Purpose: Attention is drawn to a principle of “significance feedback” in neural nets that was devised in the encouraging ambience of the Biological Computer Laboratory and is arguably fundamental to much of the subsequent practical application of artificial neural nets. Design/methodology/approach – The background against which the innovation was made is reviewed, as well as subsequent developments. It is emphasised that Heinz von Foerster and BCL made important contributions prior to their focus on second-order cybernetics. Findings: The version of “significance feedback” denoted by “backpropagation of error” has found numerous applications, but in a restricted field, and the relevance to biology is uncertain. Practical implications: Ways in which the principle might be extended are discussed, including attention to structural changes in networks, and extension of the field of application to include conceptual processing. Originality/value – The original work was 40 years ago, but indications are given of questions that are still unanswered and avenues yet to be explored, some of them indicated by reference to intelligence as “fractal.”

Key words: cybernetics, neural nets, learning.

This article considers the genealogies of the ‘bioeconomy’ by investigating shifting conceptions of life, debt and regeneration across the disciplines of biology and political economy. Returning to the post-industrial literature of the seventies, it seeks to understand how the perception of economic and ecological crisis fed into the US’s decision to promote life science innovation as the cutting edge of its new economic strategies. There is an intimate connection, it argues, between the world oil crisis, US debt and the speculative reinvention of life. In this context, a number of methodological and conceptual questions become imperative. When capital mobilizes the biological, how do we theorize the relationship between the creation of money (surplus from debt; futures from promise) and the technological recreation of life? When capitalism confronts the geochemical limits of the earth, where does it move? What is the space-time – the world – of late capitalism and where are its boundaries? What finally, becomes of the critique of political economy in an era in which biological, economic and ecological futures are so intimately entwined? And when the future itself is subject to all kinds of speculation?

Key words: Bioeconomy, biopolitics, biotechnology, capital, ecology, Marx

In linking evolution, biosemiotics and languaging, analysis of meaning is extended by investigation of natural innovation. Rather than ascribe it to internal or external content, meaning comes first. Ecological, evolutionary and developmental flux defy content/ vehicle distinctions. In the eco-evo-devo frame, I present the papers of the Special Issue, pose questions, and identify a direction of travel. Above all, meaning connects older views of semiosis with recent work on ecosystemic living. Whilst aesthetics and languaging can refer to evolving semiotic objects, nature uses bio-signals, judging experience, and how culture (and Languages) can condition free-living agents. Further, science changes its status when meaning takes priority. While semiotics shows the narrowness of laws and recurrent regularity, function brings semiotic properties to causal aspects of natural innovation. By drawing on languaging one can clarify, for example, how brains and prostheses can serve human cyborgs. Indeed, given a multi-scalar nexus of meaning, biosemiotics becomes a powerful epistemic tool. Accordingly, I close with a model of how observers can use languaging to track both how self-fabricated living systems co-modulate and also how judging (and thinking) shapes understanding of changing ‘worlds.’ In certain scales, each ’whole’ agent acts on its own behalf as it uses epigenetic history and adjusts to flux by engaging with an ecosystem

Key words: biosemiotics, languaging, semiotics, eco-evo-devo, meaning, distributed language

Purpose: This paper seeks to develop the argument that a cybernetic framework will enable designers to act as an observer and participant in the process of designing. The dynamic nature of the design process will be discussed in order to better understand how these aspects impact on a designer’s ability to act effectively in design. Design/methodology/approach – A second‐order cybernetic framework is offered as a means to facilitate a designer’s capacity to act as an observer‐participant in the co‐creation of a design solution. It characterizes the design process as a conversation to enhance a designer’s ability to conceptually develop novel design solutions in participative situations. Findings: The significance of the designer in the design process and the design solution is established. A second‐order cybernetic framework provides an explanation for a designer’s actions by acknowledging their presence in the design process. This makes possible the collaborative development of a design situation and its solution between various participants in this process through negotiation and mutual understanding. Practical implications: It is envisaged that the value of cybernetic concepts as a means to augment interaction, reflection, mutual understanding, creativity and innovation to facilitate designerly ways of knowing, thinking, and acting, is realized. Originality/value – The main value of this framework is for designers who struggle with finding an appropriate framework to facilitate and rationalize the subjective nature of human‐centred design methods and the complexity of design.

This paper argues that constructivism is a needed educational reform that will succeed only when three types of readiness are in place: teacher, curricular, and societal. The failure of constructivism and other reform movements can he attributed to the fact that these three forms of readiness were never in alignment. The author contends that technological innovation may have sufficient impetus to encourage the three types of readiness. Nonetheless, reform will be truly successful only if it incorporates a constructivist philosophy of education.

In marketing theory, the shift from the paradigm of value creation to value ‘cocreation’ calls for a deeper grasp of the interactions between producers and customers. Marketing studies have widely focused on the value cocreation concept, but so far, the mechanism through which consumers can be involved in the process of value cocreation through product development had found little space in marketing studies. In this theoretical paper, we aim to fill this gap and pave the way towards a better understanding of the mechanisms of value cocreation for product development through second-order cybernetics. We conceive the market arena as a physical or virtual place where communications of value propositions produce eigenforms driving the eigenbehaviours of producers and customers towards shared meaningful objects. Based on these assumptions, we offer a framework based on the viable systems model and the law of requisite variety to shed light on processes of interaction between producers and consumers in the market arena. The proposed framework can be an effective tool for the managers involved in product design and marketing to contribute to a firm’s policies by supplying a clearer picture of the systemic relations involved in the value cocreation for product innovation and product development.

Cognitive models have contributed significantly to the understanding of unipolar depression and its psychological treatment. Our research group has been working on the notion of cognitive conflict viewed as personal dilemmas according to personal construct theory. We use a novel method for identifying those conflicts using the repertory grid technique (RGT). This study aims to empirically test the hypothesis that an intervention focused on the dilemma(s) specifically detected for each patient will enhance the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. We expect that adding a dilemma-focused intervention to CBT will increase the efficacy of one of the more prestigious therapies for depression, thus resulting in a significant contribution to the psychological treatment of depression. Relevance: This article describes the protocol of a controlled study aimed at testing the efficacy of dilemma-focused therapy (DFT) as an intervention in the treatment of depression. DFT is a constructivist-oriented intervention targeting the cognitive conflicts that block the pathway to change. Constructivist epistemology has shown its potential for creation and innovation across a variety of psychotherapy approaches. Personal construct therapy is one of these approaches, and DFT arises from it as a structured, but still flexible, intervention aimed at making explicit and fostering resolution of the specific dilemma(s) found for that particular patient in the initial repertory grid assessment.

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning How to Innovate as a Socio-epistemological Process of Co-creation: Towards a Constructivist Teaching Strategy for Innovation” by Markus F. Peschl, Gloria Bottaro, Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler & Katharina Rötzer. Upshot: The target article describes a programme of study in enterprise education based on radical constructivism (RC. There are a number of issues that arise: the RC approach emphasises student learning rather than preparation for teaching, this type of course can have an impact on the other courses in the programme, and the nurturing of student uncertainty requires particular skills in any group by both teachers and students.

The aim of this paper is to describe some contemporary representations of education in Ireland and the Czech Republic so as to encourage educational innovation in a sustainable way. In the context of a European Comenius Project designed to facilitate constructivist approaches to science education at upper primary and lower secondary levels, pupil and teacher representations were examined to provide insight into appropriate intervention strategies. While types of readiness for constructivist practice are indicated by these techniques, more recent evidence points to the importance of sustained supported intervention to ensure change in teacher practice. Relevance: This paper examines constructivist approaches in two different systems of education. It shows how different aspects of constructivist approaches are prioritised in the two cultures.

Key words: Constructivist approaches, education, cultural differences.

After an impressive development throughout the last two decades, supported by a greatamount of research and innovation, science education seemed to be becoming a newscientific domain. This transformation of Science Education into a specific field of researchand knowledge is usually associated with the establishment of what has been called an‘emergent consensus’ about constructivist positions. However, some voices have begunto question these constructivist positions and therefore the idea of an advancementtowards a coherent body of knowledge in the field of science education. The goalof this work is to analyse some of the current criticisms of the so-called constructivistorientations and to study their implications for the development of science education asa coherent body of knowledge.