This study focuses on the cybernetic complementarity of stability and change in family therapy. Stability and change involve both the client and therapist, and is a selfreferential process where the observer is part of that which is observed. One couple was involved in ten therapy sessions. During the action research cycles of planning, acting and reflecting, the principles of systems theory, cybernetics and second cybernetics were implemented. A team consisting of one lecturer and two students were actively involved throughout all the phases of the research process. During therapy, the therapist focused on stability to facilitate change in the structure of the couple's organizational system. The research served as a good example of how punctuation of two complementarity processes (stability and change) can enable and empower clients to autonomously reflect on their own behaviour, and to make decisions regarding patterns they would like or feel ready to change. / Social Science (Mental Health) / Thesis (M. Soc. Science)--University of South Africa, 2001. / M.A. (Social Science (Mental Health))

Clinical Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This study aims to show that the adoption of the cybernetic perspective is appropriate in dealing with relationship problems of interacting and communicating individuals since it authenticates the inclusion of the therapist in the therapeutic system, and thus the creation of a reality by all involved, and not just the therapist alone. The constructivist view of the world and the systemic theoretical assumptions are recognized as the required framework for the adopted cybernetic approach. The consideration of the stability/change nature of change is acknowledged as forming the most essential aspects of the change that system require. Thus addressing both stability of what clients need to maintain of themselves, as well as what they want to change is important. The action research methodology used in this research ensured a focus on the actions of the therapist/social worker while facilitating a therapeutic process with a family. Therefore attention could be given to areas requiring change through the planning, acting and reflecting steps throughout the process. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Science (Mental Health))

The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the complementary concepts of stability and change could manifest during the therapeutic process, specifically with clients showing the symptom of dependency. The study is guided by a literature study on systems/cybernetic theory with a focus on the cybernetic complementarity of stability and change. A brief description is provided of the symptom of dependency from a more traditional lineal perspective as well as a non-lineal (systemic) perspective. A single case study is utilized to describe how both stability and change could manifest in the therapeutic process. From this description the relevance and usefulness of addressing both stability and change during the therapeutic process emerge and are outlined. / Social Work / M. A. (Social Science Mental Health)

Cette thèse analyse les incidences des avancées d’une rationalité technoscientifique sur les définitions classiques de l’humain. Elle discerne, dans sa présentation de ce phénomène, le lien entre la technoscience, la cybernétique et le posthumanisme qui en découle. Elle souligne les mutations et projets de remodèlement de l’humain qui traversent cette rationalité technoscientifique et son paradigme informationnel cybernéticien. Cette rationalité technoscientifique, polémique aux ontologies dites conservatrices, soutenant une vision amorale de la RDTS (Recherche & Développement technoscientifique), accouche d’un posthumanisme – en rapport difficile avec le corps – qui bouscule les définitions classiques de l’humain judéo-chrétien, dont l’anthropologie théologique évangélique. Traitant, dans une première grande section de trois chapitres, de la rationalité technoscientifique et de ses visions de l’humain, la thèse permet la mise en exergue des enjeux principaux se dégageant des nouveaux questionnements des anthropologies classiques soumises aux pressions de la RDTS. Dans la deuxième partie, encore de trois chapitres, qui porte sur l’anthropologie évangélique, la thèse situe les Évangéliques historiquement et doctrinalement, pour mieux relever les éléments identitaires du mouvement et les grandes déterminations théologiques à l’intérieur desquels se déploie cette anthropologie. La présentation de cette dernière se décline à partir des différentes compréhensions du motif anthropologique évangélique par excellence, l’imago Dei et le concept de l’unicité de l’humain dont les fondements semblent de plus en plus fragiles à la lumière des conclusions des recherches en paléontologie et en cognition animale. Si plusieurs défis importants sont posés à l’anthropologie évangélique, la thèse, se limitant à une critique évangélique de la rationalité technoscientifique et des réponses évangéliques à cette dernière, analyse une question essentielle pour la pensée évangélique, celle de l’humain homo ii faber et l’anthropotechnie, versus le remodèlement de l’humain autour des interrogations posthumanistes sur le corps et la question du salut. Cette thèse apporte une contribution 1) sur le plan de la synthèse qu’elle présente de l’anthropologie évangélique, 2) de la compréhension de l’identité évangélique, sa singularité et sa diversité, et 3) des manières dont une théologie évangélique peut entrer en dialogue avec la raison technoscientifique. Elle lève le voile sur l’utilisation tous azimuts du concept de l’imago Dei et de son insuffisance, à lui seul, pour apprécier les véritables enjeux du débat avec la rationalité technoscientique. Elle insinue que ce motif doit être analysé en conjonction avec la christologie dans l’approfondissement du Logos incarné, pour en mieux apprécier l'étendue. Ce n'est que dans ce lien qu’ont pu être trouvés des éléments capables d'articuler ce qui est en germe dans l'imago Dei et suggérer une définition de l’humain capable de prendre en considération les défis d’une rationalité technoscientifique et de son posthumanisme. / This thesis analyzes the impact of proposals by a technoscientific rationality (or RDTS) on the classical definitions of what is human. It discerns in its presentation of the phenomenon the link between technoscience, cybernetics and post-humanism which has developed from them. Then there are the mutations and projects to remodel humans which arise with RDTS and its cybernetic informational paradigm. Technoscience, with its polemics against any ontology considered conservative, supports an amoral vision of RDTS and produces a posthumanism with its difficult relation to the human body. It also disrupts classical Judaeo-Christian definitions of what is human, among which we find evangelical theological anthropology. This thesis is divided into two sections of three chapters each. The first section examines RDTS and its vision of what is human. The principal issues which recent questioning of classical anthropology has produced, arising from the pressure of RDTS developments, are examined. Then the second section of three chapters will present evangelical anthropology, beginning with the historical and doctrinal context of evangelicalism. The elements of evangelical identity are explained along with the primary theological concepts which surround this anthropology. A variety of evangelical positions will be presented, related to the imago Dei and the concept of unicity of the human. While this concept is crucial for evangelicals, it is highly contested by recent research in paleontology and animal cognition. After examining the important new challenges facing evangelical anthropology, this thesis will concentrate on existing evangelical critiques of RDTS and posthumanism and iv refining them. Then an essential question for evangelicals will be examined: the homo faber and anthropotechnie versus the remodelling of the human involved in posthumanist questioning of the body and of salvation. Three contributions emerge from this thesis: 1) a synthesis of evangelical anthropology, 2) an understanding of evangelical identity in its distinctiveness and in its diversity and 3) an identification of necessary factors for evangelical theology to employ in a dialogue with RDTS. The difficulty of using the imago Dei in all direction is demonstrated along with a denial that this concept alone can address all the serious issues RDTS raises. Rather this motif needs to be combined with Christology and particularly the incarnation of the Logos to widen the treatment of the subject. It is only with that link that necessary elements contained in the imago Dei can be articulated and a definition for the human can be made which can address the challenges of RDTS and its posthumanism.

This study is an examination of the several themes and conventions of science fiction that seem to appear in the texts of Samuel Beckett. Expectedly, many of the texts produced by both science fiction and Beckett just before, during, and immediately after World War II share similar concerns; though perhaps less expectedly, these two relatively unlike bodies of work can be used to help better understand and illuminate one another. In Waiting for Godot, nuclear anxieties shed light on the play's apparent post-apocalyptic landscape and the profound emptiness that permeates the stage. In Molloy, Hugh Kenner uses Centaur imagery to explain the title character's Cartesian relationship with his bicycle; however, contemporary sensibilities at the time of the novel's publication suggests a cyborg reading of the Molloy/bicycle hybrid can also be productive. And in Krapp's Last Tape, the tape recorder serves as a figurative time machine, which allows readers to consider the ways technology continues to allow for the capture of time and subsequent reflection. / by Aaron Pancho. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

A pesquisa visa a estudar as inter-relações1 entre os processos de projeto da arquitetura contemporânea, mediados por tecnologia computacional, e os processos da biologia, com o olhar sob os conceitos da ecologia, apoiados na teoria dos sistemas e na cibernética. As análises pretendem relacionar questões de âmbitos teórico e prático, dentro da observação dos processos de projeto, por meio das seguintes etapas: 1. Introdução e compreensão das atuais mudanças de paradigma nas áreas da biologia, ecologia e ciência da computação, que influenciam diretamente os modos de produção de informação nos processos de projeto digital em arquitetura; 2. Reflexões sobre a teoria da cibernética e sistemas complexos como costuradores dos processos biológicos aos processos de projeto de arquitetura, com implicações em emergência e inovação em arquitetura e 3. Análises práticas da integração de processos de projeto e produção digitais recorrentes das interrelações da arquitetura com a biologia. / The research aims to study the interrelationship between the contemporary architecture design processes, mediated by computer technology and the biology processes, with a view under the concepts of ecology, supported on system theory and cybernetics. The analyzes aim to relate issues on the spheres of theory and practice, within the observation of design processes, through the following steps: 1. Introduction and understanding of the current paradigm shifts in biology, ecology and computer science, which directly holds the modes of producing information in architecture digital design processes; 2. Thoughts on cybernetic theory and complex systems like links between biological processes and architectural design processes, with implications in emergence and innovation in architecture 3. Analyses of study cases about design processes and digital production integration recurrent from the interrelationship between architecture and biology.

A pesquisa trata da compreensão da atividade de projetar através de abordagens que propõem a concepção de conversação ou diálogo na caracterização do processo projetual em arquitetura. Investigamos o surgimento destas abordagens na segunda metade do século XX e começo do século XXI, cuidando em apresentar uma leitura das transformações nos modos de se ver tanto o design quanto o designer arquitetônico, dentro do recorte temático a que nos referimos como \'horizonte da conversação\'. Realizamos uma revisão sobre aspectos conceituais centrais às visões de teóricos do design que, além da arquitetura, transitam por outros domínios do saber como filosofia e cibernética, e que reconhecem o design como uma troca dialógica envolvendo tanto a transformação da situação projetual quanto a transformação do próprio designer pela percepção de consequências não intencionais de suas ações projetuais. A partir desta revisão, elaboramos uma reflexão sobre uma ordem de preocupações compartilhadas entre as abordagens de nosso horizonte temático, pela qual buscamos o desenvolvimento de um entendimento mais abrangente e enriquecido sobre o processo projetual arquitetônico. / The research deals with the understanding of the design activity by approaches which proposes the concept of conversation or dialogue in the characterization of the design process in architecture. We investigate the emergence of these approaches in the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century, taking care to present a reading of underlying changes in the ways of seeing of both design and the architectural designer in the thematic focus we refer as horizon of conversation\'. We accomplished a review of central conceptual issues to views of design theorists that in addition to architecture, transiting through other domains of knowledge as philosophy and cybernetics, and recognize design as a dialogic exchange involving both the transformation of the design situation and the designer himself by the perception of unintended consequences of their design actions. From this review, we present a reflection about an order of shared concerns between the approaches of our thematic horizon, which we seek the development of a broader and enriched understanding of design process.

This thesis identifies the existence and significance of a rhetorical gesture that has circulated widely since at least the nineteenth century: the comparison between war and sport. The introduction outlines the background for this rhetoric through a genealogy of the phrase, 'the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton', in nineteenth-century writing. Part one of the thesis examines the metaphors and cultural practices of energetics in European sporting life until the Second World War. The first chapter presents a cultural history of 'sporting aviation' between the Wright brothers' first European flight in 1908 and the declaration of war in 1914, arguing that the new technology of the aeroplane was initially understood through a tension between sporting and bellicose associations. The second chapter performs a close analysis of F.T. Marinetti's writings and Umberto Boccioni's paintings to reveal the role of sport in Italian Futurism and its significance for our understanding of its infamous glorification of warfare. Chapter three examines the militarist displays at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and their enduring cultural legacy. Focusing on the role of crowds, rhythm is shown to be at the centre of how martial symbolism was embedded in the Games' sporting displays. Framing the transition into part two, the fourth chapter reads Georges Perec's use of the Olympics as an allegory for both the Second World War and the Holocaust in W, or the Memory of Childhood (1975) beside a number of post-war conceptualisations of 'play' and 'game'. The chapter identifies a re-organisation of the play concept according to an emerging concern with information, one which, in Perec, also articulates an alternative register for war's cultural memory. From here, the thesis' second part identifies the emergence of a metaphorical nexus of computation, war, and sport in post-war American culture. Chapter five argues that Don DeLillo's End Zone (1972) and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996) satirise the logic of nuclear strategy by employing the formal properties of information theory in their language, collapsing the distinctions between war and sport when each is subjected to computational representation. The final chapter analyses the 'military shooter' videogame, and the new form of sport it has produced - 'e-sports' - considering these games as a material instantiation of the convergence between the discourses of military and sporting culture. Across the case studies presented in these six chapters, a transition is identified from metaphors concerned with war and sport's energetic qualities to those concerned with the processing and abstraction of war and sport as information. Rather than conceive of this transition as an epistemic break, however, the thesis identifies continuities across the principles to be found in cultural energetics and informatics.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:18:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Kiochi Nakamiti.pdf: 508081 bytes, checksum: 823ace52fadc0ffa1e477b48ec078c0f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-09-01 / The diffusion of Artificial Intelligent Agents, superficially considered as elements that have independent thinking and whose decisions influence processes in the everyday human reality increasingly known, especially in electronic media, the users of banking services, on access to telephone service in our home appliances and entertainment. Its presence is sometimes felt by the ease of access to resources often so powerful and sometimes so unnoticed. It can be perceived in a negative way, when access to electronic banking services is denied without explanation. Much of learning today, relies on Internet and getting information online without the help of search engines is disappointing. Today, these mechanisms offer more than simply the result of a search. They seem to have the intelligence to offer suggestions in relation to our interest. This form of communication that are incorporating to their customs, is strongly influenced by known agents, in computer systems. In this work, we will make a history of its appearance, and technological innovations and cultural, primarily focusing on the first Artificial Intelligence in order to built a clear, detailed view of the Artificial Intelligent Agents, at present, and to establish a hypothetical path for future developments. The methodological basis of work is based on the complexity of the issue addressed. Such complexity refers to tools and distinct views, dynamic and interactive, pointing to the computer and its various aspects, the artificial intelligence and its tools, the cyber arena of interdisciplinarity as the first and, to the environment and the semiotic analysis tool of the production and mediation of knowledge and theories of complexity. The corpus of the analysis and interpretation are circumscribed to the phenomenon of Artificial Intelligent Agents of nowadays and of the future, but for both, and according to the methodology adopted, the fields of knowledge are inspected more in the expectation of higher fidelity description. The main conclusion is the remarkable trend of spraying and increasing invisibility of Artificial Intelligent Agents, as elements of support in decision making and control of the environment and the information we received / A explosão dos Agentes Inteligentes Artificiais, considerados superficialmente como elementos que apresentam raciocínio autônomo e cujas decisões influem processos, é uma realidade cada vez mais sentida no cotidiano dos seres humanos , principalmente nos meios de comunicação eletrônicos, entre usuários de serviços bancários, em acessos a serviços telefônicos, nos eletrodomésticos e em nossos entretenimentos. Sua presença é sentida às vezes pela facilidade de acesso a recursos muitas vezes de forma poderosa ou outras vezes de forma discreta. Também pode ser sentida de forma negativa, quando ocorre o bloqueio de uma operação bancária eletrônica sem explicação. Muito do aprendizado, hoje em dia, passa pela internet, e buscar informação na rede sem a ajuda de mecanismos de busca é desconcertante. Hoje em dia esses mecanismos nos oferecem mais do que simplesmente o resultado de uma procura. Eles parecem ter inteligência própria ao nos oferecer sugestões relacionadas ao nosso interesse. Esta forma de comunicação está se incorporando aos costumes e é fortemente influenciada pelos denominados agentes, contidos nos sistemas. Nesse trabalho, é feito um histórico do seu aparecimento e das inovações tecnológicas e culturais introduzidas, focalizando, primariamente, os primórdios da Inteligência Artificial para que seja construída uma visão clara e detalhada dos agentes inteligentes artificiais até o momento presente, a fim de que seja possível estabelecer uma trajetória hipotética de evolução futura. O referencial teórico do trabalho apóia-se na complexidade do tema abordado. Complexidade que evoca ferramentas e olhares distintos, dinâmicos e interatuantes, apontando para a computação e seus vários aspectos, a inteligência artificial e suas ferramentas; a cibernética como primeira arena de interdisciplinaridade e, atingindo a semiótica como ambiente e ferramenta de análise do processo de produção e mediação do conhecimento e as teorias da complexidade. O corpus da análise e interpretação restringe-se ao fenômeno dos Agentes Inteligentes Artificiais desde sua origem, a partir da inspeção de vários campos de conhecimento, necessários à compreensão do tema abordado. O trabalho levanta a hipótese da tendência marcante de pulverização e invisibilidade crescentes dos Agentes Inteligentes Artificiais, como elementos de apoio na tomada de decisão e controle da informação recebida