Norbert Wiener’s book “The Human Use of Human Beings” clearly illustrates the correlation between cybernetics and society. His study of the theory of messages is directly linked with cybernetics due to the fact that messages are “means of controlling machinery and society”. The relevance of this study lies in the fact that it tackles the problem of communication and control not only between human beings but also between “man and machine”. We feel not only connected to the world by means of technologies but also they provide an unlimited excess to an information which eventually we use in our life and consequentially form our behavior in society. Norbert Wiener states that “to live effectively is to live with adequate information”. He surely is right about it because more complex any system gets (society as a system) more information and feedback it demands. I suppose, there is a need to study communication for control of this “global mess”. Real time feedback helps us to adjust to the world immediately and also keep this information in memory for further actions. So, now we have got an experience based on external messages from the environment. Human nature is based on the internal feedback mechanism of transforming messages into actions.  This mechanism is a key adaptation factor.

Nowadays social institutions face a problem with effective organization according to Stafford Beer. They disregard “the main tools” like computer, telecommunication and cybernetics due to the fact that “we do not recognize what they really are”. Stafford Beer himself writes, “A social institution is not an entity, but a dynamic system”. This system could take variety of possible forms. In order to “regulate a system we need to absorb its variety” which usually multiplies by means of using new technologies. So, to “control” variety we need to use the tools properly in order to achieve the overall balance of the system. As soon as “variety absorbs variety” we need the same amount of variety to do it. This even sounds impossible to achieve requisite variety without an affective regulatory system. If we keep on using computers “on the wrong side of the variety equation,” we will end up with a catastrophic collapse. It is vital to use computers according to cybernetic principles for model-based regulation of the system. According to Stafford Beer there is a certain risk for a public model in the realm of a computer because it can be misused by the government as a regulator.

When it comes to the topic of cybernetics in architecture, most of us will readily agree that it is systems design rather than a building and as well as inhabitants’ behavior control. Gordon Pask writes about architectural cybernetics through the prism of communication. He states that human interactions within this system can be controlled by “cybernetic thinking.” His vision on architectural functionalism and mutualism clearly illustrates major points of architecture as a system. In this perspective, architecture represents a symbolic language which speaks and controls mood and behavior of its users. I would like to point out the relevance of “evolutionary properties” of projects because we speak out laud to the future by means of them. In this case architecture is a media for communication with the future. There should be space for the evolution because any project can grows and have further implications for the society. To conclude, an architect plays a role of a “controller” of the system and “operates at a higher level in the organizational hierarchy”, so architectural cybernetics has a huge implication in the field.

Stafford Beer in Designing Freedom – Massey Lectures rightly points out that cybernetics is the science of effective organization. In the essay the interpretation of society and institution which is run for the people effectively talks about how a society commits for more and more resources in order to plaster the cracks in the system and still those reappear. This shows the sheer lack of obligation for building a great people’s organization. The citizen’s freedom is misconstrued which if put to right use can redesign and rebuilt better institutions. The citizens themselves being in democratic society should have their own tools to design the society. This can better stabilize the system.
In ‘The Human Use of Human Beings’ by Norbert Wiener feedback is being illustrated with reception of messages. Feedback is the closed signaling loop of messages which ultimately triggers change. It is being said to be a real time response. The idea is well put forth by stating the communication between two end users wherein the information processed by the second user is primarily known only to him unless he speaks or passes on to the first user. The second illustration is that of the sensor door of elevator. Cybernetics hence is defined by Wiener as the theory of messages; messages between human to human, human and machine & machine to machine.
Gordon Pask in the reading ‘The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics, finds a significant void in architectural theory and hence notes cybernetics as the abstract concept interpreted in architectural terms to form a theory which constitutes functionalism and mutualism towards architecture. The essay emphasizes the idea of making, creating and running a system and not just an architectural individual entity. Modelling a system which becomes an organization and lets a responsible architect to work on evolutionary projects which in turn become specialized version of the venture.

The three articles talk about different definitions of ‘Cybernetics’ and its involvement and interpretation in various fields like architecture, science, culture etc. It is a scientific study of how people, animal control and communicate information. Gordon Pask relates the concept of cybernetics to architecture. He says that the building (an architectural product) should not be designed as a decorative entity but a functional object – living mechanism. I definitely agree Pask on this statement because building cannot be imagined as an individual unit. It is closely associated with human environment and behavior. I can think of Louis Kahn’s concept of ‘Served and Servant’ spaces in this case to understand it. Pask also talks about functionalism and mutualism in terms of form, dynamic over static entities. How the demand for system orientated thinking in architecture evolved through the lenses of cybernetics is argued in this article.

Norbert Wiener in his article – The Human Use of Human Beings – cybernetics and society defines cybernetics as a complex system of ideas that are related to the theory of messages. It is communicating with and controlling over our environments. Wiener also discuss the concepts on input, output, and feedback in his article. I also observe through the readings that the process of ‘processing information’ is closely related with the notion of feedback. The mobile screen receives or senses the touch of our finger at a particular location on the screen through various sensors, receptors or receivers. The finger touch is the input. The mobile then understand it and process on it to generate some results – an output. The (past) stored data on the machine (in this case mobile) – memory, remains equally important with immediate input in the process. Wiener frames the definition of ‘feedback’ as the control of a machine on the basis of its actual performance rather than its expected performance in known as feedback.

In the article, Designing Freedom – The disregarded tools of modern man; he describes the concept of ‘Variety’. Stafford believes that our institutions are failing because they are disobeying laws of effective organization and effective organizations should maximize the freedom of their participants, within the practical constraints of the requirement for those organizations to fulfill their purpose. He believes that the science of cybernetics can be used to design organizations which fulfill these objectives. The redesigning process should use technology, to assist in providing organizations with a central system which supports their aims.

Safford Beer’s high minded idealization of the integration of computers into the shaping of our institutions provides for an optimistic outlook. Beer sought a proliferation in how we organize our institutions through the means of processing feedback. Variety, or the possible states of a system and its interpretation provides the foundation for his model. For Beer data interpretation and its analysis through simulation could provide viable models at a rate contemporary institutions simply could not. For Beer, this is cybernetics, the effective organization of large systems.

Pask also takes on this idea of systems, for him society was essentially a large system with an intricate branching of other social systems. Pask calls for a turn away from ‘pure’ architecture, to one that integrates the larger systems of society into the built environment. This would be a dynamic responsive architecture, that could evolve, react, that regulates and is regulated.

How we communicate (holistically rather than locally) with this ever evolving environment is the primary concern of Wiener, in The Human use of Human Beings. Wiener theorizes the human technological relationship as dual sided, in other others how we communicate with machines, and how they communicate back to us.

The word “Cybernetics” used by Norbert Wiener came from a Greek word means “governor”. The basis of control is the message and all of information dissemination is to control. In the meantime, any control relies on the feedback of information. In other words, cybernetics studies the flow of information in a system, and the way in which that information is used by the system as a means of controlling itself it does this for animate and inanimate systems indifferently. It is an interdisciplinary subject.

In 1960s, the effect of architecture and computer was reciprocal rather than one industry uses the tool created by another industry. As Gordon Pask puts it in the architectural relevance of cybernetics, both cybernetics and architecture are mutual connections and mutual promotion between thinking and action. Also he proposed: let us apply design paradigm to the interaction between the designer and the system he designs, rather than the interaction between the system and the people who inhabit it, which was intriguing to me. To keep on developing a design result, it requires the intervention of artificial intelligence. Obviously, on the basis of Gordon Pask’s theory, designer could not make the unilateral decision the function of a computer because of the symbiosis between designer and machine. It is like that people and the machine evolve over time.

It is a systematic study of the architecture of the system to solve the problem, using system, method, pattern, interaction, behavior and object to be its language. Cybernetics is different from the mechanism which is to study part of things. It emphasizes integral concept and represented the pattern of object. In our design, we try to study the interaction of between people and the environment, then to study the relationship between human beings. From my perspective, we could incorporate this theory into the design. It contains these two aspects to clarify the inherent and intrinsical of the interaction.

“Cybernetics and Society” – Norbert Wiener

In the essay “Cybernetics and Society”, Norbert Wiener closely studies “messages” as a means of controlling machinery and society. He suggests that communication and control should be classed together and that the theory of control is a “chapter” in the theory of messages. In order to describes this complex of ideas, Wiener coined the term “Cybernetics” which directly translates to “Steersman” or “Governor”. His purpose in doing so was to develop techniques that would attack the “problem” of control and communication between not only man but machine as well. He states that communicating a message to somebody is similar to controlling the actions of another. In both actions, a message is sent, the only difference is that when one is controlling somebody else, an action is expected of them after the message is sent.  This statement is also true for machines. The difference before the age of computers was that machines were “dumb”. Wiener uses the example of the music box. The messages and control in that system are localized and do not present themselves to the outside world. Humans and animals, however, respond to messages. The music box is acting in a “pre-arranged” manner whereas humans and animals act in a “contingent” manner. Wiener points out that modern automatic machines possess “sense organs” similar to those of humans. These sense organs are used as receptors for the outside world to communicate with. The control of a machine, however, is based on actual performance rather than expected performance.

In this essay, I found it interesting how Wiener used militaristic examples in his theorizing of communication and control. It makes sense since the essay was written within a decade of World War II and major technological achievements were spawning from the wartime effort. It is also interesting that he used examples of major theoretical physicists, like Albert Einstein, to explain what it means to communicate and control. The ideas that Einstein came up with were radical at the time and Wiener tried to make sense of his theories by suggesting that Einstein’s theory of relativity is directly linked to the idea of sending a message. It could also be viewed as a means of control. By this I mean controlling the laws of nature in a way that makes sense to human beings. Wiener also suggests that as we move forward, the physical function of the living individual and the operation of new communication machines will work hand in hand to control disorder, or entropy.

“The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics” – Gordon Pask

In the essay “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics”, Gordon Pask studies Architectural metalanguages of new and old and describes how they relate to the metalanguage of cybernetics. He states that architects, who are primarily systems designers, are being forced to take interest in organizational properties of development.  This differs from that of the “pure” architecture of the 1800’s in that new architecture has not yet developed a metalanguage. Instead, it has sub theories of metalanguage. Pask describes how new architecture consists of “Architectural Mutualism”  between structures and men, or society. In response, design is now focused on form and architects need to design dynamic architecture. New architecture, along with pure architecture both celebrate buildings as a work of art. Pask states that Gaudi’s architecture (most specifically Park Guell), are some of the most “cybernetic” structures in existence. He states that this is due to the fact that your exploration of the park is guided by “specially contrived feedback” and that variety is introduced at appropriate points to make you explore. This relates back to Norbert Wiener’s original theory of cybernetics and communication and control. Gaudi is communicating to the inhabitants of his structure and is also controlling them using variety. Gaudi’s work, however, contrasted with functionalism. Its only function was to satisfy the symbolic and informational needs of man.  Cybernetics, like “pure” architecture provides a metalanguage for discussion. Pure architecture, however, was descriptive and prescriptive but lacked in its ability to predict or explain. Cybernetics can be used to do just that.

“Designing Freedom” – Stafford Beer

In the essay “Designing Freedeom”, Stafford Beer suggests that cybernetic laws are universal. He describes the concepts of variety, which he uses throughout the rest of his essay. Ashby’s Law, which states “only variety can absorb variety” is complimented by the depiction of a department store in which it is shown just how variety can absorb variety. If the variety in a store is less than what people are accustomed to, the store will lose service. If the variety of the store is more than that of custom, then it becomes unprofitable. Beer also goes on to explain how the citizens of Chile attempted to pull down the government because of lack of variety. He states that the “rich world would not allow a poor country to use its freedom to design its freedom” and that it cut off the variety that Chile needed to succeed.

In the text, “The Disregarded Tools of Modern Man”, Stafford Beer provides commentary on the current state of our culture, equating the omnipresent force of gravity to that of the influence of the institution upon our society. He warns against the inherent danger of allowing such entities to operate with ubiquity while practically invisible to our society. Beer proposes that our society use its tools, such as the computer, teleprocessing, and cybernetics, to redesign its institutions rather than bolster them. This would involve what Beer refers to as regulating the system through variety absorption (and not variety attenuation) to arrive at the ‘Law of Requisite Variety”. Thankfully, Gordon Pask makes a more salient effort at relating Beer’s thoughts on cybernetics back to the field of architecture in the appropriately titled, “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics”. Pask looks to modern tools like computer aided design and building information modeling as resources for connecting physical architecture with its inhabitants through cybernetics. Pask issues a need for a systemic approach that merges architectural components (i.e., structure, facade, etc.) with human components to form the basis of what he refers to as mutualism. Through mutualism, he states, architecture can reach its inhabitants with a higher level of organization so that the inhabitant can cooperate with a building, and not just within it.

“The Disregarded Tools of Modern Man” by Safford Beer offered a unique argument to the organization of our society and its relationship to how it interacts within itself. As a society, we have allowed our technology and interconnected networks to dominate and control our public. Overall, I think it’s interesting as a populace that our technology has advanced to a point where everyone feels it is an efficient system, but we neglect to acknowledge that our systems have hindered what it truly means to progress. Our technology has become a distraction for the masses. It’s inhibiting and not enabling.

Moreover, Gordon Pask’s “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics” adds support to Beer’s subjects on technologies integration in society. By adding cybernetics into a local niche of architecture, a buildings function can be something interactive and can influence difference aspects that help define what that space actually is. I find it interesting that cybernetics imbedded in architecture should be influenced by an inhabitant. Space should be controlled by an individual by defined by the designer. It raises questions about what it actually means to inhabit and how society should interpret space. It can add a unique addition of the individual vs the masses

Lastly, Wieners reading coincides with the previous readings and how transmissions between technology and Man are defined. By defining natural sensory systems, Wiener states the benefits to machines being able to relay information in an almost natural state similar to Man. To me, this begins to argue how a machine can function as an individual but its systems shouldn’t define what that machine is. It begs questions about what created what, and if our natural systems are actually natural. Defining freewill is the beginning of how interconnected systems affect the masses.

In the reading, The Disregarded Tools of Modern Man by Stafford Beer, he stated something that stood out to me. “…we are using them on the wrong side of the variety equation. We use them without regard to the proliferation of variety within the system, thereby effectively increasing it, and not, as they should be used, to amplify regulative variety.” We as a society has not only advanced our technology but we have successfully forgotten the main purpose of majority of the technology’s components. We feel that with the use of the computers, we are making the systems and everything we do more efficiently, but in reality, they are dragging us down.

As Beer states in his lecture, the computer we have are supposed to be used to “amplify regulative variety”, we can somehow use the computers to develop systems, systems that can somehow operate like our bodies do. They can operate, react, and interact. “Man is immersed in a world which he perceives through his sense organs” as Norbert Wiener justly points out in The Human Use of Human Beings. Wiener emphasizes how man and machine communicate through means of messages and other communications methods. He uses a kitten as an example, and exhibits how humans and animals alike receive messages by our sensory organs, and as a result, registers an action. It is important that machines can send and receive messages similarly to how humans do as well. Here, he uses an elevator as an example to show how a machine understands the basics of its performance and feedback. Because it understands senses what it is suppose to do, people are able to step in and out of the elevator and use it for its main intention.

Gordon Pask expresses in The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics, how architecture and cybernetics go hand in hand and accentuates the fact that architects are first system designers that have later been forced to take an interest in organizational systems and etc. With the help of architecture and cybernetics, we as designers can some what carry out what Beer, Weiner and Pask are concerned about. We are given advanced technology and programs that potentially aid our designs, which in the long run “act as intelligent extensions of the tool-like program…”. Much like many of the systems that our society is woven and emerged into, architectural designs should as well, have rules for evolution built into them. With the help and correct usage of cybernetics, we can achieve this.

Feedback : Cybernetics

“Cybernetics In History” , Norbert Wiener

In this article, the author defines cybernetics as the study of messages as a means of controlling machinery and society. Even though the article is originally published in 1950, it gives a very relevant perspective towards communications that are used today.”Like any form of information, these commands are subject to disorganisation in transit” as stated by weiner, this statement is very similar to a game ‘message’ we as kids used to play, where a bunch of kids used to sit in a circle and one generates a message and tells it to the next person when the message goes around the circle and comes back to him, the message would be very different from the original. This could even happen when we communicate with our surroundings (could be with humans, machines or animals). This article also sheds light on how input and output are related and mutual like the example, a cat reacts to our calls and as a human we respond to it’s reaction. He also mentions this mutual interaction or transfer of messages can also occur between human to human, human to machine, and machine to machine. He also discusses how memory (stored information form input) could be further used as a tool as an output for a situation that could happen in the future.

“The Disregarded Tools of Modern Man” , Stafford Beer

Variety, Beer introduces the reader to this term through this article and how it effects our society and institutions which in turn depend on cybernetics. He states “Variety absorbs variety, nothing else can”. In support,he provides examples like the departmental store, where the variety of products attracts variety of consumers who in turn require variety of salesman to accommodate them. If the store fails to provide enough salesman the system become unstable. He also relates the same example to a governing body for a country, but in this case the citizens have to bare with instability caused due to unavailability of requires variety. The article also informs that cybernetics could be a solution for the changing society where the variety( needs, developments etc) could be met with constant feedback from the society and translating it into output with variety of organisations that could take care of these needs.

He also mentions that cybernetics should be used on the right side of the system and it could act as a platform where we can test different outcomes with the information acquired from the society and experiment possible solutions and derive the best solution for the future of that particular society.

“The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics” , Gordon Park

This article establishes a connection between cybernetics and architecture. Even though historically art had played a significant role in architecture, as the technology developed the need of architecture for new programs had arose. The author points out that this need or this new architecture have no theory,even though it is evidently using computational machines to design the designs provided are very static in nature. He suggests that the structures need to be dynamic and should interact with the changing needs of inhabitants.

Final thoughts:

Although as an architect we use computational tools to create a stable environment to the end user we might need to understand the data that different sources provide us like internet, magazines and try to adapt to the changing trends, required varieties by the user and provide a design only after attaining the best solution through experimenting.