Excerpt: As I read the cybernetic literature, I became intrigued that as an approach to the mind which was often described as a predecessor to AI, cybernetics had a much more sophisticated approach to mind than its purported successor. I was soon led to Prof. Herbert Brün’s seminar in experimental composition, and to the archives of the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) in the basement of the University of Illinois library. Since then, I have been trying to come to terms with what it was that was so special about the BCL, what allowed it to produce such interesting ideas and projects which seem alien and exotic in comparison to what mainstream AI and Cognitive Science produced in the same era. And yet, despite its appealing philosophical depth and technological novelty, it seems to have been largely ignored or forgotten by mainstream research in these areas. I believe that these are the same concerns that many of the authors of the recent issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing (Brier & Glanville, 2003) express in regard to the legacy of von Foerster and the BCL. How could such an interesting place, full of interesting things and ideas have just disappeared and been largely forgotten, even in its own home town?

Upshot: Ranulph Glanville’s musings about cybernetics are statements of wonder as much as careful reconstructions of the core ideas of cybernetics. In Vol. III of his Black Boox all 39 of them are collected, which appeared between 1994 and 2009 in the Journal, Cybernetics and Human Knowing. If Heinz von Foerster said that the ideas of second-order cybernetics are nowadays to be found just about everywhere in everyday life, Glanville is not that sure about this.

The paper is a reading of Martin Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Even) by means of Ranulph Glanville’s notions of black box, cybernetic control and objects as well as by George Spencer-Brown’s notion of form and Fritz Heider’s notion of medium. In fact, as Heidegger was among those who emphasized systems thinking as the epitome of modern thinking, did in his lecture on Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom a most thorough reading of this thinking, and considered cybernetics the very fulfilment of modern science it is interesting to know whether second-order cybernetics, as it was not known to Heidegger and as it delves into an understanding of inevitable complexity and foundational ignorance, falls within that verdict mere modernity or goes beyond it. If modern science in its rational understanding considers its subjects to be objects sitting still while being observed, then indeed second-order cybernetics is different. It looks into the observer’s interactions with black boxes, radically uncertain of where to expect operations of a self, but certain that we cannot restrict it to human consciousness.

Context: For many people, religion and/or spiritual experiences are an important part of their daily lives - shaping their thinking and actions. Studying these experiences relies on qualitative religious studies (RS) research that engages respondents on a deeply personal level. Problem: Researchers are unable to provide an apolitical, value-free approach to research. There lacks a rigorous methodological approach to qualitative RS research that addresses this epistemological obstacle. This is particularly relevant when studying a cohort with radically different beliefs from the researcher. Method: Researcher coupling is presented as a topic that defines the researcher and her participants as a systemic entity. By demonstrating how the researcher’s worldview is tied to her research, an argument for personalised and relational observer-dependent research is presented. Five reflexive questions are proposed as a starting point for personalised research to demonstrate the relational and intersubjective nature of this activity. Results: By linking the researcher to her research and changing the goal of research from independent and objective research to one that is relational and contextual, the scholar can report on her research in an ethical and socially just manner by linking her worldview to her research. Implications: The traditional research activity is redefined as one that should embrace the scholar’s worldview instead of attempting to hide it. The scientific ideals of independence and objectivity are replaced by interdependence and hence a proposal is made for personalised research that embraces the intersubjective nature of this activity. This proposal is meant to alleviate some of the epistemological weaknesses in RS. This paradigm shift promotes rigour as a qualifier for methodology including changes to how research is categorised. Constructivist content: Margaret Mead’s ideas of observer dependence in anthropological research and how the observer constructs her research findings are discussed. The circularity that exists in this relational context is analysed according to Bradford Keeney’s ideas on recursion and resultant future behavioural correction. Ranulph Glanville’s ideas of intersubjectivity and his concept of “in the between” are used as a foundation for the researcher-participant relationship. Ross Ashby’s notion of experimenter coupling is used as a basis for researcher coupling.

Key words: Epistemology, ethics, personalised and relational research, religious studies, rigour, research methodology, worldview.

The present issue is a memorial issue for Francisco Varela both as a scholar and as a colleague. Varela passed away in his home in Paris on May 28 2001. He was part of the editorial board of this journal and thus in this memorial issue we would like to look into his heritage. Most of the papers we present have authors that have known and worked with Varela in some period of their and his life: Ranulph Glanville, Louis Kauffman, Andreas Weber. Weber makes the case that Varela’s thinking can provide a foundation for biosemiotics and as such it provides a further foundation for the cybersemiotic project. Most interesting and promising is his comparison with Varela’s concept of the organism and Bruno Latour’s concept of quasi-objects. The other articles all have some relationship to Varela’s elaboration on the work of Spencer-Brown. Using the metaphor of the Uroboros, Marks-Tarlow, Robertson, and Combs explore the notion of re-entry in Varela’s ‘A Calculus for Self-Reference ’ and his contribution to a theory of consciousness. In their articles, Glanville and Kauffman reflect upon their experience working with Varela on joint papers.

Contemporary debates in social disciplines are making increasing reference to theoretical concepts such as sociocybernetics and autopoiesis (Bailey, 1983, 1997, 2001; Bopry, 2007, Brier, 2005; Geyer, 1994, 1995, 2003; Glanville, 2004; Goldspink, 2001; Hernes & Bakken, 2003; Krippendorff, 1996; Letiche, 2007; Luhmann, 1996; Mingers, 2002b; Morgan, 1998; Scott, 1996, 2001b, 2003; Smith & Higgins, 2003; Umpleby, 2005; Van der Zouwen, 1997; Von Foerster, 2003; Von Glasersfeld, 1996). It becomes apparent from these debates that certain paradigm shifts are imminent not so much as a result of new knowledge, but rather as a result of new metaphors that present alternative perspectives for interdisciplinary corroboration. Thus far, debates on revisiting cybernetic concepts have largely been conducted in other social sciences disciplines such as sociology, politics and semiology, this despite the challenges a cocreational perspective poses for communication in general and for organisational communication specifically. This paper aims to raise the debate amongst communication scholars, especially since communication scholars are conspicuously absent in the social-scientific debates within other disciplines, and we are in danger of failing to challenge our own intellectual assumptions. As such, this paper discusses and explores the appropriateness and applicability of cybernetics and autopoiesis as contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of organisations as communicatively enacted entities. It attempts to identify some of the intellectual challenges posed by extending the boundaries of our conversations beyond our recognised metaphors and concepts. The purpose of this paper is to initiate dialogue among communication scholars that may resonate with the constructivist epistemology, and which constitutes both cybernetics and postmodernism. We argue that cybernetics in its entirety poses a challenge for the study of organisations from a communication perspective. We argue, as Geyer (1995) has done, that it may be an intellectually challenging exercise to reposition the current modern and postmodern organisational metaphors within a single new emerging metaphor: the schismatic metaphor.

Working for decades as both theorist and teacher, Ranulph Glanville came to believe that cybernetics and design are two sides of the same coin. Working as both practitioners and teachers, the authors present their understanding of Glanville and the relationships between cybernetics and design. We believe cybernetics offers a foundation for 21st-century design practice. We offer this rationale: – If design, then systems: Due in part to the rise of computing technology and its role in human communications, the domain of design has expanded from giving form to creating systems that support human interactions, thus, systems literacy becomes a necessary foundation for design. – If systems, then cybernetics: Interaction involves goals, feedback, and learning, the science of which is cybernetics. – If cybernetics, then second-order cybernetics: Framing wicked problems requires explicit values and viewpoints, accompanied by the responsibility to justify them with explicit arguments, thus incorporating subjectivity and the epistemology of second-order cybernetics. – If second-order cybernetics, then conversation: Design grounded in argumentation requires conversation so that participants may understand, agree, and collaborate on effective action. Second-order cybernetics frames design as conversation for learning together, and order design creates possibilities for others to have conversations, to learn, and to act.

Key words: conversation, cybernetics, design knowledge, design methods, design rationale, design, systems, ethics, language, models, second-order cybernetics

Purpose: Delight, and the possibility that an observer might continually delight in the same thing, is difficult to deal with in a rigorous way. Very little has been written recently about this subject. The purpose of this paper is to offer insights about this vital subject with reference to design work being undertaken at UCL. Design/methodology/approach – It is the contention of this paper that arguments taken from constructivism and second, order cybernetics can help in this. The cyberneticians who have most significantly dealt with cybernetics and physical architecture are Pask and Glanville. They offer significantly different and contradictory insights. Techniques for conceptualising an interactive performative architecture are discussed, based on work undertaken with postgraduate students at the Bartlett Interactive Architecture Workshop, UCL. Findings: Glanville and Pask can be reconciled. When physical architecture can be considered as contributing to physical performance both sets of insights can exist in a common theoretical frame. Practical implications: Designers should consider creating work that contains rich variety and the cues for observer construction, while also offering the possibility of ambiguity where different distinctions are equally possible. It is possible to utilise the differences that arise from changes in the external environment to manipulate the latter. Originality/value – The paper suggests ways of creating places that offer continual delight to their observers.

Key words: cybernetics, design

This paper is a memorandum of working with Francisco Varela on our joint paper “Your inside is out and your outside is in.” It is intended to show how we worked together – something of the process and the mood. The paper that was the outcome may be found in the literature (Glanville and Varela 1981), but working notes and outlines, correspondence, and a condensation written some time after the paper are published here for the first time, together with a certain amount of commentary and context. In the quoted material, I have altered nothing save occasionally tuning the language (though I have retained Francisco’s American spellings): the point of this paper is not to correct, extend or otherwise modify the argument, which we developed between 1977 and 1981 (which I continue to believe has validity). This account is a tribute, an example, and a little piece of history.

In recent years, I have found an unexpected revival of interest in cybernetics amongst artists and designers. However, the cybernetics they are aware of seems to be the pre1968 variety brought to public attention in the Cybernetic Serendipity Exhibition. I have been wondering how to capitalise on this interest, to bring an updated cybernetics to artists and designers. One move to this end was compiling and editing a double issue of Kybernetes on Cybernetics and Design (Glanville, 2007b). Meanwhile, preparing for the 50th anniversary of the founding (in 1958) of the Biological Computer Laboratory at the May conference of the American Society for Cybernetics, 2 I came to realise the importance of the 9th year of each decade in the story of cybernetics. We can form the history of cybernetics around years ending in 8 – until cybernetics more or less disappeared from popular awareness. The history is, of course, familiar, but the familiar is re-formed by re-centring its focus. More importantly, we can propose a way forward for cybernetics in 2008: develop our association with artists and designers, in such a manner that we can introduce our more recent, and relevant, insights. The serendipitous launch in Vienna in November 2007 of the Gordon Pask archive provides further impetus. Pask’s work, rarely touched on in this journal, is the subject of considerable scrutiny in art and design, in part because of his own performance and output as an artist. Thus, even though history contains no predictive causal mechanisms, we may take a lesson from history in order to move forward. I hope you will find this background helpful in reading the rest of the column.