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Cybernetics' core theme of circular causality was developed beyond goal-oriented processes to concerns with reflexivity and recursion. This was especially so in the development of second-order cybernetics (or the cybernetics of cybernetics), developed and promoted by Heinz von Foerster, which focused on questions of observation, cognition ...
The perceptual control theory is deeply rooted in biological cybernetics, systems biology and control theory and the related concept of feedback loops. Unlike some models in behavioral and cognitive psychology it sets out from the concept of circular causality.
Bateson suggested the influence of a circular system of causation, and proposed that women watched: for the spectacular performances of the men, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the presence of an audience is a very important factor in shaping the men's behavior.
McCulloch was the chair to the ten Macy conferences (1946--1953) on "Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems". This was a key event in the beginning of cybernetics, and what later became known as cognitive science. Pitts also attended the conferences. [15]
circular causal loops rather than linear causality, self-organization, observation as part of or directly related to systems, and; reflexivity or interaction between a system and what is known about it. Holistic Symmetry in Modern Science, webtext by Gary Witherspoon, 3 April 2007.
Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole.
According to George Richardson's book "Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory", [2] the first published, formal use of a causal loop diagram to describe a feedback system was Magoroh Maruyama's 1963 article "The Second Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes".
Systems expressed by circles of causality have therefore similar structure. Identifying a system archetype and finding the leverage enables efficient changes in a system. The basic system archetypes and possible solutions of the problems are mentioned in the Examples section. [1] A fundamental property of nature is that no cause can affect the ...