Circularity (cybernetics)

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In cybernetics , circularity describes the result of feedback processes . Circularity describes the central principle of cybernetic thinking or cybernetic processes.

This describes the behavior of a systemic unit in which the effects of its own behavior (outputs) are fed back in order to be able to influence the future behavior of the system directly and immediately. Here circularity forms the basis for self-organizing systems .

history

Originally, the concept of circularity had an exclusively negative emphasis in that it was associated with processes such as vicious circles , circular connections or going in circles . Friedrich Nietzsche was able to think through the concept of circularity consistently as follows:

The eternal return of the same: history is not finalistic, there is no progress and no goal. "Let us think of the thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without meaning or goal, but inevitably recurring, without a finale into nothingness:" the eternal return ". This is the most extreme form of nihilism: nothing (the "meaningless") forever! "

Representatives of cybernetic models and theories contradict such views by postulating a “power of circularity” in thinking and acting. The decisive factor for the development of cybernetics was that "in some minds the knowledge increasingly prevailed" (ibid.) That many biological, social, physiological and also technical problems cannot be adequately explained with the help of a linear causal-analytical thought scheme, since the Do not consider dynamics of "living systems".

Since , according to the currently most widespread scientific paradigm (see system theory ), circular models , in contrast to linear logical models, could continuously take into account the dynamics of processes taking place, circularity quickly gained special importance. Circularity became a catchphrase in cybernetics that emerged around 1945. It is no coincidence that the original title of the Macy Conferences (1946–1953), which pioneered the development of cybernetics, includes circularity as the first term: Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems. Today's systems theory knows circular as well as linear and other systems. In today's scientific approaches, representatives of circular logic are often opposed to linear logic. A basic variant of both positions is taken by representatives of hermeneutics (see also hermeneutic circles ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Francois (2004): International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics . KG Saur Verlag, Munich, Volume 1, p. 88.
  2. ↑ Heinz von Förster: Truth is a liar's invention . Carl Auer Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, p. 106.
  3. ^ American Society for Cybernetics: Theme: Circularity
  4. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Complete Works , Critical Study Edition in 15 Volumes, Nachlass Vol. 12, p. 213; (Ed. Colli / Montinari, 1980)
  5. ↑ a b Martin Kaufmann & Roland Mangold (2009). Circular thinking and acting. proEval, Dornbirn (2006)