I seems to me that more discussion on the purposes and potential
contributions of PCP could be valuable. Perhaps I have missed previous
contributions on these points; if so, my apologies!
However, I understand it as an assumption or premise of PCP that it can and
will develop, along with the WWW, as part of a future electronic
Super-Brain.
Now, let me shift the frame of reference. In an analogous way it is also
held by many as an article of faith that the economic system of Free
Enterprise will automatically, by an invisible hand, organize an economy
and hence a society with plenty for all.
In regard to such assumptions about economics, John Ralston Saul points out
in his recent book The Unconscious Civilization (p. 134 ff.) that:
". . . we are seeking in a mechanism [the corporate market system], which
is necessary, qualities it simply does not possess. The market does not
lead, balance or encourage democracy.
"Properly regulated it is the most effective way to conduct business. . . .
[But] It cannot give leadership even on straight economic issues. The
world-wide depletion of fish stocks is a recent example. The number of fish
caught between 1950 and 1989 multiplied by five. The fishing fleet went
from 585,000 boats in 1970... to 3.5 million today. No one thought about
the long- or even medium-term maintenance of stocks; not the fishermen, not
the boat builders, not the fish wholesalers,...; not the financiers. It
wasn't their jub. Their job was to worry about their own interests . . .
"The problem of industrial pollution is very much the same. As Robert
Heilbroner (1992) put it ...:
'Steel producers have no incentive to cut down on polution... As a
result the market mechanism does not accurately serve one of
the purposes that it purports to fulfill - namely,
presenting society with an accurate assessment of the relative
costs of producing things.'
"In other words, the marketplace is capable only of calculating exclusive
costs; that is, excluding all possible costs that interfere with profit.
[But] Leadership of society requires the calculation of inclusive costs. . . .
"Our tones become more reverential when we turn to technology. Yet
technology is no more capable of giving leadership than the market..."
In a recent book, Values Matter Most, Ben Wattenberg has argued that the
next presidential elections in the U.S. will be decided more on issues
related to social values than on economics (and perhaps, I might add,
technologies).
Now let me return to PCP and principles of cybernetics.
It may be reasonable to think that many PCPers believe with Francis
Heylighen that computer-based networks are involved in a metasystem
transition, leading somewhat inevitably to a level of super-being e.g. via
the WWW.
If this is so, the question arises, from a cybernetic point of view, as to
the characteristics of the goals towards which these developments are
trending. In other words, according to what feedback criteria will we know
if we are on the right track?
Is it too soon to think about arranging to address such questions?
How should we think about responsibility for such issues? Is there a
developing literature on these topics?
It may be recognized that some kind of metamodel may be required. So the
further question may be asked as to whether this metamodel can be based
entirely on what is known about previous mechanisms, albeit in new
combinations (but still a Juggernaut).
It seems to me that, once the issues are clearly identified, it will be
seen as an ethical imperative that some commitment to meeting human needs
must be built into what can and must be a humanly creative endeavour.
Cybernetics is uniquely capable of illuminating at least some of the
requirments for such commitment, in terms such as outlined by Heinz von
Foerster, in a paper on "Ethics and Second-order Cybernetics"
(see WWW: http://shr.stanford.edu/shreview/4-2/text/foerster.html )
I for one would welcome more discussion of such issues.
Cheers and best wishes.
Bruce B.
"We are all in this together"