Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia Southern University, 2004. / "A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts." ETD. INDEX WORDS: William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Neuromancer, Snow crash, science fiction, cyberpunk, cyberspace, metaphysics, cyberculture, transrealism. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73).

Thesis (M.Sc.)(Technology Management)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Title from opening screen (viewed March 22, 2006). Includes summary. includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-146).

Orientador: Laymert Garcia dos Santos / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-16T01:52:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Masaro_Leonardo_M.pdf: 5030879 bytes, checksum: 31d9285c8d522a085bc94dab597dc13c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Hoje tudo parece ser informação. Informação digital é o que existe em nossos computadores, é o que flui pela Internet; a informação estética é usada como forma de diferenciação de mercadorias, e rouba do velho tempo de trabalho a determinação dos preços; informação quântica é o que existe na realidade mais fundamental, no veloz girar dos spins dos elétrons; e informação genética é o que, armazenado em nosso DNA, codifica a essência de nosso ser e como produzir-nos. Em todas as disciplinas científicas, a informação hoje é um dos principais conceitos usados para se pensar uma ampla gama de fenômenos. Vivemos numa sociedade da informação, segundo um jargão sociológico não por acaso vulgarizado. Mas qual a origem disso tudo? Este estudo busca identificar na cibernética uma das origens do paradigma da informação. Surgida nos Estados Unidos na década de 1940 como a ciência da comunicação e do controle no animal e na máquina, a cibernética fez sucesso retumbante logo após ser sumarizada por Norbert Wiener em livro homônimo de 1948. Porém, tão rápida e estrondosamente quanto se fez notar, a cibernética foi esquecida. Fracassando em se transformar em mais uma disciplina científica, a cibernética foi perdendo atenção e interesse por parte do senso comum e da comunidade científica. Na década de 1980, já mal se falava nela. Esta é a história mais conhecida da cibernética. O que aqui se pretende revelar é um outro aspecto de sua história: a cibernética enquanto prática de comunicação interdisciplinar. Pensado e executado nas décadas de 1940 e 50 por um grupo de cientistas norte-americanos e europeus de renome, tal projeto de estabelecer a comunicação entre as disciplinas científicas separadas pela especialização tomou a forma de uma série de encontros, conhecidos como As Conferências Macy. Reunindo matemáticos, físicos, químicos, biólogos, médicos, psicólogos, psiquiatras, psicanalistas, antropólogos, lingüistas, engenheiros, e outros especialistas, sua proposta era romper a barreira entre as ciências exatas e as ciências biológicas e sociais. Para tanto, apostava-se na utilização dos novos conceitos descobertos pelas ciências de ponta da época - em especial os conceitos de informação, feedback e controle - para criar um modelo único capaz de traduzir e sintetizar os conhecimentos espalhados por disciplinas incomunicáveis / Abstract: Nowadays everything seems to be information. Digital information is what's inside our computers, what flows through the Internet; the esthetic information is used as a means of product differentiation, and steals from the old labor time the determination of the prices; quantic information is what exists in the fundamental reality, in the electron's spins; and genetic information is what, stored in our DNA, codify the essence of our being and how to produce ourselves. In all scientific disciplines, information is nowadays one the most used concepts, applied to a vast range of phenomena. We live in an information society, according to a sociological jargon not by accident widespread. But what's the origin of all that? This study tries to identify in cybernetics one of the origins of the information paradigm. Born in the United States in the 1940s as the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine, cybernetics has seen remarkable success right after being summarized by Norbert Wiener in his 1948's homonym book. Nevertheless, as fast and noisy as it was praised, cybernetics was forgotten. Failing at becoming another scientific discipline, cybernetics began to lose its interest and attention by both common sense and scientific community. In the 1980s, it was barely spoken of. This is the most know history of cybernetics. What this study tries to reveal is another aspect of its history: cybernetics as a practice of interdisciplinary communication. Conceived and worked out in the 1940s and 50s by a group of American and European renowned scientists, such project of establishing communication between scientific disciplines set apart by specialization took the form of a series of meetings, known as The Macy Conferences. Bringing together mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists, medicine doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, linguists, engineers, and other specialists, its aim was to bridge the gap between the exact sciences and the biological and social sciences. For doing so, cybernetics used concepts discovered by the stateof- art sciences of its days - specially the concepts of information, feedback and control - to build a single model able to translate and synthesize the knowledge spread through incommunicable disciplines / Mestrado / Mestre em Sociologia

O conceito mônada no pensamento leibniziano guarda em si um aspecto fundamental que é o de expressão: este remete a pensar o indivíduo não só como dotado de uma lógica interna fenomênica como também pertencente a uma lógica metafísica baseada nos princípios de melhor e de causa final; interligados os princípios se refuta o dualismo cartesiano e se alcança, ao nosso ver, um novo conceito que é o de individualidade sistêmica. Isto abre ao filósofo alemão um universo relacional que leva a consequências importantes em âmbito metafísico, político, jurídico, linguístico, etc., mas, em suma sociológico, e que ficará patente em sua formulação do princípio place dautruy. Deste movimento reflexivo de se colocar no lugar do outro entende-se a reconstrução subjetiva das possibilidades externas no interior do próprio indivíduo, o que condicionará de modo singular a sua expressão. Estas elaborações de Leibniz darão os fundamentos para uma leitura organísmica e uma leitura organicista da sociedade. Contudo, enquanto a segunda leitura passa a sobrevalorizar a interdependência das partes enfatizando a cooperação de seus elementos, a primeira, mais próxima de Leibniz, passa a sobrevalorizar a interdependência enfatizando uma ordem anterior, que chamaremos de comunicativa. A esfera comunicativa, levando em conta o fechamento das mônadas, abrange uma pluralidade de perspectivas e expressões se mantendo harmonicamente descentralizada e, ao mesmo tempo, vinculativa. É nesta linha interpretativa que se concebe uma das raízes do pensamento sistêmico e da pós-ontologia social instaurada por Niklas Luhmann. Para o sociólogo alemão, o modelo leibniziano, sendo sistêmico, é o ponto alto de ruptura com o modelo interpretativo mecanicista de ciência embora não seja radical o bastante para romper com as imprecisões epistemológicas humanistas que impedem o avanço de uma ciência da sociedade. Para tal, é necessário levar em consideração o caráter de unidade dinâmica, relacional e autopoietica dos sistemas biológico, psíquico e social e, quanto a este último, o seu caráter fundamentalmente comunicativo. Para este corte metodológico denominado anti-humanista nos parece que Luhmann requisita certos conceitos do pensamento leibniziano, a saber, o fechamento, o place dautruy (incorporado pela cibernética) e a expressividade, para a elaboração de seu modelo funcional-estruturalista de compreensão da complexidade que permeia a sociedade moderna. / The concept of monad in the leibnizian thought guard itself a fundamental aspect that is expressivity: this refers to think the individual not only endowed by phenomenical logic but belonging to metaphysical logic based on the principles of the best and final cause; these interconnected principles refutes cartesian dualism and achieves, in our view, a new concept that is the sistemic individuality. This opens for the german philosopher a relational universe which leads to important consequences in scope of metaphysics, politics, jurisprudence, linguistics, etc. and this will be clear in his formulation about principle \"place d\'autruy\". From this reflexive movement of put himself in the place of other, we understand the subjective reconstruction of external possibilities within the own individual, which will conditionates singularly his expressions. The two elaborations of Leibniz will give the basis for a organismic interpretation and a organicist interpretation of society. However, while the latter overestimates the interdependence of the parts emphasizing the cooperation, the former one, closer to Leibniz, overestimates the interdependence emphasizing a higher order, that we will call communicative. The communicative sphere, taking into account the closure of the monad, covers a plurality of perspectives and expressions keeping itself harmonically descentralized and, in the same time, vinculative. It\'s on this interpretative line that is conceived one of the roots of sistemic thinking and the social pos-ontology carried out by Niklas Luhmann. For the german sociologist, the leibnizian interpretation which Bertalanffy does is the higher point of disruption with the mecanicist interpretative model of science but is not sufficiently radical to disrupt with the humanist epistemological inaccuracies that impede the advancement of social science. For this, is necessary to take into account the character of dynamical unity, relational and autopoietic of biological, psychic and social systems, and, about the latte, its character fundamentally comunicative. For this methodological cut called anti-humanist seems that Luhmann requests some concepts of the leibnizian thought, like the \"closure\", the \" place d\'autruy\" (incorporated by cybernetics) and expressivity to do an elaboration of his functional-structuralist model of comprehension the complexity which permeates the modern society.

This thesis bring together different disciplines – philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, cybernetics and the performing arts – in a transdisciplinary investigation that raises new questions about the human mind and our relationship with computers and machines in a way that contributes to and helps elucidate the human computer interaction (HCI) debate. It chooses transdisciplinarity as the methodology best able to mobilize new ideas and generate a different approach to HCI, one that will develop fresh insights and produce critical ways of thinking about the problems of contemporary life in relation to our interaction with technologies (in the broadest sense of the term). The thesis reconciles the artificial with human nature by using transdisciplinary methods to reduce the friction between human beings and computers. It does this by revisiting early mechanical machines and automatons (from mythology and science), as well as exploring the subject in relation to elements of the performing arts. In the process, the thesis confronts the concepts of ‘artificial’ and ‘natural’ intelligence, and explores various models of mind and intelligence, as well as examining the physicality or materiality of artefacts in terms of their congruence with the paradigm of the ‘embodied mind’. The preliminary studies and literature review carried out for the research revealed that the model of the mind currently proposed by HCI as the basis for theories of how humans interact with computers is unsatisfactory, limited and very problematic, not least because it is a disembodied and representational conception of the human mind. In order to relieve HCI of this problematic issue, the thesis introduces the concept of the ‘embodied mind’, which brings a deeper understanding of how the mind works; its recognition that the human mind, body and the world are interrelated entities gives us a new insight into how we can improve our interactions with machines and computers. To achieve this, the research explores the conceptualization of human characteristics such as intelligence and cognition, and confirms 7 that these concepts are subject to change, manifested in different forms, distributed, situated and contextualized. Intelligence is not interpreted as a literal entity, as it is in cognitive psychology, or as a quality that belongs to or empowers human beings alone, but inspired by the philosophy of artificial intelligence (AI), the thesis argues that it is a manifestation that ‘emerges’ when favourable conditions facilitate interactions between agents and artefacts. Through a focused analysis and interpretation of early automatons, robots, and artificial and mechanical machines, the study explores the concept that technology is both a practice and an imaginative idea, and not just a concrete manifestation of a solution to human problems. It perceives automatons, especially ‘fraudulent’ automatons, as true archaeological discoveries, evidence of the fact that our human ambitions and ideas are not limited by the technological expressions of different eras; they represent a special repository of the desire to capitalize on and make such ideas manifest even when the technology for their materialization is not yet available. The thesis also brings ventriloquism and puppetry into the discussion, as both objects and performative practices, in order to highlight the human relationship with the material environment, as well as related aspects of human and non-human agency. This indicates that cybernetics could prove a useful framework for an understanding of elements of the relationship between the human and the artificial. The thesis therefore tackles the problems and limitations imposed by cognitive science, computer science and psychology, currently the main disciplines concerned with improving human relationships with computers and machines, but more specifically, it offers a more historically and philosophically informed contribution to the study of HCI.

While self-determination researchers emphasize the importance of pursuing internally motivated goals for self-regulation, cybernetic theorists instead highlight the structural features of goal systems and the manner in which such structural features should facilitate controlled behavior in daily life. However, it was our intuition that a consideration of both these literatures might best explain self-regulatory processes in daily life. Along these lines, we conducted two studies in which we measured the degree to which a person's goals are organized in hierarchical manner with respect to their intrinsic versus extrinsic properties. In Study 1, we found that individuals with hierarchical goal structures were less likely to experience increased motivation to quit following frustrating events. Consistent with this pattern, in Study 2 we found that negative feedback concerning goal progress adversely affected only those without hierarchical goal structures. Implications of these findings for perspectives on self-regulation are discussed, as well as potential new directions for testing cybernetic concepts within human functioning.

The term ‘consumption experience’ has become ubiquitous in marketing and consumer research circles. In this thesis I question the appropriateness of this canonical term. In its stead I employ the non-dualistic term ‘experiaction’, coined by an ecological psychologist, which points to the functional inseparability of experiencing and actions. I adopt a field-theoretical, phenomenologically-informed, perspective, whilst participating in, analysing, and writing about ten video-recorded research conversations. Likewise I address the various spin-off texts deriving from the initial conversations, such as transcripts and viewing-logs. I show that ‘field’-embedded individuals notice and act on many aspects of their immediate micro-environments, including their own intra-personal goings-on and expressive outputs. Through data analysis I identify five categories of regulable variables that an individual can act on as s/he seeks to regulate his/her sensing, relative to his/her reference value(s). Seen through this cybernetic lens, momentary human being comprises of a cyclical, ongoing process of self-regulation, in which individuals expediently employ and/or modify accessible resources and goings-on, in the service of seeking to actualise their currently-preferred, or expected, states-of-being, and to minimise unwelcome deviations therefrom. This thesis challenges the prevalent notion that when people consume particular products/services these offerings sponsor offering-dedicated experiences - what some people describe as ‘consumption experiences’. The concept of experiaction, in contrast, comprises of an ongoing interaction between a person and his/her micro-environment, in which the individual attends to, and acts on, whichever aspect(s) of his/her 360°-‘inner’-‘outer’-‘field’ become(s) momentarily salient to him/her, within the parameters imposed by his/her currently-sustained reference value(s).

This study applied a theory of marriage and family therapy, specifically cybernetics, to the relationship between the US and Iraqi governments. This study also attempts to describe recent changes in Iraq incurred during the ongoing war in Iraq as either first- or second-order change. Taken from 2001 to 2005, 76 print media articles describing the war in Iraq from three major US news sources were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Four prominent themes: Military Operation, Costs, Perceptions, and Transition, were identified and described in cybernetic terms such as recursive processes, circular causality, and punctuation. Results suggested that international relationships can be described cybernetically, and that many recursive processes were evident in the war in Iraq. Results also show that determining first- or second-order change is very difficult in large system analyses. Implications for this research are presented and discussed. / Ph. D.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen the creation of new forms of subjectivities that represent the integration of digital and information technologies into construction of the self and bodies. I argue that to this point there has not been a satisfactory theoretical framework for the experience of bodies in virtual environments that does not default to problematic binaries of physical and virtual, real and unreal, and meaningful and meaningless. These dualistic constructions render experiences of bodies within virtual settings meaningless. In order to examine how this power differential between physical and virtual came to be, I engage with Katherine Hayles' evaluation of information as a disembodied entity. I argue that Hayles' humanist principles prevents her from fully understanding the experience of bodies within virtual spaces as meaningful and important. I then deconstruct the materialist basis of representation in order to demonstrate how information can be reconceived as an embodied force. I further analyze digital media art installations, specifically dance performances, to examine how digital bodies are currently experienced in relationship to corporeal forms. I finally offer two new theories of <reality> and the networked body in order to dismantle the binary between physical and virtual and to make a space for all embodied experiences to be valued. / Master of Arts