Emergence and Embodiment
eBook - PDF

Emergence and Embodiment

New Essays on Second-Order Systems Theory

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Emergence and Embodiment

New Essays on Second-Order Systems Theory

About this book

Emerging in the 1940s, the first cybernetics—the study of communication and control systems—was mainstreamed under the names artificial intelligence and computer science and taken up by the social sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts. In Emergence and Embodiment, Bruce Clarke and Mark B. N. Hansen focus on cybernetic developments that stem from the second-order turn in the 1970s, when the cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster catalyzed new thinking about the cognitive implications of self-referential systems. The crucial shift he inspired was from first-order cybernetics' attention to homeostasis as a mode of autonomous self-regulation in mechanical and informatic systems, to second-order concepts of self-organization and autopoiesis in embodied and metabiotic systems. The collection opens with an interview with von Foerster and then traces the lines of neocybernetic thought that have followed from his work.

In response to the apparent dissolution of boundaries at work in the contemporary technosciences of emergence, neocybernetics observes that cognitive systems are operationally bounded, semi-autonomous entities coupled with their environments and other systems. Second-order systems theory stresses the recursive complexities of observation, mediation, and communication. Focused on the neocybernetic contributions of von Foerster, Francisco Varela, and Niklas Luhmann, this collection advances theoretical debates about the cultural, philosophical, and literary uses of their ideas. In addition to the interview with von Foerster, Emergence and Embodiment includes essays by Varela and Luhmann. It engages with Humberto Maturana's and Varela's creation of the concept of autopoiesis, Varela's later work on neurophenomenology, and Luhmann's adaptations of autopoiesis to social systems theory. Taken together, these essays illuminate the shared commitments uniting the broader discourse of neocybernetics.

Contributors. Linda Brigham, Bruce Clarke, Mark B. N. Hansen, Edgar Landgraf, Ira Livingston, Niklas Luhmann, Hans-Georg Moeller, John Protevi, Michael Schiltz, Evan Thompson, Francisco J. Varela, Cary Wolfe

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Yes, you can access Emergence and Embodiment by Bruce Clarke, Mark B. N. Hansen, Bruce Clarke,Mark B. N. Hansen, Barbara Herrnstein Smith,E. Roy Weintraub in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & System Theory. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Introduction: Neocybernetic Emergence
  4. Interview with Heinz von Foerster
  5. Heinz von Foerster’s Demons: The Emergence of Second-Order Systems Theory
  6. The Early Days of Autopoiesis
  7. Life and Mind: From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology
  8. Beyond Autopoiesis: Inflections of Emergence and Politics in Francisco Varela
  9. System-Environment Hybrids
  10. Self-Organization and Autopoiesis
  11. Space Is the Place: The Laws of Form and Social Systems
  12. Improvisation: Form and Event—A Spencer-Brownian Calculation
  13. Communication versus Communionin Modern Psychic Systems: Maturana, Luhmann, and Cognitive Neurology
  14. Meaning as Event-Machine, or Systems Theory and “The Reconstruction of Deconstruction”: Derrida and Luhmann
  15. Complex Visuality: The Radical Middleground
  16. Bibliography
  17. Contributors
  18. Index