Pre-Conference (3 August)

The pre-conference will include the General Business Meeting of the ASC, starting at 2pm in GWU Duques Hall room 651, and a workshop developing and sharing characterizations of cybernetics:

Workshop on Characterizing Cybernetics – What is Cybernetics?

A discussion workshop-led by Lou Kauffman and Timothy Jachna. The workshop will start at 4pm in GWU Duques Hall room 651.

This workshop will be helpful preparation for the ASC Cybernetics in the Future part of the main conference; and it will be helpful as a participatory briefing for beginners.

What is Cybernetics?

It seems that cybernetics is so broad that it defies definition. Cybernetics seems to be a way of living and thinking that will break out of any definition one cares to write.

And yet, every person working with cybernetics seems to have very definite views about what it is.

The purpose of this workshop is to exchange these views, articulate them and WRITE THEM DOWN! We intend to produce a wonderful self-contradictory document that is a superposition of all the directions and viewpoints expressed in these sessions. The document will find its way into publication at least on the ASC website and perhaps elsewhere, to grow and be contradicted further.

The workshop itself will provide an opportunity for examining the meaning of cybernetics and the cybernetics of meaning. The workshop provides the opportunity for a radical breakthough in our cybernetics and in what and who we are that we can have such a circular consideration.