Metacybernetics: Towards a General Theory of Higher Order Cybernetics

Metacybernetics refers to the higher cybernetic orders that arise in living system agencies. Agencies are complex, and for them to be viable and hence survive, they require both stability and uncertainty reduction. Metacybernetics is defined through a metasystem hierarchy, and is mostly known through 1st and 2nd order cybernetics. In this exploratory paper the purpose is to create a framework that can underpin metacybernetics and explain the relationship between different cybernetic orders. The framework is built on agency theory which has both substructural and superstructural dimensions. Substructure has an interest in stability, is concerned with the generation of higher cybernetic orders, and is serviced by horizontal recursion. Superstructure is concerned with uncertainty reduction by uncovering hidden material or regulatory relationships, and is serviced by vertical recursion. Philosophical aspects to the framework are discussed, making distinction between global rationality through critical realism, and local rationality that relates to different cybernetic orders that correspond to bounding paradigms like positivism and constructivism.

Racjonalność jako zespół reguł obowiązujących lokalnie. Uwagi na podstawie myśli późnego Wittgensteina

The author aims to explain the notion of rationality as an analytical tool. The main thesis is that rationality must be understood as a set of local rules. As rationality occurs in many cases, one can talk about pluralism of rationality. However, the author criticises the popular interpretation of ‘local rationality’ (Gianni Vattimo). He refers to the concept of language-games developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein. He advocates the conservative interpretation of Wittgenstein’s works, which is in contrast to the relativistic (Richard Rorty) and emancipatory (Lotar Rasiński) interpretations. The text can be treated as an exegesis of Wittgenstein’s theorem: ‘Thinking is surrounded by a nimbus. Its essence, logic, presents an order: namely, the a priori order of the world; that is, the order of possibilities, which the world and thinking must have in common.’