Lecture 5 - Pias, Bateson, Deleuze Flashcards
1
Q
Early quasi-cybernetic device:
A
- The governor: a speed limiter used to measure and regulate the speed of a machine
- Inclusion of thermodynamic equilibrium
- Keeping machine constant
2
Q
Cybernetics
A
(good at steering) activity that requires corrections and adjustments to acquire a certain goal
3
Q
Self-regulation
A
- Key is circular causal feedback, question is how can one develop machine that is able to self-regulate its cause of action for the sake of efficiency
- Increasing efficiency by engaging in processes of adaptability
- Interdisciplinary process
- Guiding principles: development of auto-directed mechanisms of control
4
Q
Three waves of cybernetics:
A
- Before, during and after the Macy Conferences (1940-1960):
a. Primarily a technical endeavor
b. Cybernetics recast as teleological mechanism
c. Wiener: auto-guided missile
d. Formation of AI research
e. Development of artificial neural networks - 1960-1980
a. More philosophical, artistic, with societal concerns of complex systems
b. Neuro-sciences, embodied mind, auto-poeisis, reflexivity, recursivity - 1990 onwards
a. Artificial neural networks in machine learning and AI
b. Feminist technosciences and posthumanism
5
Q
Macy conferences (pias text)
A
- Combination of current computer generation, the latest developments of neurophysiology and a vague humanistic combination of psychiatry, anthropology and sociology
- Diverse interest such as computing machines and goal-seeking devices to which biological analogies were drawn
- Not technical-material structures, but rather logical and mathematical operation as the tertium comparationis between brain and computer
- Interest in weak currents that control those are larger
- Cybernetics as a general methodology of action
6
Q
Three foundational elements cybernetics:
A
- Putt/McCulloch: Express neuronal interactions as propositional functions that, in turn, could be expressed as neuronal interactions
- Shannon information theory: mathematization, to reduce noise and maximize signal (preservation of information)
- Behavioral theory by Wiener, Bgelow and Rosenblueth
- Summary: universal theory of digital machines + stochastic theory of the symbolic + non-deterministic yet teleological theory of feedback = single theory for all kinds of things
7
Q
Consequences macy conferences
A
- Shift towards binary
- Rise of the concept of information: new concept behind matter and energy
- Feedback: to generate supplementary knowledge beyond need of external input
- Precondition for these three is digitality (‘when humans and machines operate on the same digital basis, when the knowledge of humans and that of machines can be made compatible, that the epistemology of cybernetics is itself able to be productive’)
8
Q
Impact macy conferences
A
- Reconsideration of philosophical anthropology: what is the human?
- Human as technical existence
- Cybernetics as a field which will replace philosophy (Heidegger)
- New way of revealing – not aletheia but enframing sense in cybernetics
- Based on new fusion of the human and the machine – not in subjection but in sharing the same plane of mathematical operationalization
- On the understanding of knowledge: It enabled an entire ensemble of pronouncements to appear within the same functional system great variety of discourse
9
Q
Aims of cybernetics:
A
- Prediction and control over the future
- Prediction: power increases with increased amount of data
- Control: less individual/institutional, more diffuse operational field of milieus and feedback in order to develop incessant monitoring and assessment
Is society able to be social/be understood in these conditions?
10
Q
Bateson - Cybernetic explanation:
A
- Cybernetic explanation is always negative: ask why many of the alternative were not followed
- Question of time: the future and past are immanent to such a view
11
Q
Bateson – Restraint (concept of control):
A
- Apart from restraints, pathways of change would be governed by equality of probability. Restraints are factors which determine inequality of probability
- Restraints of many kinds combine to generate this unique determination. We can see something as cause and effect, but it can actually be a specific combination of restraints
- Negative form of these explanations is precisely comparable to the form of logical proof by reductio ad absurdum
12
Q
Bateson – Mapping:
A
- Technique of explanation, when conceptual model or computer is used to simulate complex communicational process
- Also: translation or transformation ( Latour) are imputed to every step of any sequence
- Transformation: output of some machine is regarded as transform of the input
- Mapping – latour technical mediation
- Translation between systems
13
Q
Information // communication:
A
- Subject of cybernetics is not the events and objects, but the information that is carried
- Without context, there is no communication: information is quantified in negative terms, probability is of zero dimension (while it governs the system, probability itself takes up no space, as well as the information, it is only important in relation to quantities)
14
Q
Closed circuit vs open circuit
A
Closed circuit: causal interconnection can be traced around the circuit and back through Whatever position was chosen as the starting point of description. Events at any position in the circuit may be expected to have effect at all positions on the circuit at later times.
Systems are however always open: circuit is energized from external source (1) and loses energy usually in form of heat to the outside (2).
15
Q
Homeostasis
A
formal characteristics of such circuits and the conditions of their stability.
