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Toward a cybernetic psychology

Article in Kybernetes · October 2011

DOI: 10.1108/03684921111169369 · Source: DBLP

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INVITED PAPER Toward a

cybernetic
Toward a cybernetic psychology psychology
Bernard Scott
Highworth, UK 1247
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the relationship between cybernetics and psychology.
Design/methodology/approach – The paradigms of cybernetics are reviewed and then applied to
psychology.
Findings – Applying the paradigms of cybernetics to psychology provides a conceptually coherent
account of what is a psychological individual.
Originality/value – It is of value to bring conceptual coherence to the discipline of psychology,
which, thus far in its history, has lacked it.
Keywords Cybernetics, Psychology, First-order cybernetics, Second-order cybernetics, Paradigms
Paper type General review

Psychology and cybernetics

Psychology and cybernetics are both young disciplines relative to, say, physics,
chemistry and biology and both suffer from and are stimulated by criticisms that rudely
and, usually, crudely compare them unfavourably with the older disciplines. More
sympathetic commentators have tried to show that the form of the two disciplines is not
merely a function of their youth, but is rather a function of their content: those aspects of
the world with which they avowedly concern themselves. For these commentators,
cybernetics and psychology are sharply distinguished from the physical sciences since
the latter distinguish a universe that contains no subject (Gunther, 1971) or,
equivalently, no ideas or intentions (Von Demarus, 1967) or, again, equivalently, no
observer (Maturana, 1970).
Within the two disciplines, there is little agreement, about what the content of the
field of study is, let alone the form that the investigations and the theory-making should
take. In psychology, the lines of controversy can be drawn several ways: “cognitivists”
versus “behaviourists” is still currently active conflict. In cybernetics, there are (perhaps
less contentious) distinctions between those who purvey what Pask (1970) calls a
“systemic monism”, i.e. for them, “if it is about systems its cybernetics and cybernetics
is just about systems[1]” and those who engage in what Pask, in the same context, calls
“non-trivial cybernetics”, i.e. a cybernetics that is crucially concerned with cognition,
including the cognition of the cybernetician who observes or explains a system (which
is, perhaps, the system “cybernetician”).
In line with Pask’s distinction and in order to clarify just what cybernetics is and is
not about, Von Foerster (1974) distinguishes a first- and second-order cybernetics.
Kybernetes
The author’s gift to Kybernetes on the occasion of its 40th Anniversary is an edited extract from Vol. 40 No. 9/10, 2011
his unpublished PhD thesis: Cognitive Representations and their Transformations in the pp. 1247-1257
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Acquisition of Keyboard Skills, Brunel University, 1976. The essay shows how cybernetics had a 0368-492X
profound influence on his understanding of psychology. DOI 10.1108/03684921111169369
K First-order cybernetics is “the cybernetics of observed systems”. Second-order
40,9/10 cybernetics is “the cybernetics of observing systems”. In this sense, second-order
cybernetics includes or is informed of first-order cybernetics and thus misguided
conflict and controversy is avoided. As a historical note and in passing, it is worth
recalling the late Ashby’s (1961) comments on his own work as an observer of brains,
that the cyberneticians of his generation had done much to further understanding of
1248 brains (i.e. a first-order theorising as with his own concept of ultra-stability) and he saw
the understanding of mind (calling implicitly for second-order theorising) as a problem
for the next generation of cyberneticians.
These reflections of eminent cyberneticians about cybernetics help illuminate the
controversy in psychology, alluded to above as “cognitivists” versus “behaviourists”.
This controversy has, in one form or another, been extant in psychology since the turn of
the century: “gestalt” versus “stimulus-response”; “expectancy” versus “habit” and so
on. Currently, the form of controversy is represented, in extremo, by, for example, the
approach of Skinnerian behaviourists and Kellyian cognitivists. From the perspective
developed in the above paragraphs, the Skinnerian approach is seen to be first order,
with the legislation that other, higher order approaches are “out of court” or not
“scientific” (Skinner, 1969). The work of Kelly (1955) to develop a “reflexive” psychology,
that is, a psychology that explains the psychologist’s own theorising, is clearly second
order.
What then of the relation of psychology to cybernetics and vice versa? In terms of
their avowed fields of study, their content (be it first or second order), there is no
distinction, save that cybernetics covers more ground. As with behaviourists,
first-order cybernetics treats human behaviour as emanations or elicitations from a
“black box”, but, in addition, it sees a world pregnant with black boxes (cells, societies,
human organisations and so forth), all of which may be adumbrated by the same
constructs. As with cognitivists, second-order cybernetics deals with human cognitive
systems. But, in addition, it sees cognition as a more general phenomenon: as a
distributed process in a social system, for example, or as a process that can be executed
in other than biological fabric.
In terms of the form that the theories and methodologies of the two disciplines tend
to take, some distinctions can be made. The first distinction is that cybernetics has an
avowed aim, the elucidation of very general and unifying theoretical formulations. It is
this aim which gives cybernetics its interdisciplinary character and which gives
cyberneticians the assumption that they are all doing the same sort of thing. In
Lakatos’ (1970) sense there is a more generally agreed “research programme” or as
Kuhn (1962) might say, agreed “paradigms”, than in psychology. Within psychology,
there is no accepted paradigm and there is no general disagreement as to whether such
a paradigm is possible and will evolve as the discipline develops.
This being the case, there are two ways in which psychology and cybernetics have
become inter-related. First, many cyberneticians have practised their art in the domain of
psychology. Pask and George are two outstanding examples. Craik, who in the 1940s
contributed to the inception of cybernetics, was an innovative experimental psychologist
(Craik, 1943). McCulloch (1965), who again was a progenitor of cybernetics, had, amongst
his other accomplishments, qualified and worked as an experimental psychologist and
psychiatrist. Ross Ashby was originally a psychiatrist [. . .] and so on. Second, in a myriad
number of ways, cybernetic thinking has become an implicit and key part of much
contemporary psychology. The book by Miller et al. (1960) was instrumental here, as was Toward a
the work of George (1961), Deutsch (1960) and Broadbent (1957) in different ways. cybernetic
Psychology itself took on a more interdisciplinary colour with contributions from the
linguist, Chomsky (Miller and Chomsky, 1963), and the work of the artificial intelligence psychology
group centred on Minsky (Minsky, 1968; Winograd, 1972).
In summary then, we see that second-order cybernetics necessarily includes a
psychology, whilst much contemporary psychology subscribes, if only implicitly and 1249
partially, to the paradigms of cybernetics.
What then are the paradigms of cybernetics? The comments so far in this article
have served merely as a sketch of a state of affairs. The paragraphs below are intended
as a more precise statement of the writer’s interpretations of what is cybernetics.

The paradigms of cybernetics

Masterman (1970), in discussing Kuhn’s notion of the paradigms of a science,
distinguishes some 21 different senses of the term “paradigm” in Kuhn’s (1962)
discursive essay, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. From these varied usages of
the term, Masterman distils three basic ones: metaphysical paradigms, sociological
paradigms and construct or artefact paradigms.
Metaphysical paradigms are the general assumptions, usually implicit in a science,
about the nature of reality: there is some commitment to what is (ontology), what it is to
know something and what may be known (epistemology). Sociological paradigms are a
set of scientific habits: the research activities of so-called “normal science” based on one
or more previous scientific achievements. Construct (artefact) paradigms are
procedures for solving problems. Masterman expresses it thus:
[. . .] for any puzzle which is really a puzzle to be solved by using a paradigm, this paradigm
must be a construct, an artefact a system, a tool; together with the manual of instruction for
using it successfully and a method of interpretation of what it does.
The sociological paradigms of cybernetics need not concern us; their form is very much
that of the older sciences and of science in general. As a social institution, cybernetics
inhabits places (universities, research laboratories) where cybernetics happens. Papers
are published, theses written and so forth. There is a general process by which new
theories and findings become transmitted to the next generation through standard text
books and courses – the ways in which a novice is initiated into the discipline as
something with a taken for granted validity and way of going about things. With rare
exceptions (for example the “Cybernetics of Cybernetics” course at Illinois – see
Von Foerster et al. (1974)), innovations have not been made in this area[2].
The metaphysical and construct paradigms of cybernetics do distinguish it from the
older science. Clearly, these paradigms have evolved and are evolving; the statement of
them here can only be the author’s opinion of what is relevant and significant. First, it
is necessary to examine more closely the relation between metaphysical and construct
paradigms. As Masterman points out, both are the precursors to the establishment of a
“normal science” as a social institution. Further, she makes it clear that the two sorts of
paradigm are, for any practitioner of his science, wedded together. In brief, the
construct paradigms, if effective as puzzle-solvers, give rise to a technology.
Metaphysical paradigms are the justifications, which, for the practitioner, lead him to
K see puzzles as puzzles and which lead him to believe they are solvable and that the
40,9/10 solving of them is worthwhile.
At this point, it is worth making a distinction that Masterman does not make: that
between metaphysics and mysticism[3]. Both the mystic and the metaphysician are
concerned to have a “Weltanschauung” – a comprehensive world view – but, whereas
the metaphysician incorporates in his Weltanschauuing the belief that he can articulate
1250 his Weltanschauuing to some point; the mystic incorporates in his Weltanschauuing the
belief that any articulation (in words, symbols, pictures) of his Weltanschauuing is not
it. As examples, one contrasts the writings of fairly recent Western metaphysicians such
as Whitehead (1979) and Von Demarus (1967) with the first line of the Tao Te Ching:
“The Tao that can be said (written) is not the eternal Tao”[4].
Having made this distinction the writer, on the face of it, faces a quandary: to articulate
a metaphysics for cybernetics is to place himself on one side of the boundary made by the
distinction. To say nothing leaves him on the other side with no clear justification for why
he is doing what he is doing (i.e. writing a paper for a learned journal). Other writers have
faced similar quandaries. Wittgenstein (1961) in the Tractatus erects a metaphysics that
in effect says no such metaphysics is possible, thus leaving himself on the side of the
mystics[5]. Maturana (1970) in presenting a metaphysics for biology escapes the
quandary by appealing to the writer to experience his thesis as a gestalt, in the manner of
a poem, where there is the implicit injunction to transcend the limitations of the medium
of expression. In effect, Maturana is echoing the injunction of his teacher, McCulloch
(1967): “Do not look at my finger, look where I’m pointing!”. In a similar vein,
Spencer-Brown (1969) talks of the invaluable (and inevitable) use of commands and
injunctions that are recipes for arriving at understandings and which thus transcend the
Wittgensteinian limitations of picturing or stating how the world is. Korzybski (1958)
tersely states, “The map is not the territory”.
These reflections, then, are the justification for proceeding: just as the mystic (such
as a Zen Master) provokes enlightenment in his students by doing something in the
world that reflects his Weltanschauuing, so, more moderately, his Western counterpart
can articulate a metaphysics, which when interpreted as a command or provocation,
may lead his students to share his understanding of what is the essential nature of his
discipline. The following, then, is a summary of what the writer sees as the essential
metaphysical paradigms of cybernetics.
Cyberneticians manipulate metaphors[6]. This definition is itself a metaphor. It is
chosen, because in the context of the goals the author has set himself, it appears useful.
In another context, still acting consistently as a cybernetician, the author might choose
a different metaphor, one in which the very notion of cybernetics is disallowed,
irrelevant or redundant. In this sense, we are all cyberneticians. We engage in
conversation and through the manipulation of metaphors reach understandings:
agreements over what metaphors to apply to “ourselves” and our “worlds”. There is no
requirement of truth, only effectiveness in achieving goals that are set. In a scientific
community, the goals and the criteria are agreed by groups of observers who pursue
the evolutionary goal of understanding the world. In second-order cybernetics, there
is the explicit pursuit of the evolutionary goal of understanding what it is to
understand the world.
Metaphors in the form of manipulable models are required whenever we wish to
construct or maintain or bring about some state of affairs. The form of the model may
reflect the content of the world but it is not the world itself. The construct paradigms of Toward a
cybernetics are the models manipulated. The essential features of such models are their cybernetic
representation of a process, system or organisation (the words are synonymous in this
context) irrespective of its embodiment in some fabric. To phrase this differently, in the psychology
world of the cybernetician, there are no objects, no things; there are processes.
There is stability in the world due to processes that act so as to reproduce
themselves or other processes. What is stable in the world is the process of the world 1251
being or reproducing itself. The products of the process are transitory. Maturana
(Maturana and Varela, 1980) calls such a process autopoietic or self-constructing. For
Von Foerster (1972), an observer (necessarily an observer of himself) is his own
ultimate object. As Kallikourdis (1974) puts it, “Cybernetics is not committed to a
particular ontology.” As Pask (1973) has put it, “Cybernetics is the game of selecting
suitable axiom schemes.”
This metaphysical/mystical stance gives cybernetics its peculiarly pragmatic
flavour and distinguishes the status of its construct paradigms as tools. At the same
time, the same stance recognises the aesthetic and ethical components of cybernetics.
In the never ending process of coming to know the unknowable or attempting to
control the intrinsically uncontrollable, the value of cybernetics rests not in an abstract
notion of the absolution truth but in a here-now appreciation of the good, the beautiful,
that which enhances the quality of the world, where the quality is not a predicate of
subjective experience nor a predicate of a world out there. As Pirsig (1974) eloquently
expresses it:
Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive
observer of all things, as the objective idealists and materialists would say. The Quality
which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a
participant in the creation of all things, the measuring of all things.
McCulloch (1972) emphasises the ethical responsibilities of the cybernetician: he is not
a passive observer; he is an actor in the world. Ashby (1956) recognises this when he
notes that a “system” is a construct of an observer. It is the observer who bounds the
system and gives it individuality. Similarly, in modelling or picturing a system, there
are an infinity of forms that the model can take and that it is quite possible for two or
more valid homomorphic representations of a system to be themselves incompatible or
contradictory as forms or axiom schemes. Thus, the observer distinguishes the system
and the observer selects the model and associated interpretative metaphors to
represent the system. The validity of the model/metaphors then resides in the
effectiveness with which the goals of (and set by) the observer are achieved.

The cybernetician as psychologist

As a psychologist, the cybernetician is concerned with the understanding, regulation
and management of cognitive and affective processes[7]. The fundamental distinction
he makes is that between the process that is executed and the processor that embodies
it, recognising, as he makes the distinction, that it is a distinction he makes, not one
that is intrinsic to reality in an a priori sense. With Wittgenstein, the cybernetician
recognises that there is “no a priori order to things”; the universe(s) he distinguishes as
the frame of reference for his observation could always be chosen differently.
K “Whatever we see could be other than it is. Whatever we can describe at all could be
40,9/10 other than it is” (Wittgenstein, 1961, 5.6.34).
A cognitive process, when described, is a linguistic or symbolic entity. It has a
syntactic component, saying what descriptive forms (symbol strings, pictures) the
process may have, and a semantic component, saying how the descriptive forms are to
be interpreted as descriptions of the process as it is executed in the (given) universe of
1252 interpretation. A processor, when described, is a biological or mechanical entity, which,
in Pask’s phrase, “gives an imperative interpretation” to the process. That is, it
executes it and in a mechanical or causal, pragmatic sense transforms the content of
the universe of interpretation in a manner that reflects the permissions given by the
syntax of the process. As “its” that happen and have to happen, transformations of the
processor are such that they resolve the ambiguities engendered by the permissive,
“might be” nature of the process.
Both process and processor are unitary entities (systems). The bounding of the
systems is carried out by the observer[8]. Typically, he may distinguish brains/bodies
as processors and cognitive organisations such as “concepts”, “memories” and
“conversations”, as the processes undergoing execution. Thus, there is not necessarily
a one-to-one correspondence between processes and processors. What is recognised,
rather, is that insofar as distinct processes (such as concepts) are executed in the same
processor (such as a brain), then their distinctiveness demands, a fortiori, that parts of
the processor are acting asynchronously. In like manner, insofar as a distinct process is
executed distributively in more than one processor (such as several brains), then its
distinctiveness demands, a fortiori, that the several processors are acting
synchronously.
Synchronicity between assemblies of processors (or parts of a processor) reflects an
information transfer between processes that thus constitutes them as one process.
Here, “information” literally means (as Spencer-Brown (1969) has pointed out) “form
within”.
Given a process that is a relation or ordering of other processes, its description
necessarily has, within it, descriptions of the other processes. In symbols, we write:

A ¼ ðB; CÞ
and mean that description A says the same as description (B, C), where the brackets
denote the fact that B and C are ordered or related as a unitary entity.
The notion of “information transfer” necessarily means that, at least while they are
being executed in synchrony, it is also possible to write:

B ¼ ðA; CÞ

and:
C ¼ ðA; BÞ:

In words: “in the context of A, B reflects (has within it) the form of C”, and “in the
context of A, C reflects (has within it) the form of B”.
Possible psychological interpretations of the processes, A, B and C are that they are
“ideas” or “thoughts” or “concepts” or “memories” or “selves (psychological
individuals)”or “conversations”. We note here a continuity between the domains of
psychology and sociology: sociological interpretations are “social roles”, “social Toward a
institutions” or “social systems (cultures)”. cybernetic
Processors, such as “brains”, or other bio-mechanical entities have characteristic
dynamic or “macro” properties, irrespective of the processes they execute: there is the psychology
requirements that the fabric be maintained. There is an upper limitation (in the extreme,
that of Bremmerman (1967)) on the amount of processing (expressed in bits/second) that
can be done and, likewise, a lower limitation. There is, in waking states, a need for 1253
variety. The upper limit means that in the here-now execution of processes bounded as
processes happening in a particular processor, there is a continual “guessing”: at any
instant, the description of the process allows for alternatives as to what is done next.
This is the “probabilistic” nature of the brain as a computer, stressed in particular by
Gregory (1966). The lower limit means that in the here-now of the processor’s being as a
system, a description is generated of the process that is being executed. The processor
informs itself of what is happening.
Here lies the source of new ideas, new thoughts: with “nothing” to “occupy the
attention”, what is occupying the attention is described. The “nothing” that is described,
of course, becomes something as it is described. It is in this sense that “nothingness” (the
“pleroma” of Jung (1980), the “void” of Spencer-Brown (1969), the “Tao” of Tzu (2007))
becomes manifest as something (the “creatura” of Jung, the “first distinction” of
Spencer-Brown, the “Tao manifest” of Lao-Tzu). The source and sink of life, creation are
thus the same[9]. Cosmologically, the energetic death of suns gives rise, informationally,
to a biosphere, a process that is viable, insofar as it is informed of its own origins.
Psychologically, the energetic death that occurs when a neuron discharges gives rise,
informationally, to thought, a process that is viable insofar as it is informed of its
own origins, i.e. not a mere “passing fancy” but something that is a coherent part of a
larger whole.
The “macrotheoretic” comments given above stem chiefly from two sources:
Shroedinger’s (1944) What is Life? and Ashby’s (1959, 2nd ed.) Design for a Brain.
It was Ashby who most clearly and simply in the most general terms recognised that
the application of a rule (a constraint, such as the “laws” of thermodynamics) within a
complex system necessarily gives rise to the evolution of processes within that system
that survive or are viable precisely because they are informed of (take advantage of)
the constraint. In Schroedinger’s terms, systems (biological organisms) arise in which
the second law of thermodynamics (disorder increases) appears to be violated (the
systems are self-organising). The appearance is false in that overall the second law is
still being obeyed.
That eventually man, as we now know him, should evolve, is thus inevitable.
Dialectically, the continued application of the constraint gives rise to qualitatively
different forms: inorganic/organic is one example of a distinction between qualitatively
different forms (which, like all such distinctions, is “fuzzy”).
The qualitatively different forms a psychologist focuses on are those that are
conscious with himself: those with whom he shares the awareness of being a self that is
like but distinct from other selves. The source of this evolutionary innovation is the
same as that which led to the evolution of amoebae. In this case, though, consciousness
appears as a product of a social life. The self-organising systems, that Ashby and
Schroedinger describe, are not isolated; evolutionary constrain leads them inevitably to
cooperate, to synchronise in order to coordinate action. The synchrony of behaviour
K leads inevitably to the symbolism of social gesture and the evolution of selves as social
40,9/10 processes, that, as part of a larger process, are informed of each other and hence of
themselves. That is, it is the becoming informed of the other that leads the one to be
informed of the one as a one.
Once this has happened (in evolution or in ontogeny), there is a psychological
individuality distinct from a biological individuality. The psychological individual has
1254 the status of being an “individual” precisely for the same reason that an organism has
individuality. Being informed of itself it can reproduce itself with a stability that allows
an observer (who is exactly the same sort of entity) to distinguish it as a psychological
individual (a “him” or a “her” or a “we” or a “them”).

Concluding comments
In a sense, the evolutionary process just described that has happened to and produced
us is obvious and simple in form. This is true, but the obviousness only comes after
reflection. Reflection of self-to-self has evolved self, it requires further reflection for the
self (be it a personal or a cultural entity) to understand its own evolution. Many of the
tragedies of modern history and most of the “non-sense” purveyed by contemporary
psychology, sociology and psychiatry are due to such a lack of understanding.
The analysis of the evolution of self as a social process was first presented by G.H. Mead
in the 1920s and 1930s of this century (Mead, 1934; Miller, 1973). The implications of the
analysis as a guide for self and cultural development are as revolutionary as, say, those of
Marxism. That Mead’s analysis is a lasting, effective contribution is most evident from the
fact that the essential form of his analysis has been restated (often independently) by
several writers in more recent times. Pask’s (1975) writings are a case in point. Other
examples are Bateson (1972), Laing (1972) and Sartre (1960).
The particular theme of Mead (which tersely put is “I am thou” and echoes the
theologian Martin Buber, one of Laing’s influences[10]) is not always the focus of
attention and often the writers, by virtue of other stances they take, contradict the theme.
The situation in terms of the evolution of a new idea, is analogous to the evolution of
cosmological thinking, analysed by (amongst others) Koestler (1959) in his book
The Sleepwalkers, the title of which reflects the fact that the innovators themselves were
often blind or temporarily blind, to the significance of their discoveries/inventions as
they appear from a historical vantage point.

Notes
1. For the present purposes, the writer sees no distinction, except in terms of historical
development, between “Cybernetics” and “General Systems Theory”.
2. Since I wrote this, things have moved on to some extent. There is now more emphasis on
helping learners “learn to learn” (See, e.g. the pioneering work of Harri-Augstein and
Thomas (1991)).
3. The writer owes the form of this distinction and its articulation to Pirsig (1974).
4. There are many translations of the Chinese classic available (Tzu, 2007).
5. This is the writer’s interpretation. Other commentators have hailed the Tractatus as a
manifesto for positivism.
 6. This is my terse definition. In Beer (1993), I was delighted to find a slightly different version, Toward a
“Cybernetics is the science of defensible metaphors”, attributed to Gordon Pask, my mentor
and PhD supervisor. Of course, some metaphors are more defensible than others.
cybernetic
7. The distinction between cognition and affect is, of course, one that the external observer
psychology
makes. One of Pask’s aphorisms is, “A thought is a feeling” (personal communication).
8. Of course, he may distinguish the entities as self-bounding, in which case he attempts to
make his bounding correspond to that of the system’s own bounding of itself. 1255
9. This statement is, of course, only meaningful for a living system. As Wittgenstein (1961,
6.4311) puts it, “Death is not an event in life. If one understands eternity not as an endless
period of time but as timelessness, he who live in the present lives eternally.”
10. Perhaps, the most famous and most influential source of the theme, at least in Western
culture, is of course Jesus of Nazareth, whose second commandment was “Love thy
neighbour as thyself”, which itself is a quotation from the Old Testament (Leviticus, 19, 18).
Cybernetics provides a justification for this command.

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