Editorial: on cybernetics and complexity

Citation

Ramage, M., Chapman, D. and Bissell, C. (2013), "Editorial: on cybernetics and complexity", Kybernetes, Vol. 42 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2013.06742baa.001

Editorial: on cybernetics and complexity

Article Type: Editorial: on cybernetics and complexity From: Kybernetes, Volume 42, Issue 2

One of the more prominent, and still growing, areas in the systems sciences is that of complexity theory. Premised on the idea that complex behaviours arise in situations which are highly interconnected and nonlinear, it has had both theoretical and practical applications in a range of areas. The broad field of complexity theory (or complexity science, which is subtly different) has been handled by many authors, in works ranging from the extremely technical and mathematical through the applied (Bogg and Geyer, 2007) to the popular and discursive (Kauffman, 1995).

An ongoing question is the relationship between cybernetics and complexity theory. There is a clear historical path from early cybernetics to complexity theory (as discussed in a number of places by Ramage and Shipp (2009). To take just a few links: Ross Ashby (1947) coined the term “self-organisation”, a concept at the heart of complexity theory; Stuart Kauffman of the Santa Fé Institute worked with Warren McCulloch, who regarded him as “his most important collaborator since [Walter] Pitts” (Hayles, 1999, p. 241); and Ilya Prigogine was awarded the Norbert Wiener Gold Medal by the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC), with which this journal has a long and proud connection, in 1999 (Prigogine, 2000). Many of the core ideas of complexity theory – self-organisation, emergence, adaptation – are directly taken from cybernetics, and Ashby argued as early as 1956 that “It is chiefly when the systems become complex that the new methods reveal their power” (Ashby, 1956, p. 5).

No fewer than 965 items published in this journal have the term “complexity” in their text, and while a number of them are clearly using the term in its ordinary-language sense, a large proportion of them refer to the concept of complex behaviour in systems. Indeed, the very first article published in Kybernetes (Helvey, 1972, p. 6) suggests inter alia that:

[…] the argument, that it is a priori impossible to attack a problem with such a complexity as a single unit even with hundreds of scientists simultaneously, is invalid if one considers cybernetics’ theoretical capability in ultra-large systems management.

A useful overview of the links between cybernetics and complexity theory was published a number of years ago in this journal (van Dijkum, 1997).

However, little of this account can be found in the work of complexity theory or complexity science. Although there are notable exceptions such as Ilya Prigogine, many of the key theorists in complexity present their work as having little to do with cybernetics or systems theory. So it is welcome that several of the articles in this issue are concerned with issues of complexity, in a number of different ways.

It is clear to us that complexity theory is a successor to cybernetics, perhaps even a branch of the field. We hope that the articles in this issue, and elsewhere in Kybernetes, may help to strengthen the connections between cybernetics and complexity theory.

Editorial concerns

We are grateful for the presence in this issue of two substantial book reviews: Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the viable system model ( VSM ) by R. Espejo and A. Reyes (reviewed by Dominici, Gandolfo), and Korzybski: A Biography, by Bruce Kodish (reviewed by Colin J. Campbell). The fields of cybernetics, systems and management science are sufficiently broad that very many books are published each year that could be of relevance to this journal, and we would like to encourage readers to contribute reviews of relevant books that they have read. We would especially welcome book reviews that reflect on the significance of the book as it fits with other works, and which give the reader an opportunity to understand the content of the book. Book reviews should be in the same format as other articles, as outlined on the journal’s author guidelines (www.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=k) and will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial team for suitability, although not normally sent out for peer review. The previous book review editor (Dr D.M. Hutton) ended work on the journal along with Professor Brian Rudall, so at the present time book reviews are being organised by the editorial team (Magnus Ramage, David Chapman and Chris Bissell).

Thanks to Ruth Glasspool and other staff at Emerald, the transition to ScholarOne manuscripts has largely been a smooth one, although some authors who previously submitted through the old system have had to resubmit their articles through ScholarOne. We are grateful for the cooperation of authors faced with this inconvenience, and also grateful to Ruth for guiding them through the process. We would like to remind authors that they should fill in all the fields on ScholarOne when submitting an article. In particular, we have noticed a few articles recently where all authors were listed on the title page, but only the contributing author was listed as an author in ScholarOne – please remember to include all authors when submitting your manuscript through ScholarOne.

Ruth has now moved to other responsibilities at Emerald, so we would like to wish her well and thank her for her work on Kybernetes, especially for her support and guidance as we have been learning our jobs as the academic editors. We are pleased to welcome Kieran Booluck as the new managing editor and Wendy Lynch as the publisher.

We would like to reemphasise our new editorial policy regarding contextualising the content of research published in Kybernetes, especially in mathematical articles. To repeat the statement in the previous issue, we now require highly mathematical articles to make the cybernetic context of the mathematics explicit. We will expect articles whose main focus is mathematical to demonstrate their connection to past work in cybernetics/systems through clear references (to this or other relevant journals, or established books in the field); or alternatively to give a clear demonstration of the significance of their work in an English-language description, which shows the application of the work to some practical area. We are now routinely returning articles which are purely mathematical, without the contextualisation outlined above, to their authors without review. It is our strong belief that this policy will help to maintain the interdisciplinarity of cybernetics (and Kybernetes) as a conversation rather than just a set of loosely connected sub-fields.

Just as this issue has gone to press, we have agreed with Dr Sonja Sibila Lebe and Ddr Matjaz Mulej of the University of Maribor, Slovenia, that they will guest edit a special issue of Kybernetes on tourism and the global economy, to appear in early 2014. Abstracts are due by the end of February 2013, and full papers by mid July 2013. A complete Call for Papers is available on the journal web site at: www.emeraldinsight.com/k.htm

In this issue

We are pleased to publish nine article in this issue as well as two substantial book reviews and a column. As with the previous issue, we are glad to note the international nature of this issue – authors come from Italy, Canada, Austria, Chile, the UK, Tunisia, Oman, China, Algeria and Slovenia.

There is an interesting commonality to this issue, as a number of the articles are concerned with issues of complexity, in one way or another. The first three items are conceptual articles, and the remaining six are research articles.

“The complexity of measuring complexity” by Mario Tarride is a clear exposition of the nature of complexity. It outlines the background to the word and concept “complex”, looks at epistemological considerations around what it means to measure complexity, and discusses a series of models for measuring complexity. It ranges across a number of areas of systems and cybernetics to consider different understandings of complexity.

“Elements of a cybernetic epistemology: elementary anticipatory systems” by Helmut Nechansky continues a series of articles that the author has published in Kybernetes since 2007 developing different aspects of a “cybernetic epistemology”. In this and the following article, Nechansky discusses anticipatory systems – those which have the ability to anticipate the patterns of future events by themselves. Here he discusses simple forms of anticipation and the systems to implement them.

“Elements of a cybernetic epistemology: complex anticipatory systems” by Helmut Nechansky follows the preceding article by discussing more advanced anticipatory systems, in particular those which have the ability to anticipate more than one pattern at once. The article discusses the nature of complex anticipation and the structures necessary for such anticipation. It is worth emphasising that both of Nechansky’s articles in this issue are conceptual papers, which outline the nature of the issues and structure involved – they are not intended to describe the implementation or provide test cases of anticipatory systems.

“Complexity and endogeneity in economic modeling” by Masudul Choudhury, the first of our research papers in this issue, begins from the premise that the field of economics has no theory of being and becoming, of inter-causal relationships among variables. The article draws on ideas from complexity theory (especially in the work of Ilya Progigine) to model endogeneity in economics. Given the deeply interconnected economic world we find ourselves in, with many-layered circular causalities, this article is highly relevant.

“Soft-computing based navigation approach for a bi-steerable mobile robot” by Ouahiba Azouaoui, Noureddine Ouadah, Salim; Aouana, Djafer Chabi, Ibrahim Mansour and Ali Semani discusses the design of a robotic vehicle, such as a car, which has the capacity to steer itself and to change its path in adaptation to its environment. Such vehicles already have a range of practical uses, and many more in the future. The authors present an approach to navigation using multilayer feedforward neural networks and fuzzy logic.

“A novel weighted recursive least squares based on Euclidean particle swarm optimization” by Moez Soltani and Abdelkader Chaari is an article in the field of nonlinear systems and fuzzy logic. It presents a new algorithm for modelling a variety of nonlinear systems which uses the method of Euclidean particle swarm optimization. The algorithm is applied, first to purely numerical examples, and then to an experimental study of liquid level processes.

“A reliable modification of the Adomian decomposition method for higher-order nonlinear differential equations” by Jun-Sheng Duan, Randolph Rach and Abdul-Majid Wazwaz extends a mathematical method which has been extensively analysed in earlier issues of Kybernetes – the Adomian decomposition method, which permits an efficient solution to differential equations. They begin their article with a clear exposition of why they find this method important in understanding cybernetics, and why their particular extension is innovative.

“Correlation analysis of sequences with interval grey numbers based on the kernel and greyness degree” by Zheng-Xin Wang is another mathematical paper which usefully contextualises and explains the purpose of its mathematics. It sits in the area of grey systems theory, which concerns systems with information that is only partially known, and has been discussed at some length in recent issues of Kybernetes (see especially Volume 41, Issues 5/6 and 7/8). This article extends grey systems theory by presenting an extended analysis of correlations between sequences which have incomplete information.

“Social responsibility – a way of requisite holism of humans and their well-being” by Simona Šarotar Zˇizˇek and Matjazˇ Mulej discusses the importance of social responsibility, as a way of understanding and managing the current socio-economic crisis, which the authors argue arises from the one-sided and short-term thinking of decision makers. The authors’ understanding of social responsibility is based on personal requisite holism, which they argue will lead to a greater sense of well-being throughout society.

In addition to these articles, the issue also contains two book reviews and one column.

Korzybski: A Biography by Bruce Kodish, reviewed by Colin J. Campbell, explores a biography of the life of the Polish Engineer Alfred Korzybski, founder of the field of General Semantics. While Korzybski’s name is well-known in systems and cybernetics, and many of his ideas have been influential, he is not especially widely read today, and hopefully this biography will help to redress this balance.

Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the Viable System Model by Raul Espejo and Alfonso Reyes, reviewed by Dominici Gandolfo, discusses in detail a useful book on the VSM. One of the authors (Raul Espejo) worked personally with Stafford Beer and has written many key works on VSM. The book outlines the theory of the VSM, its practical implementation in the Viplan software, and situates it in other systemic thinking.

“Cybernetics and systems on the Web” by Alex Andrew is a continuation of the author’s long-running column in Kybernetes discussing topics relating to cybernetics and systems that he has found online. In this issue, the author outlines recent discussions on the American Society for Cybernetics’ CYBCOM e-mail list, as well as topics in neural regeneration and carbon computing.

We hope you enjoy this issue.

Magnus Ramage, David Chapman, Chris Bissell