Fourth Order Cybernetics

M. C. Escher's pictures illustrate some relevant issues...

See First Order Cybernetics
See Second Order Cybernetics
See Third Order Cybernetics

Can we Define a Fourth Order System?

• Fourth Order Cybernetics considers what happens when a system redefines itself.
• It focuses on the integration of a system within its larger, co-defining context.
• Ultimately, Fourth Order Cybernetics is difficult or, perhaps, impossible to conceive.
• It unavoidably defies certain principles that make sense at the 'lower Orders' .
• Fourth Order Cybernetics acknowledges the complex system's emergent properties.
• Emergence entails a greater complexity that reduces knowability and predictability.
• It also implies that a system will 'immerge' into its environment, of which it is part.
• Immergence means 'submergence' or 'disappearance in, or as if in, a liquid'.

The Distributed Nature of 4th Order Cybernetics

• Who (or what) is capable of seeing a Fourth Order system in its full complexity?
• At the Fourth Order, the discrete observer's boundaries become problematic.
• Who is sufficiently mercurial to notice all relevant changes as, and when they occur?
• A single agent is unable to see enough - its standpoint is too fixed, partial or out of date.
• In First Order Cybernetics the idea of a Network makes sense.
• So could a network be described as an 'observer' of a Fourth Order system?
• Yes, in theory, but we may not be able to learn what it 'knows' in any depth. (see neural networks)
• Consider a musical ensemble, and how it attunes itself to audience responses (e.g. cheering).
• This raises complex issues of consciousness - where, when, and how it emerges.
• We can discuss this by describing how the body manages many levels of knowing.

Fourth Order Systems Integrate the Inner with the Outer

It is difficult to focus on the dark birds at the same time as the light ones

• Some human knowledge is tacit rather than descriptive or declarative.
• Embodied knowledge is an example of knowledge distributed within, and across a network
• It is something we may say we 'know', but it exists at a level that cannot be described.
• Saying that we know how to ride a bicycle is not saying the 'knowing' itself.
• When I am riding, my body uses knowledge that cannot be described in words.
• Nevertheless I may sit quietly and meditate on what it was like to ride a bicycle.
• When I do so my attention focuses inwards and distracts me from events around me.
• Conversely, when in a difficult task (e.g. winning a cycle race) I soon forget the 'inner' me.
• This illustrates that systems appear to have distinct 'inner' and 'outer' realities.

Fourth Order Systems are Holarchic

• How can we view a system as though from the outside and the inside, simultaneously?
• To do this would mean combining two (categorically) opposite descriptions.
• In Fourth Order Systems, anything we notice can also be seen as the system.
• The system can therefore seem to become its own inverse
• This cannot be conceived in terms of classical science
• The ethical system needed to sustain a 4th Order system is likely to be eudaimonic

• Fourth Order Cybernetics can only be understood and described in terms if the inverse of First Order Cybernetics.
• Yet by understanding the underlying principle of system inversion, this makes it possible to describe the Open System.
• The 4th Order system is contextualised, embedded and integrated into the context
• It can thereby become representative for the integrated context.
• It therefore operates at two levels simultaneously.
• It is no longer a system, but a meta-system.
• It operates both as a system in its context, and as a system that is part of the context.
• It thereby has the capacity to integrate and disintegrate the contact between both.
• It is an active, interactive, reactive and ideally representative agent in/for/with/of that context.
• This requires a different level of description: not in relationship to the system, but to the relationship between systems.
• The Interface is now the system of reference, instead of the system.
• This relationship is the basis of the interaction.
• The transformation is the basis of the processing.
• The integration is the basis of integrity.
• The significant feature of the meta-system is its duality.
• The essence is the same, but the relevance brings inversion.
• The metasystem is an object; the meta-system is a subject.
• Whereas a system can normally be described, a meta-system can only be experienced
• The ‘pillars’ in this transition are the relationships (Second Order) and the interactions (Third Order).
• Fourth Order Design would integrate all activities in an inverted, contextualised form
• It would be embedded in its context and responsible in, and for, its actions
• The system would act as meta-system and design would act as meta-design.
• This represents the level of self-awareness.
• It is where the system reflects upon itself and steers itself (i.e. is autopoietic).
• These attributes facilitate self-regeneration, thus self-healing.
• They can therefore be managed to enable a healing process.

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