Ranulph Glanville’s Expression of Interest

I consider cybernetics to be intimately concerned with circularity. I don’t believe in application, but in the bringing together of, for instance, theory and practice. I also believe we should live what we say and say what we live: thus, these ASC conferences are about sharing and developing; and I believe cybernetics is not simply “a way of understanding” as Ernst von Glasersfeld wrote, but a way of living: we have to learn to live our understandings, and to understand our living.
So, for me the theme and way of working of this conference exactly present the world as cybernetics tells us it can be. But to learn to live this way, within this understanding, is the challenge. To bring this circular understanding and to develop it in our living is part of this: but it’s richer, for this way of looking suggests ways we might aim to live, and to live better. Ethics is part of this, too.
I come to learn.