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The purpose of this paper is to identify two ways of conceptualizing cellular automata (CA) systems: a utility-focussed approach focussed on modeling, simulation and prediction as typically found in science-based disciplines, and a second, exploration and speculation-focussed approach typically found in design-related contexts. These two approaches to CA are linked to first-order cybernetics and second-order cybernetics, respectively.

The author illustrate and support the argument made by showing in a review of earlier work as well as three case studies of CA use in architectural design work how linear, science-based “first-order CA” cannot adequately support design processes. In such contexts, CA are typically adapted to allow for circular, conversational processes and to take involved observers into account.

The analysis of the three case studies shows that design-oriented approaches to CA aimed at generating novelty require “second-order CA” – CA that are based on second-order cybernetic principles.

Limitations of this paper arise from the limited number of reported and analyzed case studies as well as from a necessary simplification and generalization of observations for the sake of brevity.

Findings resulting from the investigation emphasize and extend early experimental approaches to CA in design-related contexts that conceived CA systems as part of conversational design processes. The transition from first-order to second-order CA is necessary to allow for speculative and explorative design conversations that support designers in generating novelty in conversational settings.

Second-order cybernetics is explored here as a learning intervention strategy. Researcher reflexivity, both the student’s and the professor’s, that is asserted is crucial to achieving a liberatory learning experience. But as Lacan has revealed, the “symbolic” (written, represented and studied) has a complex relationship to the “real”, which needs the “imaginary” to be active and creative. The aim of this paper is to investigate the complexity of these relationships and their import for reflexive learning, as it is grounded in second-order cybernetics.

This is a conceptual paper, comparing second-order cybernetics to current insights into researcher reflexivity, especially as grounded in Lacan and as it has been translated into an intervention strategy by Zizek and applied by the author. Supervision of MBA theses is examined as an exemplar.

A theory of researcher reflexivity is outlined with practical potential, which was demonstrated at the ASC 2016 conference.

Exemplary learning is demonstrated and guidelines of practical significance are indicated, but these are not here further empirically researched.

The complexity of the “imaginary–symbolic–real” model and its value for reflexive learning is investigated. The application value of the model to learning and second-order cybernetics is developed.

A reflexive intervention is demonstrated in how one sees student/professor supervision and interaction.

Building on Glanville, it is shown that multiple reflexivities are needed to be put into play for second-order cybernetics to productively inform university practice. A difference of differences is needed to complexify feedback processes for cybernetic interventions to (best) succeed. The import of current theoretical debates from Lacan and Zizek to cybernetics is indicated.

When confronted with issues dealing with first and second order cybernetics, it seems that the manner of defining the former has been somewhat caricatured. The second appears to sometimes give rise to conclusions which are almost opposite to those of Wiener by questioning the possibility of a control for a system. We find in Wiener’s research a prefiguration of the autonomy concept, which, in our opinion, could bring an explanation – and a solution – in cases where control elicits some perverse effect; an acceptance of positive feedback if it serves a desired purpose; the central importance held for him by ergodic theory that we use in an addendum on imbalanced strange attractors control; the idea of a knowledge which may be the fruit of the control; an interest for logical paradoxes he put in relation to communication in nervous system; and already the notion of dialogue in the core of the relation man/man or man/machine. Of course, Wiener did not accord an equal development to all his insights, but we have not yet finished scrutinizing his writings. First and second order cybernetics perhaps form an agonistic/antagonistic couple of which neither element could overshadow the other.

This article is a contribution to the development of a comprehensive interdisciplinary theory of LIS in the hope of giving a more precise evaluation of its current problems. The article describes an interdisciplinary framework for lis, especially information retrieval (IR), in a way that goes beyond the cognitivist ‘information processing paradigm’. The main problem of this paradigm is that its concept of information and language does not deal in a systematic way with how social and cultural dynamics set the contexts that determine the meaning of those signs and words that are the basic tools for the organisation and retrieving of documents in LIS. The paradigm does not distinguish clearly enough between how the computer manipulates signs and how librarians work with meaning in practice when they design and run document mediating systems. The ‘cognitive viewpoint’ of Ingwersen and Belkin makes clear that information is not objective, but rather only potential, until it is interpreted by an individual mind with its own internal mental world view and purposes. It facilitates further study of the social pragmatic conditions for the interpretation of concepts. This approach is not yet fully developed. The domain analytic paradigm of Hjørland and Albrechtsen is a conceptual realisation of an important aspect of this area. In the present paper we make a further development of a non‐reductionistic and interdisciplinary view of information and human social communication by texts in the light of second‐order cybernetics, where information is seen as ‘a difference which makes a difference’ for a living autopoietic (self‐organised, self‐creating) system. Other key ideas are from the semiotics of Peirce and also Warner. This is the understanding of signs as a triadic relation between an object, a representation and an interpretant. Information is the interpretation of signs by living, feeling, self‐organising, biological, psychological and social systems. Signification is created and con‐trolled in a cybernetic way within social systems and is communicated through what Luhmann calls generalised media, such as science and art. The modern socio‐linguistic concept ‘discourse communities’ and Wittgenstein's ‘language game’ concept give a further pragmatic description of the self‐organising system's dynamic that determines the meaning of words in a social context. As Blair and Liebenau and Backhouse point out in their work it is these semantic fields of signification that are the true pragmatic tools of knowledge organ‐isation and document retrieval. Methodologically they are the first systems to be analysed when designing document mediating systems as they set the context for the meaning of concepts. Several practical and analytical methods from linguistics and the sociology of knowledge can be used in combination with standard methodology to reveal the significant language games behind document mediation.

Addresses the problem of psychotherapy coming to understand itself formally as a conversation in which healing of distortions and breakdowns in communication occurs. The paper proposes making concepts the basis for the psychotherapy conversation by linking psychotherapy to second‐order cybernetics and utilizing Pask’s conversation theory. The first part describes cybernetics as the context for the study of the distortions and breakdowns in communication. The second part discusses conversation theory as a formal description of the procedures of psychotherapy, as a way to converse in psychotherapy, as a way to talk about psychotherapy and as a way to change the conversation of psychotherapy. The final part discusses four distinctive characteristics of the evolving conversation of psychotherapy where psychotherapy composes itself as a conversation. These characteristics are what psychotherapy is (its definition), what it is about (its object), how it proceeds (its methods), and what it is for (its value).

To trace a shift in attitudes towards control since the mid-twentieth century, as reflected in a shift in rhetoric that accompanied the extension from first- to second-order cybernetics.

Narratives of exploration that have emerged from NASA’s lunar programme and recent design cybernetics are juxtaposed to show a transition away from the legitimisation of goal-oriented decision-making and control towards advocacy of partial control avoidance and accommodation of the unanticipated.

Contemporary cybernetic theory recognises the importance of both the partial presence and the partial absence of control in creative epistemic practice. It is thus unsurprising that, according to historical records, NASA’s journey to the moon was enabled not only by the assurance of control but also by lapses of control. However, NASA’s rhetorical posture during the race to the moon focused on predictable control and goal orientation, differing notably from the recent design-cybernetic openness towards uncertainty, error, and serendipity. This difference is encapsulated by the “Failure is not an option” dictum that was associated with NASA’s lunar programme and the “Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better” equivalent associated with design cybernetics. Recognition of the more recent cybernetic perspective is impeded by its continuing omission from narratives of earlier cybernetic accomplishments.

To the extent that narratives examined in this paper refer to exceptional initiatives and spontaneous events, the repeatability and generalisability of the presented argument are limited.

The paper highlights changing cybernetic narratives of creative invention by examining how spontaneous changes in variety were reported to have been addressed in NASA’s lunar programme, and how recent cybernetic design theory suggests they should be addressed.

Conceptual discussion of central viewpoints of Heinz von Foerster including parallels to the thinking of Gregory Bateson. Application to systems theory and social problems.

Analysis and discussion of selected publications of both authors.

Coining the term of “systemics” instead of “second‐order cybernetics”, limits of systemic thinking, flaws in ignoring these limits for example, in the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann.

Definition of “systemic”, parallels between Foerster and Bateson.

The purpose of this paper is to review the relationship between cybernetics and psychology.

The paradigms of cybernetics are reviewed and then applied to psychology.

Applying the paradigms of cybernetics to psychology provides a conceptually coherent account of what is a psychological individual.

It is of value to bring conceptual coherence to the discipline of psychology, which, thus far in its history, has lacked it.

The paper seeks to serve a dual process, first, to raise awareness of the epistemological weaknesses inherent in the ways that visual communications designers address their own practice, and, second, to suggest that cybernetics has some of the answers to these weaknesses.

These objectives of this paper have been addressed through an examination of the cybernetics, critical theory and visual design theory. A comparison of the points of convergence (often of aims) and those points of divergence (often in its ontological reading of the world) is illuminating, especially when post‐structuralist semiotics – as a system of knowledge exterior to both design and cybernetics, yet capable of commenting on both – is used as a point of triangulation.

The literature analysis carried for this paper indicates that in both visual communications design and cybernetics there are areas of overlapping interest (concerns with the cyclic nature of coding and decoding information) and areas that might at first seem divergent but are in fact often complementary (the role of the observer as controller and participant in a system). The paper proposes that cybernetics uncovers principles at the heart of communication that in turn inform visual communication practices, which in a circular fashion informs cybernetics.

The paper suggests that new areas for cyberneticians to use in their study of second‐order cybernetics may be found in the product of visual communications design. It also suggests areas where designers may begin to search for tools that may be useful in evaluating their working practices.

The paper notes that an external investigation of visual communications artefacts presents cybernetics with a potential test‐bed on which to test its theories, in practice, on a global scale. Cybernetics has the potential to define and offer constructive guidance to visual communications design in examining its own practice.

To report on an empirical study in psycholinguistics that revealed a difference between European and American patterns of thinking and to provide a brief history of a 30‐year effort to modify the philosophy of science in order to make it more suitable as a guide to doing research in the social sciences.

Assesses the approach of Heinz von Foerster, who used a deductive approach to science rather than an American empirical approach. Furthermore, von Foerster was willing to modify not only science but also the philosophy of science. By proposing that scientists pay attention to the observer as well as the observed, he added a dimension to the philosophy of science, which affects all disciplines.

Proposes an additional dimension that might be added to the philosophy of science. Paying attention to both the observer and the receiving society suggests a communication metaphor rather than the photograph metaphor, which has prevailed in the philosophy of science. Examining the philosophical underpinnings of science rather than just testing or extending an existing theory is a type of inquiry that springs from von Foerster's enthusiasm for tackling interesting problems unimpeded by disciplinary boundaries.

An assessment of the contribution to the multidisciplinary approach to science of von Foerster.