Emerging in the 1940s, the first cybernetics--the study of
communication and control systems--was mainstreamed under the names
artificial intelligence and computer science and taken up by the
social sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts. In
"Emergence and Embodiment," Bruce Clarke and Mark B. N. Hansen
focus on cybernetic developments that stem from the second-order
turn in the 1970s, when the cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster
catalyzed new thinking about the cognitive implications of
self-referential systems. The crucial shift he inspired was from
first-order cybernetics' attention to homeostasis as a mode of
autonomous self-regulation in mechanical and informatic systems, to
second-order concepts of self-organization and autopoiesis in
embodied and metabiotic systems. The collection opens with an
interview with von Foerster and then traces the lines of
neocybernetic thought that have followed from his work.
In response to the apparent dissolution of boundaries at work in
the contemporary technosciences of emergence, neocybernetics
observes that cognitive systems are operationally bounded,
semi-autonomous entities coupled with their environments and other
systems. Second-order systems theory stresses the recursive
complexities of observation, mediation, and communication. Focused
on the neocybernetic contributions of von Foerster, Francisco
Varela, and Niklas Luhmann, this collection advances theoretical
debates about the cultural, philosophical, and literary uses of
their ideas. In addition to the interview with von Foerster,
"Emergence and Embodiment" includes essays by Varela and Luhmann.
It engages with Humberto Maturana's and Varela's creation of the
concept of autopoiesis, Varela's later work on neurophenomenology,
and Luhmann's adaptations of autopoiesis to social systems theory.
Taken together, these essays illuminate the shared commitments
uniting the broader discourse of neocybernetics.
"Contributors." Linda Brigham, Bruce Clarke, Mark B. N. Hansen,
Edgar Landgraf, Ira Livingston, Niklas Luhmann, Hans-Georg Moeller,
John Protevi, Michael Schiltz, Evan Thompson, Francisco J. Varela,
Cary Wolfe
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