Pioneering Stars for SCI
Jason Hu
Option 2: Expanding “the number of star seats” from the current 12 to 15. However, initially we had 9 star seats, but had to expand to 12, and we are already criticized by an editor from a publisher for “too crowded”on that page. So think again.
Option 3: Cut the number of stars to just 3, one for each. Now the question is, who? Criteria of choice? Another Pandora Box is waiting.
Option 4: Keep it, with “Bias of Jason’s Group.” Note that all of the works, including these design efforts, are all volunteered. Who does not have some bias? Bear with it.
Please let me know your new opinions after considering the above options."
Before you start getting angry with me, here is the good news on the second-order: The project group had a long meeting this morning. Regarding the above issue, our graphic designer, Seven Chen, kindly offered to cancel that back cover. (That's a lot of labor from him.) Instead, the group decided not to put those stars on the back cover, but to redesign a folder page at the beginning of the book, using three pages to introduce the founding stars. That way, each stream of S-C-I can have 6 seats, a total of 18 "founding stars" for SCI Trinity. Outstanding contributors beyond these 18 will be introduced in our second book, "Who Is Who in SCI",currently having 136 names.
For the Systemic thread, we have:
1-Jan Smuts, 2-Ludwig von Bertalanffy, 3-Jay Forrester, 4-Russell Ackoff, 5-Donella Meadows, 6-Humberto Maturana;
For the Cybernetics thread, we have:
1-Norbert Wiener, 2-Warren McCulloch, 3-Gregory Bateson, 4-Ross Ashby, 5-Heinz von Foerster, 6-Stafford Beer;
For the Informatics thread, we have:
1-Alan Turing, 2-Claude Shannon, 3-John von Neumann, 4-Walter Pitts, 5-Margaret Mead, 6-Gordon Pask.
I hope you will be nodding with these 18 names that we identify as "pioneering stars". If not, then make your proposal about who from these 18 should be replaced by whom you name, with your good or crazy reasons. If you find that we misplaced someone in the wrong room, don't worry, because we are now defining "one big room" for all of them - the Trinity field named SCI hereinafter. From our perspective, all of them contributed to the same huge building of unique human knowledge, like Gaudí's Sagrada Familia: One grand church, three different entrances with different names, but inside, all connected. I think it is time for the three streams of SCI to confluence.
The deadline to finalize this list will be June 14; you have one week to debate with yourself or with me. 😁 For those of you who are willing to join our RAG (Reviewer/Advisor Group), you also need to inform me by that date.
Thank you again for your support, with best regards, - Jason
Jason Jixuan Hu, Ph.D.
Independent Research Scholar
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roger....@btinternet.com
You write that your intent is Confluence (good). But then perhaps you need to bite the bullet and name 'second order' (or something similar) - perhaps you have already done so?
Clearly one might then have a fourth thread:
Maturana, Pask, von Foerster, von Glasersfeld, Kauffman (Lou).
As I said, feel free to ignore.
Hi Bernard.
Roger
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Bernard C E Scott
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Mark Johnson
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Margaretha Hendrickx
Dear Mark and all,your mail recalls a question that I raised some months ago and received some attention in this group: why cybernetics (especially second-order cybernetics) failed its mission to revolutionize science (especially failing in the case of social sciences). You add a right criticism of a certain tendency to 'self-celebration': supporters of cybernetics that celebrate the great minds of cybernetics and systems science.I guess it would be interesting to resume and deepen the debate we started about the disappointment of cybernetics' great future expectations.My impression is that the cybernetics 'movement' (let us use this broad inclusive concept) has been a victim of the syndrome it claims characterizes social systems: self-reference. The accusation that Stafford Beer charges to markets, politics, etc. is a clear example of looking only 'out there' instead of also inside. Indeed, a failure in self-observation ... made by the theorists of self-observation ...Best regardsLucioLucio Biggiero
Retired Full professor of Organization Science; www.luciobiggiero.comPEC: lucio.biggiero@legalmail.it; Teams: lucio.b...@gmail.com; mobile phone: (+39)3473672426
I'm proud to address you to my last co-edited book just published in Open Access: The Routledge Handbook of Cooperative Economics and Management.
The previous one, written with Robert Magnuszewski, is Inter-firm networks: Coordination through board and department interlock (NY: Springer).
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Jason Hu
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Roger
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Stefan
Dear Lucio and all,
I found Lucio’s observation extremely important, especially the idea that cybernetics may itself have become trapped in the very self-referential dynamics it identified in other systems.
Perhaps one reason second-order cybernetics failed to fully transform science and the social sciences is not because it was wrong, but because it was too corrosive at the epistemological level.
Second-order cybernetics is corrosive not because it is false, but because it increases reflexive awareness faster than systems can metabolize it.
Once the observer is included inside the system observed, institutional meanings begin to destabilize. The declared meaning of a system and its operational meaning no longer perfectly coincide.
For example, a welfare system may officially define itself through compassion, solidarity, and protection. But second-order observation may reveal additional recursive dynamics emerging through time: dependency loops, administrative self-preservation, moral production around assistance, or even forms of mutual addiction between institutional structures and recipients.
Likewise, many contemporary debates around biology, gender, identity, and social roles become difficult precisely because recursive observation reveals tensions between symbolic meanings and embodied or biosemiotic realities. The issue is not whether one side is morally right or wrong, but that second-order observation changes the level at which meaning itself is examined.
This creates a difficult situation for institutions (but not only). Most institutions require a certain degree of epistemological closure in order to remain stable. Schools, governments, sciences, markets, and even activist movements depend partly on maintaining coherence between:
- what they declare themselves to be,
- and the recursive effects they actually generate.
Second-order cybernetics continuously reopens that closure.
In Batesonian terms, this resembles Learning II. Learning I improves action within an existing frame. Learning II questions the frame itself. But when generalized socially, Learning II can become highly destabilizing, because it dissolves the innocence of the frame without necessarily providing a new shared bind capable of restoring coherence.
Perhaps this is why cybernetics succeeded technically while failing culturally. First-order cybernetics increases control and optimization, so institutions readily absorb it. Second-order cybernetics observes the observer of control itself. That is far more difficult to institutionalize.
Ironically, cybernetics may therefore have partially succeeded by disappearing into other disciplines rather than conquering them openly. Many contemporary concepts — reflexivity, observer-dependence, co-construction, emergence, systemic feedback, ecological thinking — are profoundly cybernetic in spirit, even where the name cybernetics has faded.
Best regards,
Stefan Serseniuc
Dear Mark and all,your mail recalls a question that I raised some months ago and received some attention in this group: why cybernetics (especially second-order cybernetics) failed its mission to revolutionize science (especially failing in the case of social sciences). You add a right criticism of a certain tendency to 'self-celebration': supporters of cybernetics that celebrate the great minds of cybernetics and systems science.I guess it would be interesting to resume and deepen the debate we started about the disappointment of cybernetics' great future expectations.My impression is that the cybernetics 'movement' (let us use this broad inclusive concept) has been a victim of the syndrome it claims characterizes social systems: self-reference. The accusation that Stafford Beer charges to markets, politics, etc. is a clear example of looking only 'out there' instead of also inside. Indeed, a failure in self-observation ... made by the theorists of self-observation ...Best regardsLucioLucio Biggiero
Retired Full professor of Organization Science; www.luciobiggiero.comPEC: lucio.biggiero@legalmail.it; Teams: lucio.b...@gmail.com; mobile phone: (+39)3473672426
I'm proud to address you to my last co-edited book just published in Open Access: The Routledge Handbook of Cooperative Economics and Management.
The previous one, written with Robert Magnuszewski, is Inter-firm networks: Coordination through board and department interlock (NY: Springer).
Il giorno mar 9 giu 2026 alle ore 07:18 Mark Johnson <johns...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
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Mark Johnson
Email: johns...@gmail.com
Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com
Dear Friends,
There are so many Systems thinkers and Cybernetitians….
A small, uncomplete network is attached…
From my perspective, at this stage, learning about thighs that were looses the battle with learning about things that are and things that will be.
However this does not diminish the great job you have done. One of our missions is generating materials keeping us from forgeting what was known. Especially for not repeating mistakes for which we already found means of mitigations, prevention and better solutions.
My best,
Igor
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roger....@btinternet.com
We sometime yelp in frustration at the 'failure' of our efforts, when perhaps our frustration should be simply directed at out own ego.... that there is often failure to recognize and acknowledge that which has been done.
I agree with you that there are many symptoms of the impact of the second order. Yet I still have to battle with my son to try and convince him that my intellectual efforts were worthwhile 🙂.
Perhaps we need a 'next generation' which takes on the task of interpreting the global significance of that which is beginning to permeate our cultures..... to give this enormous tectonic shift (that has happened) a boost. Surely this becomes integrated in other global initiatives in ways in which the individual reflexive loops back and forwards into a synthesized global as a transformative engine.
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Stefan
Dear Roger and all,
From your answer, especially the “efforts were worthwhile 🙂” part, I started thinking about why such ideas — ideas that sometimes effectively “rub people the wrong way” — spread at all.
My son often asks me when I will finally grow up, or if that will ever happen. And somehow some short videos and soundtracks with Gregory Bateson on YouTube came back into my mind. For someone outside his ideas, Bateson can easily sound like someone shooting ducks in the dark. Wandering, changing direction, speaking loosely, moving from dolphins to schizophrenia to ecology to art to epistemology. But if one eventually finds his switch and turns the light on, one suddenly realizes that he actually hit quite a few.
And perhaps this is precisely why his ideas spread organically. Mostly because of his warm voice and because he never seemed to take himself, or even his own ideas, too seriously. In the metalogues and conferences he left behind — the ones we can now hear on YouTube with his original voice — he often appears funny, wandering, self-detached, playful, and experimentally open toward what he is saying. He did not seem obsessed with imposing epistemological closure on the audience. Instead, he attracted people toward it indirectly.
From a René Girard’s perspective, this becomes very interesting:
His Object — knowledge, cybernetics, epistemology, closure itself — was almost secondary. The audience, the Girardian Subjects, did not seem to come primarily because they desired the Object itself. They came for the Model. They came to watch: a funny person, intellectually agile, detached, curious, playful, self-ironic, and unusually free inside thought.
And so, the transfer of knowledge became secondary and indirect.
Bateson was not trying to convince people that his intellectual efforts were worthwhile. He presented himself more as someone interestingly alive inside thinking itself.
And importantly, “outside the box” not in the modern eccentric sense of someone desperately trying to escape the box like a Jack-in-the-box performance. Rather, he looked like someone who had already travelled patiently through what was inside the box, checked its contents carefully, became bored with its limits, and naturally squeezed outside through curiosity.
And by the looks of it, his interlocutors were not just anybody either. Many were probably already somewhat dissatisfied with their own epistemic closure: academics tired of rigid categories, therapists, artists, seekers, intellectually displaced people, people looking for different meanings. And this is very important!
But I would not put this into direct opposition with the rest of society, with people who already possess a stable epistemic closure. In the end, some form of epistemic closure is necessary and probably good (I'm not bringing in morality here). Because if closure disappears entirely, what remains is often not liberation but anxiety, fragmentation, nihilism, uncertainty, and disorientation. Human beings cannot live permanently inside total non-closure.
So if the alternative is complete dissolution of meaning, then even an imperfect or random closure may be preferable.
Perhaps this is also one of the deepest cybernetic problems: how to maintain enough epistemological closure to preserve coherence, while remaining open enough to avoid pathological rigidity.
Best regards,
Stefan
P.S. I hope this answer does not sound too moralistic, like someone who already zipped himself comfortably inside a warm and waterproof sleeping sack, but is still moaning from inside about the cold and wet outside lol!
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Stefan
Dear Jason and all,
Because in the emails we already exchanged, all of us participants probably already carry our own epistemological closures regarding who matters most in cybernetics, systems science, informatics, sociology, biology, and so on, it may become very difficult to stabilize a final list through recursive email discussions alone — whether the number is 12, 18, 20, or even 30 names.
Perhaps we should also keep in mind that the final purpose of the book is not primarily to stabilize closure among us, but inside the mind of the future reader.
So I wonder whether another possibility might exist.
Why not intentionally leave that page or cover empty and instead write something like:
“Dear Reader,
By the end of this book, you may find yourself able to write your own list of preferred cyberneticists, systems thinkers, or contributors to SCI.
If your list contains more than one name, even better.
I wish you a good lecture.
The Author”
In this way, the book itself would become more second-order in spirit. Instead of imposing a finalized canon from above, it would invite the reader into the recursive process of constructing meaning and intellectual affinity personally.
Perhaps the empty space itself could become pedagogical.
Best regards,
Stefan
To be honest, from the birth of cybernetics to the proposal of second-order cybernetics, a second "Macy Conference"-style interdisciplinary integration was absolutely necessary.Unfortunately, even today, while hundreds of billions of dollars are poured into AI, there's a stingy neglect of the overall progress in human cognition.It's worth asking: Is AI truly a "bucket effect" on human cognition?If not, a capital withdrawal is entirely possible. However, those at the forefront of thought should not miss the opportunity to collectively call for a second "Macy Conference" as capital turns its back.I am fortunate that many intellectual predecessors in the "Remy Club" provided timely nourishment for my interdisciplinary and comprehensive thinking. My paper, "Consciousness," "Cognition," and "Cognitive Consciousness" (subtitle: A Personal "Macy Conference"), was unexpectedly certified by the WOSC 2024 Oxford Conference and invited for publication in the conference proceedings. Although it was later revised and missed the publication date, it at least provided timely encouragement for my interdisciplinary and comprehensive thinking. Here, I would like to express my special thanks to my colleagues in the intellectual community on the WOSC Council!While I wasn't the first to break away from René Descartes's concept of "subjective (self) experience" in defining "consciousness" as "distinction and tracking," and to assert that the cosmic physical deduction of consciousness is "the (binary) logical procedure of the occurrence and development of cosmic events and phenomena (including energy, matter, and life), the only code for tracking cosmic changes," I should be the first.Strictly speaking, my proposition of consciousness (consciousness as logic) is essentially an expansion of Planck's idea of the "fundamental nature of consciousness."Planck proposed that matter is a derivative of consciousness. However, he didn't explicitly reveal that "the physical deduction of consciousness is a logical procedure."Searching through the current intellectual frontier, the only research proposition on consciousness that comes closest to the "consciousness as logic" theory is the "computational network (mathematical model)" of cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman.I once made a friendly appeal to him on the X platform, hoping for collaboration. However, without any resources to support independent research, such an appeal will not receive any response. Alas!Greetings to all the esteemed thinkers!The best ThirachaiMark Johnson <johns...@gmail.com> 于 2026年6月14日周日 19:45写道：
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Jason Hu
Hello Michele,
Glad you like the map.
I am not sure about the colour legend. The issue is that through time, information disappear.
this map was created in 2014. The original website is long gone. This is the only thing I could resolve.
I don’t think anybody claims the author rights on the map, but I am not positively sure.
If anything, else, I have printed it and now it is hanging at the wall in my office – mostly scaring off students 😉.
It would be great is an interactive relations graph could be completed and printed, but we need somebody to actualy do it….
All the best,
Igor
From: Michele Friend <mic...@gwu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2026 5:30 PM
To: Igor Perko <igor....@um.si>
Cc: Jason Hu <jasonth...@gmail.com>; Margaretha Hendrickx <mahe...@gmail.com>; Lucio Biggiero <lucio.b...@gmail.com>; Mark Johnson <johns...@gmail.com>; Bernard Scott <bern...@gmail.com>; Fred Steier <fst...@gmail.com>; Gerald R Midgley <g.r.m...@hull.ac.uk>; Norma Romm <norma...@gmail.com>; Alexander.N...@gmail.com; l.lava...@sintesys.cl; Yiannis Laouris <lao...@futureworldscenter.org>; мокий михаил <moki...@yandex.ru>; Ste Serse <sers...@gmail.com>; ben sweeting <bensw...@gmail.com>; Sebastian | Context Collective <antep...@gmail.com>; john.b...@beckfordconsulting.com; conver...@asc-cybernetics.org; fis <f...@listas.unizar.es>; cyb...@googlegroups.com; club-o...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CoR] Pioneering Stars for SCI
Hello Igor,
The map is lovely. Is there a legend for the colours? We should make it into a poster! Cheerio,
Michele
On Sun, 14 Jun 2026 at 15:45, 'Igor Perko' via Club of Remy <club-o...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Dear Friends,
There are so many Systems thinkers and Cybernetitians….
A small, uncomplete network is attached…
From my perspective, at this stage, learning about thighs that were looses the battle with learning about things that are and things that will be.
However this does not diminish the great job you have done. One of our missions is generating materials keeping us from forgeting what was known. Especially for not repeating mistakes for which we already found means of mitigations, prevention and better solutions.
My best,
Igor
From: club-o...@googlegroups.com <club-o...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Jason Hu
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:52 AM
To: Margaretha Hendrickx <mahe...@gmail.com>
Cc: Lucio Biggiero <lucio.b...@gmail.com>; Mark Johnson <johns...@gmail.com>; Bernard Scott <bern...@gmail.com>; Fred Steier <fst...@gmail.com>; Gerald R Midgley <g.r.m...@hull.ac.uk>; Norma Romm <norma...@gmail.com>; Alexander.N...@gmail.com; l.lava...@sintesys.cl; Yiannis Laouris <lao...@futureworldscenter.org>; мокий михаил <moki...@yandex.ru>; Ste Serse <sers...@gmail.com>; ben sweeting <bensw...@gmail.com>; Sebastian | Context Collective <antep...@gmail.com>; john.b...@beckfordconsulting.com; conver...@asc-cybernetics.org; fis <f...@listas.unizar.es>; cyb...@googlegroups.com; club-o...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CoR] Pioneering Stars for SCI
No, the textbook is not about the stars. It is bout SCI entry-level knowledge. The aim is not research but attracting more young people into the field. The group has canceled that page and decided on a different approach. Stay tuned. - Jason
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Michèle Friend
Professor,
Department of Philosophy
George Washington University
Washington D.C.
Jason Hu
Should say: "**without** limiting them".On Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:51 PM Shigyō Alexander Marrero <marreros...@gmail.com> wrote:Hello All,Young (former) systems researcher here. An interesting thread to keep up with. I'm quite a bit removed from the cybernetics and systems world(s) these days in lieu of priest life, but am happy to remain a quiet part of these threads and to see the work you all are taking on. An earlier response here raised some form of this question: "why is it that cybernetics failed to revolutionize science, and especially failed in realizing its aim within social science?" As a young researcher whose life trajectory was deeply formed by this inquiry, I'd like to offer this:My own work around structural responsibility and the failure of 'social resilience' brought me deep into systemics because the questions I was asking required the kinds of thinking that the systems world promised. What I learned, and the 'capping phrase' I gave to my thesis was "even cyberneticists failed at embodying cybernetics". What I wrote afterward was something to the tune of "the generosity of the cybernetics movement and its social-systemic offspring was in its guiding principle: that we might engage the world differently by replacing our flatland-like axioms with dynamic inquiries whose diverse answers were *better* questions. Where this generosity met the road, across social praxis in the late 20th century, these questions seemed to only live on in the precious texts kept on desks and taught in various applied-systems academic programs, or otherwise in small think tank groups populated with those very authors or their students and friends amongst whom maybe the last self-identifying cyberneticists live. Much of their work outside of 'tech and mech' lives on in the post-bauhaus tradition, and I think it is here where the remaining systems and cybernetics folk can take their cue: how should young people design their thinking such that the questions they bring into their lives and work reflect the insights carried forward from the legendary and mighty cybernetics world? It may be that only here, in the compassionate design of young thinking, that this necessary and beautiful world might continue to live on."Perhaps it is only me-- and it may be-- but I'm far less interested in the legacy and domains of the of core systems writers than I am in learning how to carry them in my life and apply their insights to my own work. I spent 8 years among their writings, and came to know them well. But knowing them did not prepare me to use them, and it is here i think the necessary and responsible intervention is. Cybernetics failed; how do we keep its breath alive in the thoughts and work of young people limiting them to *our* fragment of history? This is the book i feel needs writing.Warmly,Shigyō
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Bernard C E Scott
Dear Jason et al,
Stafford Beer frequently said, “Cybernetics is about being holistic.”
Two other holistic polymaths to be considered as forerunners are: Alexander von Humboldt (1769 -1859) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt) and Alfred Korzybski (1879 – 1950) (n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski).
Von Humboldt coined the term “cosmos”. Korzybski is famous for the phrase: "The map is not the territory", frequently cited by early cyberneticians. (Later, HvF created the phrase: “The map is the territory”.)
In the 1970s, Gordon Pask and I carried out many experimental studies of styles and strategies of learning. We identified two main biases. Some of us tend to be holistic in our learning strategies. Others tend to be serialist. A few are versatile, able to vary learning strategies as needed. (See, Pask, G. "Conversation, cognition and learning, a cybernetic theory and methodology”, Elsevier, 1972).
One study involved c. 15 students of data processing at Twickenham Technical College. Another study involved c. 15 students at Hornsey College of Art, studying Fine Arts. The former sample were uniformly serialists. The latter sample were uniformly holists. I was surprised by these clear cut results.
I conjecture that this may be why so many students do not take to Cybernetics/Systems Science, which requires versatility in learning style. They take what they need and then focus on their specialist domains of interest. Versatile learners are good at contemplating whole systems, seeing and making analogies and using logical reasoning and seeking empirical evidence when required.
(Of relevance here is the seminal work of CP Snow on "The Two Cultures", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures.)
Jason Hu
Bernard C E Scott
This is the paradox of transdisciplinarity. In an effort to transcend disciplinary boundaries, transdisciplinary researchers develop concepts, methodologies and theories that are applicable across domains, but because they are essentially new, they appear like a foreign language in the disciplines - causing exactly the same problem of disciplinary boundaries that they were trying to solve. This is why what we do is form transdisciplines (a term that needs greater currency), and the task then is to continually work with the tensions between our own transdiscipline, other people's transdisciplines and the disciplines themselves. This is essential for communication. Best wishes, Gerald
From: Lucio Biggiero <lucio.b...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2026 8:39 AM
To: 周北方 <zhouya...@gmail.com>
Cc: Shigyō Alexander Marrero <marreros...@gmail.com>; Jason Hu <jasonth...@gmail.com>; Igor Perko <igor....@um.si>; mic...@gwu.edu <mic...@gwu.edu>; Margaretha Hendrickx <mahe...@gmail.com>; Mark Johnson <johns...@gmail.com>; Bernard Scott <bern...@gmail.com>; Fred Steier <fst...@gmail.com>; Gerald Midgley <G.R.M...@hull.ac.uk>; Norma Romm <norma...@gmail.com>; Alexander.N...@gmail.com <alexander.n...@gmail.com>; l.lava...@sintesys.cl <l.lava...@sintesys.cl>; Yiannis Laouris <lao...@futureworldscenter.org>; мокий михаил <moki...@yandex.ru>; Ste Serse <sers...@gmail.com>; ben sweeting <bensw...@gmail.com>; Sebastian | Context Collective <antep...@gmail.com>; john.b...@beckfordconsulting.com <john.b...@beckfordconsulting.com>; conver...@asc-cybernetics.org <conver...@asc-cybernetics.org>; fis <f...@listas.unizar.es>; cyb...@googlegroups.com <cyb...@googlegroups.com>; Club of Remy <club-o...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CoR] Pioneering Stars for SCI
This email originated outside of the University of Hull. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe. Suspicious emails should be reported using the 'Report' feature in Microsoft Outlook.
Dear all,it seems that the self-celebrating attitude is an intrinsic trait of the cybernetics community!
It seems that the motto is: if the other sciences didn't appreciate us, well it's because they are not good enough ...
This sounds as a final requiem for the community, because this approach condemns our community to further irrelevance ...
My opinion is different. In my experience of researcher into two fields - 1) management and organization science, and 2) industrial economics and business analytics - I found that cybernetics remained definitely peripheral because it could not really enter in depth into the debates and questions/theories characterizing those fields. Therefore, the experts on those two fields perceived cyberneticians' works as not sufficiently interesting and clear. Basically, they were not recognized as really sufficiently skilled in the field to deserve the effort for changing their view.
On the other hand, it's obvious that, if you speak another language but wish to be understood by your listeners, you should be able to speak the listeners' language ...But a self-referential community clearly doesn't want to acknowledge this ... Much easier and comforting to self-celebrate ourselves and think that if they don't understand it is because they (not us) are not sufficiently skilled and clever ..., and perhaps claim the difficulty of a paradigm change, which of course matters but it's not the full story ...
BestLucio
ps Maurice, thanks for your paper, I'll look through it asap, as soon as I finish the proofreading of my book.
Lucio Biggiero
Retired Full professor of Organization Science; www.luciobiggiero.comPEC: lucio.biggiero@legalmail.it; Teams: lucio.b...@gmail.com; mobile phone: (+39)3473672426
I'm proud to address you to my last co-edited book just published in Open Access: The Routledge Handbook of Cooperative Economics and Management.
The previous one, written with Robert Magnuszewski, is Inter-firm networks: Coordination through board and department interlock (NY: Springer).
Il giorno lun 15 giu 2026 alle ore 09:06 周北方 <zhouya...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
Hello everyone!
The translation software here frequently malfunctions, so I have to resend my previous Chinese emails in English.
I believe the transition from "cybernetics to systems theory" is not a failure, but rather a stagnation.
The reason for this stagnation, of course, is that since the birth of cybernetics, there have been no more conferences like the "Macy Conferences."
Jason Hu is my intellectual mentor and understands my thought process quite well.
After reading Professor Bernard Scott's *Introduction to Cybernetics*, and combining it with Wittgenstein's ideas, I believe that in the future cognitive system of humanity, "metaphysics," because its essence is the "observer principle" revealed by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, will inevitably be retained under the name "positive consensus theory." All other philosophical systems will lose their space for continued discussion. Instead, "cybernetics → systems theory" will take its place.
Just some personal thoughts!
The best Thirachai
Shigyō Alexander Marrero <marreros...@gmail.com> 于 2026年6月15日周一 02:55写道：
Should say: "**without** limiting them".
On Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:51 PM Shigyō Alexander Marrero <marreros...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello All,
Young (former) systems researcher here. An interesting thread to keep up with. I'm quite a bit removed from the cybernetics and systems world(s) these days in lieu of priest life, but am happy to remain a quiet part of these threads and to see the work you all are taking on. An earlier response here raised some form of this question: "why is it that cybernetics failed to revolutionize science, and especially failed in realizing its aim within social science?" As a young researcher whose life trajectory was deeply formed by this inquiry, I'd like to offer this:
My own work around structural responsibility and the failure of 'social resilience' brought me deep into systemics because the questions I was asking required the kinds of thinking that the systems world promised. What I learned, and the 'capping phrase' I gave to my thesis was "even cyberneticists failed at embodying cybernetics". What I wrote afterward was something to the tune of "the generosity of the cybernetics movement and its social-systemic offspring was in its guiding principle: that we might engage the world differently by replacing our flatland-like axioms with dynamic inquiries whose diverse answers were *better* questions. Where this generosity met the road, across social praxis in the late 20th century, these questions seemed to only live on in the precious texts kept on desks and taught in various applied-systems academic programs, or otherwise in small think tank groups populated with those very authors or their students and friends amongst whom maybe the last self-identifying cyberneticists live. Much of their work outside of 'tech and mech' lives on in the post-bauhaus tradition, and I think it is here where the remaining systems and cybernetics folk can take their cue: how should young people design their thinking such that the questions they bring into their lives and work reflect the insights carried forward from the legendary and mighty cybernetics world? It may be that only here, in the compassionate design of young thinking, that this necessary and beautiful world might continue to live on."
Perhaps it is only me-- and it may be-- but I'm far less interested in the legacy and domains of the of core systems writers than I am in learning how to carry them in my life and apply their insights to my own work. I spent 8 years among their writings, and came to know them well. But knowing them did not prepare me to use them, and it is here i think the necessary and responsible intervention is. Cybernetics failed; how do we keep its breath alive in the thoughts and work of young people limiting them to *our* fragment of history? This is the book i feel needs writing.
Warmly,Shigyō
On Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 1:30 PM Jason Hu <jasonth...@gmail.com> wrote:
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/club-of-remy/CA%2BSRckvX28mChg13u1P2dG1Tw5HEV7fbyhEvAX3qFAwZAG8heQ%40mail.gmail.com.
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Jason Hu
Dear all,it seems that the self-celebrating attitude is an intrinsic trait of the cybernetics community!It seems that the motto is: if the other sciences didn't appreciate us, well it's because they are not good enough ...
This sounds as a final requiem for the community, because this approach condemns our community to further irrelevance ...My opinion is different. In my experience of researcher into two fields - 1) management and organization science, and 2) industrial economics and business analytics - I found that cybernetics remained definitely peripheral because it could not really enter in depth into the debates and questions/theories characterizing those fields. Therefore, the experts on those two fields perceived cyberneticians' works as not sufficiently interesting and clear. Basically, they were not recognized as really sufficiently skilled in the field to deserve the effort for changing their view.On the other hand, it's obvious that, if you speak another language but wish to be understood by your listeners, you should be able to speak the listeners' language ...But a self-referential community clearly doesn't want to acknowledge this ... Much easier and comforting to self-celebrate ourselves and think that if they don't understand it is because they (not us) are not sufficiently skilled and clever ..., and perhaps claim the difficulty of a paradigm change, which of course matters but it's not the full story ...BestLuciops Maurice, thanks for your paper, I'll look through it asap, as soon as I finish the proofreading of my book.
Lucio Biggiero
Retired Full professor of Organization Science
PEC: lucio.biggiero@legalmail.it; Teams: lucio.b...@gmail.com; mobile phone: (+39)3473672426
I'm proud to address you to my last co-edited book just published in Open Access: The Routledge Handbook of Cooperative Economics and Management.
The previous one, written with Robert Magnuszewski, is Inter-firm networks: Coordination through board and department interlock (NY: Springer).
Il giorno lun 15 giu 2026 alle ore 09:06 周北方 <zhouya...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
Hello everyone!The translation software here frequently malfunctions, so I have to resend my previous Chinese emails in English.I believe the transition from "cybernetics to systems theory" is not a failure, but rather a stagnation.The reason for this stagnation, of course, is that since the birth of cybernetics, there have been no more conferences like the "Macy Conferences."Jason Hu is my intellectual mentor and understands my thought process quite well.After reading Professor Bernard Scott's *Introduction to Cybernetics*, and combining it with Wittgenstein's ideas, I believe that in the future cognitive system of humanity, "metaphysics," because its essence is the "observer principle" revealed by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, will inevitably be retained under the name "positive consensus theory." All other philosophical systems will lose their space for continued discussion. Instead, "cybernetics → systems theory" will take its place.Just some personal thoughts!The best Thirachai
Shigyō Alexander Marrero <marreros...@gmail.com> 于 2026年6月15日周一 02:55写道：
Should say: "**without** limiting them".
On Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:51 PM Shigyō Alexander Marrero <marreros...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello All,Young (former) systems researcher here. An interesting thread to keep up with. I'm quite a bit removed from the cybernetics and systems world(s) these days in lieu of priest life, but am happy to remain a quiet part of these threads and to see the work you all are taking on. An earlier response here raised some form of this question: "why is it that cybernetics failed to revolutionize science, and especially failed in realizing its aim within social science?" As a young researcher whose life trajectory was deeply formed by this inquiry, I'd like to offer this:My own work around structural responsibility and the failure of 'social resilience' brought me deep into systemics because the questions I was asking required the kinds of thinking that the systems world promised. What I learned, and the 'capping phrase' I gave to my thesis was "even cyberneticists failed at embodying cybernetics". What I wrote afterward was something to the tune of "the generosity of the cybernetics movement and its social-systemic offspring was in its guiding principle: that we might engage the world differently by replacing our flatland-like axioms with dynamic inquiries whose diverse answers were *better* questions. Where this generosity met the road, across social praxis in the late 20th century, these questions seemed to only live on in the precious texts kept on desks and taught in various applied-systems academic programs, or otherwise in small think tank groups populated with those very authors or their students and friends amongst whom maybe the last self-identifying cyberneticists live. Much of their work outside of 'tech and mech' lives on in the post-bauhaus tradition, and I think it is here where the remaining systems and cybernetics folk can take their cue: how should young people design their thinking such that the questions they bring into their lives and work reflect the insights carried forward from the legendary and mighty cybernetics world? It may be that only here, in the compassionate design of young thinking, that this necessary and beautiful world might continue to live on."Perhaps it is only me-- and it may be-- but I'm far less interested in the legacy and domains of the of core systems writers than I am in learning how to carry them in my life and apply their insights to my own work. I spent 8 years among their writings, and came to know them well. But knowing them did not prepare me to use them, and it is here i think the necessary and responsible intervention is. Cybernetics failed; how do we keep its breath alive in the thoughts and work of young people limiting them to *our* fragment of history? This is the book i feel needs writing.Warmly,Shigyō
On Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 1:30 PM Jason Hu <jasonth...@gmail.com> wrote:
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/club-of-remy/CA%2BSRckvX28mChg13u1P2dG1Tw5HEV7fbyhEvAX3qFAwZAG8heQ%40mail.gmail.com.
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Peter D Tuddenham
No, the textbook is not about the stars. It is bout SCI entry-level knowledge. The aim is not research but attracting more young people into the field. The group has canceled that page and decided on a different approach. Stay tuned. - Jason
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/club-of-remy/CA%2BSRckt6eJihujF80FAgdskXqYzHVf3jqgeEKh9xQbCOq38tQg%40mail.gmail.com.
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Michèle Friend
Professor,
Department of Philosophy
George Washington University
Washington D.C.
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Peter D Tuddenham
Thanks Igor, that would be quite the graph to "(re)discover the works tat influenced the field and create a dynamic map"
Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at 1:00 AM
To: 'Peter D Tuddenham' <peterdt...@gmail.com>; 'mic...@gwu.edu' <mic...@gwu.edu>
Cc: 'Jason Hu' <jasonth...@gmail.com>; 'Margaretha Hendrickx' <mahe...@gmail.com>; 'Lucio Biggiero' <lucio.b...@gmail.com>; 'Mark Johnson' <johns...@gmail.com>; 'Bernard Scott' <bern...@gmail.com>; 'Fred Steier' <fst...@gmail.com>; 'Gerald R Midgley' <g.r.m...@hull.ac.uk>; 'Norma Romm' <norma...@gmail.com>; 'Alexander.N...@gmail.com' <alexander.n...@gmail.com>; 'l.lava...@sintesys.cl' <l.lava...@sintesys.cl>; 'Yiannis Laouris' <lao...@futureworldscenter.org>; 'мокий михаил' <moki...@yandex.ru>; 'Ste Serse' <sers...@gmail.com>; 'ben sweeting' <bensw...@gmail.com>; 'Sebastian | Context Collective' <antep...@gmail.com>; 'john.b...@beckfordconsulting.com' <john.b...@beckfordconsulting.com>; 'conver...@asc-cybernetics.org' <conver...@asc-cybernetics.org>; 'fis' <f...@listas.unizar.es>; 'cyb...@googlegroups.com' <cyb...@googlegroups.com>; 'club-o...@googlegroups.com' <club-o...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [CoR] Pioneering Stars for SCI
Really nice, I like this a lot.
Much more interactive than the poster on the wall- and much less intimidating 😊.
The next step is to (re)discover the works tat influenced the field and create a dynamic map 😊.
And then start working on making the map great again.
All the best,
Igor
ben sweeting
In a way, we are all pioneers, bringing our perspectives and desires to each conversation and project on which we participate. None of us can then claim credit for what then emerges from each conversation. Larry
On Jun 18, 2026, at 8:20 AM, 'Richards, Laurence D' via ASC conversations <conver...@asc-cybernetics.org> wrote:
Well said, Nagi. And of the four abilities you list, cybernetics has a lot to contribute to the fourth one: the ability to converse and collaborate. Larry
On Jun 18, 2026, at 12:22 AM, Nagi Yan <naki...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
Reading this email brought me to a slightly different thought.
For a long time, we tended to assume that knowledge itself was the object to be preserved. Libraries, websites, publishers, databases, and later the Internet all seemed to promise permanence.
But perhaps knowledge itself is not the deepest layer that needs protection.
Knowledge can be lost, altered, forgotten, or hidden beneath new layers of interpretation. History has shown this repeatedly.
What may matter more is the human capacity to regenerate knowledge.
To me, knowledge is increasingly becoming a tool and raw material for cognitive growth, rather than the final goal.
If a civilization preserves:
- the ability to ask questions,
- the ability to judge,
- the ability to understand,
- and the ability to converse and collaborate,
then even after losing large portions of its accumulated knowledge, it may still be capable of rebuilding.
Conversely, even if vast archives survive, without the cognitive capacity to interpret, evaluate, and reconstruct them, those archives may eventually become fossils.
Perhaps the most valuable inheritance of a civilization is not the answers themselves, but the ability to continually generate new answers.
Best regards,
Nagi
'Igor Perko' via Club of Remy <club-o...@googlegroups.com>于2026年6月17日 周三03:47写道：
Dear Friends
The decline of a system starts with the decay of internal structures, which should be considered viable.
With the era of the internet we thought that information will be permanent.
We were quite wrong.
The structures of Knowledge, the academitians were building are crumbling:
We stored them in websites, which do - or not stay online.
We left them in the hands of publishers, which do - or do not keep it online.
And this is only the »Natural« Artition.
Records of knowledge disappears with intent (take for instance the Epsteen files, or different variants of history records)
or is hidden under a new layer of reasoning cloud (AI), which interpret record according to unknow algorithms.
So, builders of knowledge. What to do? How to preserve existing knowledge, how to build new knowledge if the foundations are slowly eroding?
Deeply concerned,
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