The scientific methodology in the light of cybernetics
Abstract
Presents the scientific methodology from the enlarged cybernetical perspective that recognizes the anisotropy of time, the probabilistic character of natural laws, and the entry that the incomplete determinism in Nature opens to the occurrence of innovation, growth, organization, teleology communication, control, contest and freedom. The new tier to the methodological edifice that cybernetics provides stands on the earlier tiers, which go back to the Ionians (c. 500 BC). However, the new insights reveal flaws in the earlier tiers, and their removal strengthens the entire edifice. The new concepts of teleological activity and contest allow the clear demarcation of the military sciences as those whose subject matter is teleological activity involving contest. The paramount question “what ought to be done”, outside the empirical realm, is embraced by the scientific methodology. It also embraces the cognitive sciences that ask how the human mind is able to discover, and how the sequence of discoveries might converge to a true description of reality.
Keywords
Citation
Masani, P.R. (1994), "The scientific methodology in the light of cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 1-132. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684929410058713
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 1994, MCB UP Limited