To all
Just a reminder that you can find my thesis @
https://www.academia.edu/3088806/Gramma_topology, which deals extensively
with second-order cybernetics & design.

Chapter 1: Contemporary design education in a complex, social world of
constructed realities

Chapter 3: Theories and other narratives: designerly knowledge production
(including the article "A Natural Death is Announced" = "Cybernetics, being
the perfectly circular method of investigation that it is, is
constructivist to the extent that the feedback loops from the observation
induces (and are used in) the constant reconstruction of meaning; it is
reiterative in the sense of having no beginning and no end, and while it
seems to return to the beginning of any design process, seen horizontally
(as a flat circle), it moves away from that so-called beginning, seen
vertically (as a rising spiral), because it is continually adding to itself
and thus developing: as a methodology (not method) cybernetic design
(cyberdesign) is evolutionary to the extent that it buries its old self as
sediment in the (old) stock of knowledge, thus respecting previous
boundaries, while invariably moving away in a processual movement of
discovery, both of self and of what is not-self. A discipline very
naturally dies in order to live.")

Chapter 4: Gramma/topology: a new discourse of design knowing ("The first
section presents cybernetics as a science of prediction, but not in the
normal, hard sciences way of predetermination. Prediction can also mean
projection, a proposal for research whose outcome is anything but a
foregone conclusion, making cybernetics a science of purpose and bildung as
opposed to causality. Design makes use of a second order observation
technique, which means design cybernetics is the study of observing
systems, and includes the observer in the study as an integral part.")

This chapter includes the article "The Magic of Three", which I explained
as "The following text came about through an effort to explain how
cybernetic thinking morphs into design thinking, for action, via a better
method of decision-making, and to show how the theory of cybernetics could
influence and enhance our understanding of a theory of design."

In this chapter I also dealt with: "'Perhaps that is what Bateson (2000)
had in mind when he suggested (1972) “that an entirely new epistemology
must come out of cybernetics and system theory, involving a new
understanding of mind, self, human relationship, and power'. I do not
pretend to have a definitive answer, but am convinced that a form of
autopoietic cyberdesign can prompt, at least, some sense of what it means
to be a truly observant system among other living systems."

More importantly, I deal with both Spencer Brown's symbol system and
Luhmann's theory of the making of distinctions: "I think we do need to
reserve the right to adapt the most basic generative memes that can be
sourced from a study of cybernetics, and the making of distinctions is what
humans do best by dint of their nature as cognitive beings, and, however
difficult it may be to help a student towards this space of seeing and
being, I have to try, and the only stuff for thought that I can pass on is
my own adaptations of what I find."(p.132)

Chapter 5: Evolutionary form follows cybernetic function: A spacetime
landscape (including an argument for abduction = cf. p. 267);

... and more ...

I am particulary pleased to see Michael Hohl's chapter "Designing
designing: Ecology, Systems Thinking,Designing and Second-Order
Cybernetics" in this new book.

Regards
Johann


> The Department of Art + Design and the School of Architecture at
> Northeastern University cordially invite you to next week’s event:
>
> Cybernetics: State of the Art – book launch and conversation
> with Liss C. Werner, Paul Pangaro, Kristian Kloeckl, Omar Khan
>
> December 14, 2017
> 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
>
> Northeastern University
> CAMD Interdisciplinary Research Lab
> 171 Holmes Hall | (enter also through Meserve Hall)
>
> Please join us to celebrate the launch of Cybernetics: State of the Art.
> The event will feature conversations with some of the book’s contributors:
> Liss C. Werner, Technical University Berlin; Paul Pangaro, College for
> Creative Studies in Detroit; Kristian Kloeckl, Northeastern University; and
> Omar Khan, University of Buffalo. Each were participants in the Berlin
> Conference that is the basis for the book, edited by Liss Werner.
>
>
> For print and open-access digital copies of the book:
> - https://depositonce.tu-berlin.de/handle/11303/6680
> - https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/books/detail/-/art/liss-
> werner-cybernetics-state-of-the-art/hnum/7966651
>
> 'Cybernetics: state of the art', published by Technical University Berlin
> Press, is the first volume of the book-series 'CON-VERSATIONS, founded by
> Liss C. Werner and Raoul Bunschoten.
> ___
>
>
>

-- 
Dr. Johann van der Merwe
Independent Design Researcher


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