/lit/ - Literature

>Modernity only linearizes in order to delinearize more thoroughly. The descendant of the thermodynamic time-gradient is cybernetics, based upon the formulation of thermic regulation through feedback (the steam-engine ‘governor’), and ascending through increasingly sophisticated models of entropy dissipation – or local entropy decrease – into the mathematical sciences of turbulence, chaos, complex systems, self-organization, individuation, and emergent (or spontaneous) order. The abstract object of all such studies is the convergent wave, characterizing all natural process with reverse time-signature. Any such local inversion of the arrow of time is produced by an exportation of entropy, conducted by a dissipative system, or real time machine. These systems typify the self-assembling units of biological and social organization – cells, organisms, eco-systems, tribes, cities, and (market) economies. In each case, an individuating complex machine swims against the cosmic (global) current, piloted by feedback circuitry that dumps internal disorder into an external sink. The cosmic time-economy is conserved, in aggregate, but becomes ever more unevenly distributed as local complexity is enhanced. Self-cultivating – or auto-productive – complexity is time disintegration (templexity).

>The word ‘cybernetics’ is derived from the Greek ‘kubernetes’ (meaning ‘steersman’). As a self-reflective theoretical discipline, cybernetics dates back to 1948, when it was formulated by Norbert Weiner as “the science of control and communication in animal and machine”. It sought to combine the emerging science of information and new electronic computing technologies with a disciplined attention to feedback mechanisms, which provide the key to the self-regulation of behavior. By adjusting its activity in response to sensory feedback, a biological or technical machine was able to ‘home’ on a targeted state.

>As cybernetics matured and expanded to encompass ever- larger and more intricate ‘objects’ – typically under alternative names, such as ‘general systems theory’ – it increasingly encountered very-long-range trends to continuous acceleration, bound only by weak and transient limits. Through application to the core dynamics of cosmological, biological, social, and technological evolution, cybernetics shifted its emphasis. Runaway, self-reinforcing processes became the central object of attention, and a ‘second cybernetics’, emphasizing the role of positive feedback phenomena, adopted the principal piloting role. Self-sustaining explosions, rather than dampening mechanisms, were now the primary cybernetic theme.