and more complex problem. Certainly it is complex enough to deserve the consideration of a sociocybernetic approach.
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Buchanan, B.(1997b) "Values, Systems, and Consciousness", The Noetic Journal, Vol 1 No. 1 June, 1997
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Rapoport, A.(1995) "The Rational Choice and Systemic Paradigms Compared", Proceedings of the 1995 Conference on Knowledge Tools for a Sustainable Civilization, pp.32-40. Toronto: IEEE/Ryerson Polytechnic University.
Schumacher, E.F. (1978) A Guide for the Perplexed. Harpercollins Soros, G. (1995)
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Weiner, N.(1961), Cybernetics: Communication and Control in the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Whitehead, A.N.(1967), Adventures in Ideas (Free Press)
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last changed July 27, 1997