CYBERNETICS AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Bernard Scott
Co-ordinator Learning Environments and Technology Unit
University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute
Lews Castle College
Stornoway
Isle of Lewis
HS1 2SD
Tel 01851 702331
bernard.scott@lews.uhi.ac.uk
Paper presented at ISSS – World Congress of the Systems Sciences, Toronto, Canada,
July 16th – 22nd, 2000, published as:
Scott, B. (2001). “Cybernetics and the social sciences”, Systems Research, 18, pp. 411-420.
ABSTRACT
Cybernetics was formulated by its founders as a metadiscipline with the aim, not only of
fostering collaboration between disciplines (interdisciplinarity), but also of sharing
knowledge across disciplines (transdisciplinarity). In this paper the relationship between
cybernetics and the social sciences is reviewed. The distinction between first and second
(in general, higher) order forms of cybernetics is introduced to characterise three
approaches to the study of social systems. The three approaches are described as ideal
types; it is acknowledged that in practice investigators may draw on more than one of the
approaches and that there are contexts in which the distinctions between them become
fuzzy. The three approaches are:
 studies of social systems and social behaviour that adopt classical scientific modes
of investigation;
 studies that investigate the interactions of social actors;
 approaches that attempt to characterise social systems as distinct forms of
autonomous whole.
Pask’s conversation theory, with its concept of the “psychological individual” is
introduced as a theory that is explicitly designed to build a bridge between the second and
third approaches.
Keywords cybernetics, social sciences, second order cybernetics, conversation theory,
autopoiesis.
INTRODUCTION
Cybernetics was formulated by its founders as a metadiscipline with the aim, not only of
fostering collaboration between disciplines (interdisciplinarity), but also of sharing
knowledge across disciplines (transdisciplinarity). As a metadiscipline, cybernetics
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comments on forms of knowing (the cognitive processes and communicative practices of
observers) and also on forms of knowledge (for example, similarities and differences
between different discipline areas). In this paper the relationship between cybernetics and
the social sciences is reviewed; this is conceived of as a contribution to the debate about
what is “sociocybernetics” (for more on this, see Geyer, 1995, Scott, 1999a). The paper
begins by presenting cybernetic models of “coming to know” and of “knowledge
sharing”. The distinction between first and second (in general, higher) order forms of
cybernetics is introduced to mark the reflexive nature of cybernetics as a metadiscipline
(i.e., a discipline about disciplines). The distinction between first and higher order forms
of cybernetics is further deployed to characterise three approaches to the study of social
systems. The three approaches are described as ideal types; it is acknowledged that in
practice investigators may draw on more than one of the approaches and that there are
contexts in which the distinctions between them become fuzzy. The three approaches are:
 studies of social systems and social behaviour that adopt classical scientific modes
of investigation;
 studies that investigate the interactions of social actors;
 approaches that attempt to characterise social systems as distinct forms of
autonomous whole.
Pask’s conversation theory, with its concept of the “psychological individual”, is
introduced as a theory that is explicitly designed to build a bridge between the second and
third approaches.
This short paper is a sketch of work in progress. The coverage of topics and choice of
examples are necessarily summary and selective.
CYBERNETICS
One of the major sources for the development of the transdisciplinary study of complex
systems in modern times is the series of meetings convened by the Macy Foundation in
the 1940’s and 1950’s on “Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and
Social Systems” (other sources for transdisciplinary work includes von Bertalanffy’s,
1972, “general systems theory” and Korzybski’s, 1958, “general semantics”). During the
course of those meetings, Norbert Wiener (1948) coined the name “cybernetics” for the
emerging discipline and defined it as the study of “control and communication in the
animal and the machine”. From the outset, it was conceived as both art and science and
was seen as encompassing traditional concerns in the study of the “governance” of human
systems. See the editors” introduction to Von Foerster et al (1953).
The power of cybernetics as a transdiscipline is that it abstracts, from the many domains it
adumbrates, models of great generality. Such models serve several purposes: they bring
order to the complex relations between disciplines; they provide useful tools for ordering
the complexity within disciplines; they provide a “lingua franca” for interdisciplinary
communication; they may also serve as powerful pedagogic and cultural tools for the
transmission of key insights and understandings to succeeding generations. However, as
noted by Immanuel Wallerstein (1997), past President of the International Sociological
Association, if a transdisciplinary approach is to make a real contribution in the natural
and social sciences, it must be more than a list of similitudes. It must also be
2
epistemologically sophisticated and well-grounded. Cybernetics, with its explicit
distinction between first and second order forms, can claim, not only to satisfy this
criterion, but also to be making significant contributions to epistemological debates.
W. Ross Ashby (1956) defines cybernetics as the formal study of “all possible machines”,
a discipline “with its own foundations”. In order to “introduce” the discipline, Ashby used
a simplified version of set theory notation to present concepts such as change, stability
and regulation in complex systems. It can still be tough going for non-numerate readers.
A simple but powerful formulation of the essence of cybernetics is that its key concepts
are “process” and “product” and that its main methodology is to model the form of
processes and their products, abstracted from any particular “embodiment”. Thus, for
example, a control process, whose product is the maintenance of some state of affairs,
may be distinguished and modelled as such, irrespective of its particular “embodiment” as
a “biological”, “artificial” or “social” system. The model might be a set of equations, a
flow chart or a computer simulation (cf. George, 1961: “ A theory is a model together
with its interpretation”).
As a later development, Heinz von Foerster (1970; et al, 1974) distinguished first and
second order cybernetics: the study of “observed systems” and the study of “observing
systems”, respectively. First order study is of “observed systems”, where we may deploy
the research paradigms of the natural sciences and seek “falsification” of hypotheses.
However, all this should take place under the rubric of the second order study of
“observing systems”. First order systems are defined from the perspectives of our second
order concerns and understandings. Von Foerster has gone on to discuss epistemological
limits and ethical implications of second-order understandings (von Foerster, 1993): “we
think, therefore we are”; “to know is to be”. He invites the observer of systems to “enter
the domain of his own descriptions” and accept responsibility for being in the world, thus
echoing the longstanding discussions in sociology about the “reflexive” nature of the
“social”.
Gordon Pask (1975, 1976) made second-order concerns explicit by developing a
cybernetic “theory of conversations”, with particular applications in education and
epistemology (see also Pask, Scott and Kallikourdis, 1973; Scott, 1993). Pask’s
contributions are described in more detail below.
CYBERNETIC EPISTEMOLOGY
Introduction
Although it is conceded (as argued by many) that distinct knowledge domains do present
problems particular to themselves, it is possible (and useful) to construct domain
independent models of the processes of learning and “coming to know” and the ways in
which observers share understandings and do so in agreed ways.
There follows a consideration of what it is usually meant by the terms “learning” and
“knowledge”. There is then a discussion of learning as a process of cognitive
construction, drawing on the seminal ideas of Piaget (see, for example, Piaget, 1972) and
3
elaborations by Rescher. The “conversational model” of Gordon Pask is then presented.
This model places Piagetian constructive process in an explicitly social context.
What is learning, what is knowledge?
Humans, like all other biological organisms, are dynamical, self-organising systems,
surviving - and evolving - in a hostile world. Such systems survive by adapting to their
worlds and by actively becoming “informed” of how their worlds work. “Learning”, as
biological adaptation, happens incidentally in the context of the pursuit of current “needsatisfying” goals. The process of adaptation is going on all the time. One cannot not learn. In
humans, learning finds its highest expression. Our “need to learn” is so strong, we experience
boredom and actively seek out novel environments. In addition, humans learn intentionally.
We consciously set ourselves goals. We practise habits and skills. We reflect, conceptualise
and converse. We come together to learn and to teach.
When we learn, we are said to acquire “knowledge”. There are many ways of conceptualising
forms of knowledge. Following Bloom (1956), it is common practice to distinguish between
“knowledge”, “skills” and “values”. Often, different sub-types of “knowledge” are
distinguished. For example, Gagné, Briggs and Wager (1992) distinguish motor skills,
discriminations, intellectual skills, defined concepts, concrete concepts, cognitive strategies,
attitudes, problem solving, verbal information (names or labels, facts, knowledge), rules and
higher-order rules. Here, these more elaborate schemes for describing “what is learned” are
avoided as introducing unnecessary complication but also because (in the author’s view) the
distinctions made are not always well-defined or easy to apply. However, considerable use is
made of one particular distinction, familiar from the time of Aristotle onwards, the distinction
between “knowing why” (cognitive, conceptual knowledge) and “knowing how” (procedural,
performance knowledge).
A Model of “Coming to Know”
Rescher (1973, 1977), building on ideas taken from Piaget, has constructed a constructivist
model of learning in which two cycles of activity are distinguished: one corresponding to the
acquisition and justification of “why” knowledge, the other corresponding to the acquisition
and consolidation of “how” knowledge (see figure 1).
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Figure 1. A two cycle model of “coming to know” (after Rescher)
In the “why” cycle, new conceptual knowledge is integrated with existing conceptual
knowledge to form a coherent whole. In the “how” cycle, new “methods” (procedures,
operations) are constructed and tried out and are subject to pragmatic correction. The two
cycles, “formal” and “functional” interact: “facts” may always be put into question; some
form of constructive or operational/pragmatic “proof” of theories may be asked for.
A Model of “Knowledge Sharing”
Humans do not “come to know” in isolation. What is needed is a theory of learning that
includes the role of the teacher, where learner and teacher (in general, “observers”) are “in
conversation” with one another. Gordon Pask is the thinker who has most thoroughly
developed a theory of conversations. Pask’s basic model is shown in figure 2. Pask refers to
5
this model as the “skeleton of a conversation”. It shows a “snapshot” view of two participants
(learner and teacher) in conversation about a topic. Notice how it distinguishes verbal
interaction (questions and answers) from behavioural interaction via a shared modelling
facility or “micro-world”.
Learner
Teacher
Rece i ves o r o ffe rs
expl an ati on s in te rms
of rel ati on s be twe en
top ics
Offe rs d em on stra ti o ns
or el i ci ts m od el s an d
pro bl em so l uti on s
Wh
Why?
y qu
q ue
estistion
o ns
s
an
andd resp
respon
onses
ses
How qu esti on s
an d resp on ses
Rece i ves o r o ffe rs
expl an ati on s in te rms
of rel ati on s be twe en Why?
top ics
Rece i ves
de mo nstrati on s,
bu i ld s mod el s or
sol ve s prob l ems
How ?
Mo de ll i ng fa ci l ity for pe rfo rman ce o f ta sks
such as mo de l b ui l di n g an d p ro bl e m sovi ng
Figure 2. The “skeleton of a conversation” (after Pask)
The horizontal connections represent the verbal exchanges. Pask argues that all such
exchanges have, as a minimum, two logical levels. In the figure these are shown as the two
levels: “how” and “why”. As in Rescher’s model, the “how” level is concerned with how to
“do” a topic: how to recognise it, construct it, maintain it and so on; the “why” level is
concerned with explaining or justifying what a topic means in terms of other topics.
The modelling facility allows the teacher to instantiate or exemplify the topic by giving nonverbal demonstrations. Typically, such demonstrations are accompanied by verbal
commentary about “how” and “why”. In turn the learner may use the modelling facility to
6
solve problems and carry out tasks set. He or she may also provide verbal commentary about
“how” and “why”. Note that the form of what constitutes a canonical “world” for
construction and demonstration is itself subject to negotiation and agreement. Here, a brief
example will have to suffice.
Consider topics in chemistry. A teacher may:
•
model or demonstrate certain processes or events;
•
offer explanations of why certain processes take place;
•
request that a learner teaches back his or her conceptions of why certain things
happen;
•
offer verbal accounts of how to bring about certain events;
•
ask a learner to provide such an account;
•
ask a learner to carry out experiments or other practical procedures pertaining to
particular events or processes.
A learner may:
•
request explanations of why ;
•
request accounts of how;
•
request demonstrations;
•
offer explanations of why for commentary;
•
offer explanations of how for commentary;
•
carry out experiments and practical activities.
Pask’s model may be elaborated in a variety of interesting ways. It may be applied
recursively, so that a conversation becomes the topic of a higher order conversation. It may
be applied reflexively, as a “theory of theory building”, that “explains” to the observer his
own cognition and behaviour. It is a process/product model of “consciousness” (“knowing
with another”) as the exchange and sharing of “understandings”. More extended discussions
of cybernetic epistemology are to be found in Scott (1996) and Scott (2000).
APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS
First order approaches to the study of social systems and social behaviour are those that
adopt classical scientific modes of investigation. From the perspective of an external
observer, a domain of observation is distinguished and modelled as set of variables,
which together constitute a multi-dimensional universe of discourse or reference frame.
Particular systems are modelled as relations (products) and their transformations
(processes). Values of variables are measured. Hypotheses are abducted about constraints
or “lawfulness” within the domain of observation and serve as the basis as for the
generation of testable predictions. The roots of this approach can be found in the
empirical sociological studies of Emile Durkheim.
Second order approaches are those that that investigate the interactions of social actors.
What is of interest is not just the behaviour of the actors but, critically, the systems of
belief that give “meaning” to their behaviours, including the beliefs they hold about each
others” beliefs. The observer can no longer give himself the privilege of being an
“external observer” except by setting up elaborate contracts with participants (as in
7
experimental psychology). He may form hypotheses about participants” beliefs on the
basis of observations of behaviour but may also give himself access to those beliefs by
eavesdropping on or participating in conversational exchanges. The roots of this approach
are many, including Max Weber’s emphasis on the importance of verstehen, Alfred
Schutz” phenomenology of the social world and the “social behaviourism” of G. H.
Mead.
Some approaches to the study of social systems are predicated on the idea that social
systems are distinct forms of autonomous whole. That is, they are not just an observer’s
construct, as in the first order concept of system (above), they are characterised as being
self-constructing and possibly also as self-distinguishing. Early expressions of the idea of
society as a “functioning” whole that may be analysed into participating structures and
processes are to be found in the writings of Karl Marx and, later, in the theories of Talcott
Parsons. Cybernetics and systems theory (see, for example, von Bertalanffy, 1972 and the
discussion in Scott, 1987) have provided more recent formulations
The most general cybernetic concept is that of the “self-organising” system, defined by
von Foerster (1960), as any system whose rate of change of redundancy is positive. Such
a system, in becoming “more organised”, obliges the observer to update his frame of
reference. Following Maturana (1972), such a system persists because it is
“organisationally closed”; it consists of processes whose products include the processes
that produced them. Maturana refers to this “self-production” as “autopoiesis” (see
Maturana and Varela, 1980). He draws on the “biological” domain as his main source of
examples but refrains from extending his concept to “social systems”. He does have some
notion of human communities as “wholes” but appears to wish to keep his concepts
thoroughly grounded in the “biological”. He also comes close to characterising societies
as organisationally closed, self-productive systems: “(humans) live a communitary coexistence that gives rise to a network of recurrent interactions that results in a manner of
living in which languaging arises ... living in languaging is conserved in the community
as its manner of living”) (Maturana, 1995, p. 163).
Nicolas Luhmann applies the concept of autopoiesis directly to characterise “social systems”.
A social system is an organisationally closed system of “communications”, such that,
whatever else is effected by those communications, they serve to conserve the system within
which they are produced. A major motivation for Luhmann is to “de-subjectivise”
communication, to “reverse the idea that a “subject” must first consciously resolve to
communicate in order to act communicatively” . Luhmann has developed a theory of
“functional system-differentiation”, which in his own words, is a “far-reaching, elegant and
economical instrument for explaining the positive and negative aspects of modern society”
(Luhmann, 1989, Chapter 6).
Mingers (1992) and others have questioned whether or not Luhmann’s use of the term
“autopoiesis” for social systems is appropriate. In my view, this is a question of definition
and interpretation. If “by definition”, the term autopoiesis implies “material embodiment”, its
range of application is indeed limited and should not be applied to “social systems”. As was
discussed earlier, Maturana seems to favour this usage. However, if “autopoiesis” is
interpreted as a synonym for the cybernetic concept of “organisational closure” then
8
Luhmann’s usage is quite acceptable. As in Pask’s formulation (see below), “social systems”,
qua systems, are an observer’s abstraction but they may be “abstracted” as organisationally
closed totalities (Pask’s “p-individuals”). They are of course “embodied” but this
“embodiment” is not restricted to the “biological”. They are “stored” in situ and
distributively, in artefacts, books and other archives. As earlier, clearly the “formal” and the
“functional” interact. I believe a close reading of Luhmann and Pask makes clear this is their
vision. A social system “breaks down” if its “embodiments” are destroyed but may “arise”
again if living or non-living “data archives” survive. Likewise, the “embodiments” of a social
system are imperilled and may perish or be dispersed as a consequence of some “pathology”
within its system of beliefs (examples are the Shaker community which has failed to
reproduce biologically and the Nazi Third Reich which by its aggression invited its own
destruction).
Luhmann’s classification of kinds of autopoietic system is shown in figure 3.
There is not space here to go into too much detail. In brief, “biological” are living organisms;
“psychic” are (roughly) “centres of individual consciousness” which may play the “role” of
“persons” in particular social situations; organisations are associations of “persons”, as in
clubs and business organisations; “social systems” are the functionally differentiated
subsystems that make up “society” as a whole (e.g., “Law”, “Science”, “Business”, “Art”),
each of which has evolved a “symbolically generalised communication medium” (e.g.,
“power/law”, “property/money, “truth”, “love”); v. Luhmann (1995) p. 161.
An important critique, from the perspective of seeking cybernetic transdisciplinary clarity and
unity, is his distinguishing of “psychic systems”. These are not well-defined as
“process/product” (i.e., cybernetic) models and serve to “occultate” or obscure his aim of
“de-subjectivising” communication. Within his “psychic” systems are rooted the notions of
“consciousness”, “meaning” and “individuality”, the very set of concepts that a science of the
9
psychological and sociological should be elucidating. In short, “psychic systems” are
redundant as distinct forms. All that is needed are conceptual systems (qua software,
descriptions of processes) that are embodied (qua hardware, products of processes).
Necessarily, the observer has to contemplate a class of “hybrid” models in which there is an
interaction between the two domains, the “formal” and the “functional” (see also Pask, 1972,
and the seminal discussions of what is peculiarly “human” and “social” by Winch, 1958, and
Peters, 1958).
Thus, I argue that when Luhmann writes “psychic and social systems cannot be reduced to
each other .. they use different media of reproduction; consciousness and communication”
(Luhmann, 1995, p. 271), he is plain wrong. As in figure 2 and elaborated upon in the next
section, consciousness (knowing with another) is communication; communication always
implies some consciousness.
There are other formulations but they, too, are not cybernetically well-defined. Giddens
(1984), like Luhmann, draws on the psychoanalytic tradition to demarcate an ill-defined
domain of the “psychological” as a contributing factor to individual behaviour and the
processes of “structuration”. Some of Foucault’s discussions of “discursive practices” and
“epistemes” seem similarly to wish to grant some autonomy to “the social” but (to risk a
gross generalisation) as with other “postmodern” thinkers, he seems caught in the cleft
stick of needing to undermine the status of his own theorising in order not to be a victim
of his own critiques (see, e.g., Foucault, 1972). In stark contrast, as already described,
second order cybernetics embraces its reflexivity with a positive spirit. The models in
figures 1 and 2 “model themselves”.
CONVERSATION THEORY: A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND
THE SOCIAL
Pask’s conversation theory explicitly builds a bridge between the second and third
approaches, the domains of individual actors and the social systems in which they
participate. In Pask’s terms, both are “psychological individuals” (p-individuals) (see
especially, Pask, 1979).
A “p-individual” is distinct from a biological individual or “mechanical individual” (Pask’s
more general term for the “processors” that embody psychological processes). A p-individual
is an organisationally closed self-productive system of concepts, where concepts are
“processes that produce, recognise and maintain relations”. In deference to Maturana’s usage,
Pask talks about “the organisational closure of potentially conscious systems” rather than
autopoiesis (Pask, 1980).
The importance for Pask in making the biological/psychological distinction is that the two
kinds of system are not necessarily in one-to-one correspondence: one biological system may
embody several psychological systems (as in the “inner dialogue” of consciousness); one
psychological system may be embodied distributively by several biological systems situated
in a context (as in the conversational processes that constitute human social life). Thus Pask
is enabled to build a neat bridge between individual and social psychologies.
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A p-individual may be distinguished as an “actor”, embodied in a single brain/body system,
with associated in situ “props”. Recursively, actors in communication and “sharing
understandings”, as in the model shown in figure 2, also constitute a p-individual. They
constitute a self-producing, organisationally closed “conceptual system”, “system of beliefs”,
or “organisation”.
Thus Paskian p-individuals are analogues of both of Luhmann’s “persons” and his
“organisations”. It is critical to the concept of an “organisation” that the participating actors
construe themselves as such; members of an organisation know they are members of an
organisation. However, Luhmann’s “society differentiated as social systems” remains as a
different kind of “ideal type” theoretical abstraction. Given the evolving and varied nature of
Luhmann’s “social systems”, the difficulties in defining them and in explicating their
interaction, a simpler approach would be to include them in the category “organisation”. For
example, rather than the “social system”, “Law”, one would need only to distinguish the
“organisations”, the p-individuals, that constitute conversations about “law”.
Arguably, Luhmann’s wish to “de-subjectivise” communication is also satisfied by this
construction. P-individuals as recursively constituted systems are not “subjects”, they are
“conversations”. An “actor” in Pask’s theory is always part of the “social”; “he” cannot not
“act”; “he” may or may not be conscious of his actions. If “he” is he is conversing with
“himself” (Maturana provides a very eloquent account of “self-consciousness” as an
emergent process within the “languaging” that constitutes social life; see, for example,
Maturana, 1995).
This approach also avoids the problem of how to characterise “society as a whole” and the
need to justify whether one can validly characterise “society” as a “whole” in the first place.
Margolis, for one, is happy that we may distinguish systems within “society” but, as all
observers are participants, insists that “societies” are uncharacterisable Wittgensteinian
“forms of life” (Margolis, 1989, Chapter 5; see also Scott, 1999b). As Pask liked to put it,
““Life” is ineffable and ineluctable” .
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In this paper I have argued that cybernetics has a valuable role to play in bringing order
and unity to the many complex and variegated approaches within the social sciences. In
addition, I have briefly presented a critique of Luhmann’s cybernetically influenced
theory of social systems and contrasted it with the more fully cybernetic approach of
Pask’s conversation theory.
Whenever one abstracts from particular domains and systems to form general models one
runs the risk of being accused of oversimplifying or misrepresenting. I do believe there is
virtue in the transdisciplinary aims of cybernetics and that, although some abstractions
may be quite simple, they may also serve as very powerful intellectual tools in their
application. They may also have the beauty and elegance so often found when form is
fitted to function. I thus recommend the summary models and classifications of
approaches deployed in this paper. However, I am aware that there is much wealth in the
11
details that have been suppressed in forming those abstractions and hope I have not
seriously misrepresented my sources and examples. To construct broad brush stroke
summaries of similarities and differences between the ideas of great thinkers is one thing,
to engage with that thought in detail is another. This latter activity may be enriching and
enlightening despite of or even because of disagreements about foundational framings
and predications.
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