The cybernetics movements — страница 3

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Standards in Gaithersburg, MD. (von Foerster, et al., 1968) LATE 1960S Social movements in the United States – against the Viet Nam war and for civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental protection – produced a time of student activism on campuses. In terms of research it was a productive period for the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) at the University of Illinois. EARLY 1970S At a meeting of the American Society for Cybernetics in 1974 in Philadelphia, Heinz von Foerster introduced the term “second order cybernetics.” (Von Foerster, 1979) The Mansfield Amendment, which was an attempt to reduce campus unrest caused by the Viet Nam War, cut off government funds for research that was not related to a military mission, including research at BCL. (Umpleby, 2003b)

The Biological Computer laboratory closed, and Heinz von Foerster retired and moved to California. There was an argument between the officers of ASC and the publisher of the Journal of Cybernetics. The dispute was submitted to arbitration and the publisher won. Thereafter the journal continued to be published, but without ASC involvement. The journal published articles primarily in engineering. However, the field of cybernetics was increasingly emphasizing biology and the social sciences. LATE 1970-S In the late 1970s no meetings of the American Society for Cybernetics were held. The people connected with BCL attended meetings of the Society for General Systems Research, which a few years later changed its name to the International Society for the Systems Sciences. Stuart

Umpleby, who graduated in 1975 and moved from the University of Illinois to The George Washington University in Washington, DC, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for an Electronic Information Exchange for Small Research Communities (EIES). The BCL group moved into cyberspace. (Umpleby, 1979; Umpleby and Thomas, 1983) This group, discussing General Systems Theory, was one of nine academic groups using EIES, supported by NSF. For three years in the late 1970s cyberneticians and systems scientists across the United States and a few in Europe communicated with each other using email and computer conferencing via dumb terminals and, initially, 300 baud modems. The long distance telephone charges were paid by Umpleby’s EIES grant. When the grant ran out, there was

disappointment that universities would not pay the communications charges. Indeed, it took almost fifteen years before costs declined sufficiently to permit regular email communication among academics. For a few years, due to a conflict with the ASC officers in Washington, DC, there was a rival organization, the American Cybernetics Association (ACA), in Philadelphia. The two organizations came back together a few years later through the efforts of Barry Clemson, Doreen Steg, Klaus Krippendorff and others. The reorganized society used the ASC name and the ACA by-laws. But the society remained small, usually having fewer than 400 members. EARLY 1980-S As a result of being the moderator of the on-line discussion group, Umpleby was elected president of ASC. A planning conference in

1980 charted a new direction for the Society. (Umpleby, 1981) ASC began holding conferences again and reestablished connections with its former journal, now called Cybernetics and Systems. A series of meetings with Soviet scientists was started as a way to bring leading American scientists together to review fundamentals, in particular to discuss second order cybernetics. (Umpleby, 1987b; Umpleby and Sadovsky, 1991) The meetings were funded by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. These meetings were quite productive for exchanging views; however, a controversy with the Soviet side arose over the participation of Vladimir Lefebvre, a Soviet émigré. Prior to glasnost and perestroika Lefebvre’s theory (1982) of two systems of ethical

cognition was disapproved of by the Soviet government. However, during the unraveling of the USSR Lefebvre’s work was used by people in the governments of both the United States and the Soviet Union to prevent miscommunication. (Umpleby, 1991) Lefebvre’s work is now being further developed through annual conferences organized by the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Lefebvre’s theory of reflexive control is being used by psychologists and educators to help with the psychological and cultural issues involved in the social, political, and economic transition in Russia. LATE 1980-S Members of the American Society for Cybernetics began offering tutorials on first and second order cybernetics prior to systems conferences). They were seeking to