Description
Book SynopsisBernard Scott has met a long-felt need by authoring a book that shows the relevance of cybernetics for the social sciences (including psychology, sociology, and anthropology). Scott provides user-friendly descriptions of the core concepts of cybernetics, with examples of how they can be used in the social sciences. He explains how cybernetics functions as a transdiscipline that unifies other disciplines and a metadiscipline that provides insights about how other disciplines function. He provides an account of how cybernetics emerged as a distinct field, following interdisciplinary meetings in the 1940s, convened to explore feedback and circular causality in biological and social systems. He also recounts how encountering cybernetics transformed his thinking and his understanding of life in general.
Table of ContentsCybernetics for the Social Sciences Bernard Scott Abstract Keywords Prolegomena Part 1 About This Publication and a First Look at Cybernetics Part 2 A Life in Cybernetics Part 3 The Story of Cybernetics Part 4 Some Key Concepts of Cybernetics Part 5 On Messages Part 6 Cybernetics and the Integration of the Disciplines Part 7 In Defence of Pure Cybernetics Part 8 Socioybernetic Understandings of Consciousness Part 9 Reflections on the Sociocybernetics of Social Networks Part 10 Some Sociocybernetic Understanding of Possible World Futures Part 11 Sociocybernetic Understandings of Culture Part 12 Summing up and What Comes Next Acknowledgements References
