From: cpriest@juno.com
To: GIUSEPPE IANNICELLI
Date: 3 Apr 1997 20:33:10 GMT
Subject: KYBERNETIKE'
A Short Introduction to the Literature
for Shaping Cyberspace via Kybernetike'
Dr. W. Curtiss Priest
Founder: Cyberspace Society
April 3, 1997
In 1969 a course was taught at the Emma Willard private high school
in Troy, New York, USA. The course was called "Cybernetics,
Communication, and People." The course was taught concurrently with
the doctoral work of Dr. Priest at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
(_The Need and Value of Restructuring Human Communications Systems_,
1972).
Part A: The following books were found to be key to understanding
cybernetics
in relation to communications:
These five books contain, perhaps, 80% of the beliefs and models
that I apply to understanding human behavior, events, and the
world.
The following five books 'should' be read in order. The first
provides a fundamental perspective on systems and states. The second
provides fundamental operational definitions including knowledge,
understanding and numerous human feelings. The third provides insight
about how individuals 'play out' interactions. The fourth provides
the 'shoulds' and 'oughts' missing from the first three books, and
provides purposes of traits and values that come close to being
operational definitions as presented by Ackoff. Finally, Wells
anticipates Cyberspace, many years prior to "networking." And as the
quotation captures, Wells stresses the relationship between knowledge
and world harmony.
I.
_An Introduction to Cybernetics_ / by W. Ross Ashby. 1956 New York :
Science Editions, 1963, c1956 Q310.A824
II.
On Purposeful Systems / by Russell L. Ackoff and Fred E. Emery. 1972.
Originally a University of Pennsylvania Monograph found in the
Library of Congress. First published by Aldine-Atherton, Chicago.
Then published by Intersystems Publications, P.O. Box 624, Seaside,
CA 93955. Library of Congress Number 78-75980, ISBN 0-202-3700-3, and
ISBN 0-914105-00-0
Note: Section IV was probably written by Emery and lacks the
tightness of the original work which was published by Ackoff as
_Choice, Communication and Conflict_ which I have in mimeograph (this
is available from NTIS as PB 178 335) Originally published by
University of Pennsylvania. Management Science Center, 1967.
III.
_Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional
Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes_ / by Paul Watzlawick, Janet
Helmick Beavin, and Don D. Jackson. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA, 1967. Library of
Congres Catalog Number 67-11095, ISBN 393-01009-0
IV.
_Personality and the Good: Psychological and Ethical Perspectives_. /
by Peter Anthony. Bertocci, Richard M. Millard, Professors of
Philosophy, Boston University. New York: David McKay Company, 1963,
1967. Library of Congress number 62-20003, no ISBN on book.
V.
_World Brain_ by H.G. Wells. London: Metheun & Company, 1938.
"I am not saying that a World Encyclopedia will in itself solve any
single one of the vast problems that must be solved if man is to
escape from his present dangers and distresses and enter upon a more
hopeful phase of history; what I am saying -- and saying with the
utmost of conviction -- is this, that without a World Encyclopedia to
hold men's minds together in something like a common interpretation
of reality, there is no hope whatsoever of anything but an accidental
and transitory alleviation of any of our world troubles. As mankind
is, so it will remain, until it pulls its mind together. And if it
does not pull its mind together then I do not see how it can help but
decline. (pp. 24-25)
See Also:
_The Need and Value of Restructuring Human Communication Systems:
Towards the Human Communication System (HCS)_ by W. Curtiss Priest.
Doctoral Dissertation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1972.
(available from University Microfilms or the author)
_The Character of Information_ by W. Curtiss Priest. Originally
published February, 1985 in support of the Office of Technology
Assessment: Project on Intellectual Property. Revised copy called
_Seminal Work for the Design of the National Information
Infrastructure (NII)_
http://www.eff.org/pub/Groups/CITS/Reports/cits_nii_framework_ota.report
This document contains an additional 270 citations pertaining to the
character of information, economics as a commodity, and the
relationship between copyright law and the production of
information.
Part B: Summary and a Look Toward the Future
Piloting aka Cybernetics is an idle exercise unless operational
definitions of the relationship between societal systems and
communications are employed.
What does it mean to employ them? First, the language introduced by
Ashby and Ackoff is marvelously precise and, because of that
precision, a scientific basis for cybernetics is possible.
Science involves more than testing hypotheses; it involves
"systematic frameworks" for thinking, designing, and building.
Currently, the area of "groupware" is "hot." But little development
by the major companies (IBM/Lotus, Novell/Groupwise,
Microsoft/Exchange, and Netscape/Communicator Suite) are based on a
firm grasp of how communication, information and goals relate.
A seminal paper by this author (_The Character of Information_ cited
above) takes the models of Ashby and Ackoff and develops the logical
construction of a "groupware product." The construction has also
taken the form of a PC program (called Clearview) and as a US patent
(5,167,011, Nov. 24, 1992).
We must build on "each other's shoulders." This requires that those
interested in "piloting" must build on each other's work.
It is in this spirit that this paper has been written.
W. Curtiss Priest, Director, CITS
Center for Information, Technology & Society
466 Pleasant St., Melrose, MA 02176
Voice: 617-662-4044 BMSLIB@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Fax: 617-662-6882 WWW:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Groups/CITS
To: CYBERMIND-LISTSERV.AOL.COM
From: Giuseppe Iannicelli <liutpran@galactica.it>
Subject: Experimenting minimal death
My web site has been cut off.
No one informed me.
No warning. It just happened. Out of the blue.
At first I felt unconfortable because I realized I was no more
receiving daily reports for the accesses. "Strange", I thought.
I connected and disquieting words noticed that "there is not such a
directory on this server".
So, my web site does not exist anymore in cyberspace.
My presence out there is no more permanent, I'm no more there waiting
for visitors to tell them what I think.
I can just come in from the concrete world with sobbing e-mails, like
hick-ups of presence.
A kind of microdeath. Minimal.
Not infuencing phisical life, by chance.
But that's a minimal death.
My site only lies hopelessly inside my HD, a static picture of it,
with no other possible interaction than mine.
And all the messages I sent out with those tag lines including web
addresses, all those infos stored inside Lycos, Infoseek, Magellan,
Yellow Pages, Yahoo... all the letters I wrote in the concrete space
with that web address at the bottom.... all sounds false now. All
death infos without any value, any life. All sounds past. A past
filling disks' space uselessly. That will be removed in reasonable
time.
Now, could you define me a kind of electronic liar because of those
infos became false?
I can't influence the will of this Far-Away Host.
And will re-incarnation exist? Will I find other disk-space for the
site to survive elsewhere? Will another Host exist?
I fall asleep wondering what next upgrade could have been.
To: CYBERMIND-LISTSERV.AOL.COM
From: Giuseppe Iannicelli <liutpran@galactica.it>
Subject: Experimenting minimal death / 2
I wake up in the middle of the night. Can't sleep anymore. A sense
of loss prosecute me.
I Connect.
I visit my former Host, the place where I used to have permanent
personification in cyberspace.
They removed my web site without any explanation. Without
warning.
Someone did it, I'll never know who, when, what face He has. She has.
It has.
All this happened in another continent, thousands miles away from
here, in a physical place I've never seen. In a cyber place I used to
know well.
I visit that homepage and move around. A lot of people still have
their sites there. Now all filed in order: by names in frames, in
this new form my former Host assumed, because there is always a new
form in cyberspace.
All those squares seems to be tombstones. A name, a title, how many
kilobytes they are represented by. I always hated frames.
Nevertheless this tiles-catalogue represents existence in the
cyberspace, a status my Host denied me without reason.
Or.
Why without reason?
There MUST be a reason. Not evident. A deeper reason, probably.
I start asking myself what it is. Why.
I have some kind of fault, this is clear. At least from my former
Host's point of view.
Yes, it must be that way. Otherwise, why me?
I don't know what the accusation is. I don't know my fault.
But now I know I have to have at least one.
Yes, yes, there must be a fault, there is no other explanation for
this all.
I must...
I MUST be guilty.
To: CYBERMIND-LISTSERV.AOL.COM
From: Giuseppe Iannicelli <liutpran@galactica.it>
Subject: Experimenting Minimal Death / 3 (last)
Let's face it. I've been annihilated.
But I still have another kind of existence. The Main one.
I have to obtain the best from this condition.
I was wondering.... Could I become a cyberghost and come back there
to explain with echoing voice my good, good reasons to my former
Host?
Could I haunt her/his/its mailbox as a proposal of multilevel sells
or a mirage of thousands dollars raining easily?
Should I persecute that mailbox with the same regular rythm of a
false virus warning, as horrible as PenPal Greetings - revenant,
illusory, frightning, ridiculous in a shakespearian costume?
Useless.
I can't communicate with such a far away entity. Even if there should
be SOMEONE beside it. Someone opening a mailbox.
News.
A Friend is taking care of my identity problem. Like a psychologist,
or more.
The same Friend who found me my former place to live in the
Cyberspace.
Why he is working for me, has not rational explanation.
He simply does it. It has to be something inside the word
"Friend".
I don't ask too many questions: I just think it's good. I already
feel better.
The site on my HD is experiencing new changes now, prepearing itself
to be the New One.
Transformations as a small animal in winter hybernation.
In the cave of an unconnected HD.
Transformations like rough matter in a silicon atanor.
I will have a new domain name.
Soon my virtual soul will transmigrate to the New Place via FTP.
Return.
