All Systems are Closed (Cybernetics & Systems Theory Ep. 3; Exclusive)
Added 2020-11-29 21:09:07 +0000 UTCErik and I drop Ep. 3 of the cybernetics & systems theory series. Be sure you've heard the first two, Ep. 1 is public (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1FqV1DOcFsfp9G7Ri4CmSv?si=kZzfS-DJTGarPZ4FqrTMbg) and Ep.2 was released earlier this month.
Your responses and questions are important to a series like this, we'll look at all the comments below before recording the next episode, so choose your own adventure through cybernetics and systems theory!
Comments
I think the best way to explain functionality of systems according to Luhmann is to watch the Wire series, as Georg-Moeller says in YT. Where you have drug dealers obsessed by money and violence and will do everything to stay in power or perish, the cops playing the numbers game trying to lock people up or getting fired while the crime problem continues as they have no effect on the drivers of the system or the stevedors union that organises and tries to do stuff for the workers by playing both the cops and the dealers. The proximate explanatory power is in the feedback loop in each of these systems: dealers, cops, union; yet, as you say, they aren't closed systems, they have common sources of inputs (money, manpower, etc.) and they are interrelated as they feed upon one another. Using abstraction we may uncover some general dynamics and patterns maybe class interest, power, etc. but these get muddled down by the proximate causes and functionally different feedback loops of the smaller systems described, making some believe that there's not an underlying logic to all these systems or dismissing it as irrelevant.
Mario Mario
2024-12-05 10:38:29 +0000 UTCSurprisal is kept low if this partitioning moves the internal states to exhibit maximum entropy in relation to an attractor. The mapping between internal and external parameters, if synchronized, will allow divergence to be minimized while ensuring sparse coupling, to resist mixing into one another
Keanu Clark
2022-12-14 16:44:54 +0000 UTChttps://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2204.11900
Keanu Clark
2022-12-14 16:42:28 +0000 UTChttps://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2207.07620
Keanu Clark
2022-12-14 16:42:18 +0000 UTCThis separation of internal states from external states is stressed at length in a Markov blanket existing as a sort of partition in the Free Energy Principle literature
Keanu Clark
2022-12-14 16:40:47 +0000 UTCClosure is called sparse coupling in the Free Energy Principle literature
Keanu Clark
2022-12-14 16:33:17 +0000 UTCGreat series, a lot of fun seeing how these biological analogies became useful in other fields. Nowadays, we use the term "crosstalk" a lot to refer to structural coupling between biological systems - I think it's a cute re-turn of phrase to a linguistic metaphor.
Miguel de Jesus
2022-06-26 18:44:16 +0000 UTCI started listening to this podcast because a few months ago I started to be crippled with chronic illness whose features make it almost impossible to read and I was really looking for something which as a bit of a critical theory nerd would stimulate my brain. This series on systems theory has been the best thing I have listened to from this podcast, it made my brain positively tingle. Erik is my fucking favourite, he has been consistently endearing himself to me ever since he used the phrase "baudrillard simulation bullshit" as a descriptor in one of your very first podcasts. I really appreciate this podcast, although I am lowkey bummed that there is no Jean-Luc Nancy content (I lost my ability to read just after his death and had just embarked on a bit of a Nancy reading project). You are bringing joy to a crippled critical theory enthusiast, thank you.
Sarah Oates
2022-01-10 21:37:33 +0000 UTCWhat seems weird to me is this insistence on say, separating the economic, legal and political systems, for example. Like politics is about power, sure, but the economic system is inextricably tied to both politics and power in different ways, both on a social and individual level, so it almost seems like a step back or straight up impossible to say, talk about the economic without talking about the political, or the legal without the political. Hell, the legal features the economic, because under capitalism, the more money you have, the better lawyer you can afford. Money also influences politics as you said, both in terms of campaign contributions and the desire on behalf of politicians to accumulate their own capital. So if these systems are coupled so tightly, is it even worth looking at them in isolation? Although I do get how just calling everything power or ideology leads to one's analysis being devoid of important nuance. But overall I do believe I get the overall gist of what you guys were talking about here, especially about closure. I'll definitely be giving this another listen before moving on to the next post.
anacidcommie
2021-04-18 19:01:43 +0000 UTCAround 1:02 when it is stated that "in Luhmann's system, an appeal to intentionality can not be made," is this in reference to "intention" or "ententionality" as described in Terrance Deacon's teleodynamics?
Trevor M
2020-12-20 23:40:00 +0000 UTCIn what way does systems theory differ from e.g. social reproduction theory?
Aaron Cardona
2020-12-05 23:50:24 +0000 UTCThe stuff that really piqued my attention was the part with "Morality is the subject of... Legality is the subject of..." etc. and going into how the economic system tends to massage other systems into behaving according to it internal functioning (I see this as it creates more ready-at-hand and easier routes for other systems to take, where before they had to move their energy through more expensive paths - sort of like how the 'electric system' made communication easier and so information and difference began flowing through that). So I'm mostly curious about going down that road. So an arrow shot without any particular target in the direction of how systems have particular subject matters and how then other systems can overcode simpler and potentially less expensive routes... There's something visual in the "overcode" that lends towards a bridge between domains...
Theis Egeberg
2020-12-05 09:56:46 +0000 UTCThe systems theory series is peturbing my 'love it' system
Andy Madeley
2020-12-01 11:10:03 +0000 UTCI'm six minutes in and already taking notes. That's a great short definition of entropy.
Theis Egeberg
2020-11-30 18:16:13 +0000 UTC
