The seeds of Neo-Cybernetics were sown in the rich soil of classical Cybernetics, a discipline that rose to prominence in the mid-20th century.
Cybernetics was a multidisciplinary field that was conceived during the Macy Conferences, a series of meetings of scholars from various academic disciplines held in New York between 1941 and 1960.
The main objective of the Macy Conferences was to promote meaningful communication across scientific disciplines, and restore unity to science.
The conferences attracted luminaries from diverse backgrounds.
Figures such as Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, John von Neumann, Margaret Mead, and Arturo Rosenblueth among others, converged, each bringing their own unique insights and expertise.
Together, they engaged in groundbreaking dialogues and explorations that sought to unify their fragmented thoughts and forge a cohesive understanding of systems and their interactions.
It was Wiener himself who took on the monumental task of formalizing the discipline. Channeling the collective wisdom of these pioneers, he produced a seminal book that served as the cornerstone of classical cybernetics, encapsulating its theories, methodologies, and aspirations. The interdisciplinary field that emerged from the Macy Conferences and Wiener's work is known today as first order cybernetics.
Rooted in the desire to understand and navigate control and communication in animals, machines, and organizations, First Order Cybernetics brought forth a novel way to perceive the world through the lens of systems, feedback loops, and dynamic interactions, adopting a mechanistic, behaviorist view of systems and humans, seeking to mathematically model and control processes.
Second order cybernetics arose in the 1970s-80s as a response to the militaristic and reductive tendencies that led to the decline of the first order. With thinkers like Von Foerster and Maturana critiquing earlier approaches, second order cybernetics focused more on recursion, circularity, and the role of the observer in influencing systems. It adopted biological and ecological perspectives, exploring the reflexive, autopoietic nature of living systems, also expanding into the realm of organizational systems with Stafford Beer's work on the Viable System Model.
Third order cybernetics (also called third wave of cybernetics) emerged in the 1980s-90s looking at virtual systems, digital networks, and emergent behaviors. Thinkers like Hans Moravec and Rodney Brooks started exploring explored robotics and the nature of artificial life.
Digitization, interactivity, and the rise of the internet opened new creative possibilities for generating and manipulating information flows, linking to new media art's interest in digitization, the internet, open source, and generative processes.
In the decades following its birth, cybernetics was celebrated as a transformative lens through which one could decode the intricacies of systems, both organic and mechanical.
It promised a unified language and methodology that bridged seemingly disparate disciplines, by taking a holistic approach to understanding the complex feedback loops and interactions within systems, whether they be biological, ecological, mechanical, or social.
However, as the 20th century wore on, the cybernetics star began to dim.
The very interdisciplinary nature that was its strength became a perceived weakness.
Many academic circles viewed it with skepticism, relegating it to the fringes as newer, more specialized fields began to dominate the spotlight.
The rise of powerful, domain-specific methodologies in areas such as Computer Science, Cognitive Psychology, and Molecular Biology overshadowed the holistic appeal of cybernetics.
Over time, its once-revolutionary concepts became assimilated and fragmented across these specialized domains, leading to a dilution of its distinct identity.
For instance, the emergence of terms like and "cybersecurity" in popular culture, while carrying traces of the original concept, often lacked the depth and holistic understanding that cybernetics advocated for as a global research movement.
Similarly, terms like "cyberpunk" in literature and "cyberspace" in technology, diluted the prefix "cyber" from its original significance, progressively pushing cybernetics into the realm of science fiction.
The true essence of cybernetics, once a beacon of interdisciplinary innovation, risked being overshadowed by its own fragmented legacy.
By the close of the century, what was once heralded as the future paradigm of science found itself pushed into fictional worlds, awaiting a renaissance that could resurrect its core essence into the real world and adapt it to the demands of a new era.
As cybernetics moved into the background at the end of the 20th century, its ideas did not disappear, but they were absorbed into computer science, cognitive science, ecology, and other specialized fields. What was lost, however, was the shared language and integrative vision that once brought disciplines together.
Neo-cybernetics places itself within the third wave of cybernetics, drawing on the lessons of both first and second order traditionls while responding to the realities of the 21st century. Digital networks, climate change, political instability, and global crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic highlight the need for approaches that connect across boundaries rather than fragment them.
In this sense, neo-cybernetics is not a new invention but a continbuation: a way of revising cybernetics' original promise of interdisciplinary dialogue, updated for today's conditions. It looks to ecology, design, technology, and futures studies to carry the original spirit forward, helping us understand and guide the complex systems we now live within.
Neo-cybernetics is being developed by independent researchers and practitioners who share an interest in reviving the spirit of cybernetics, and exploring practical applications of systems thinking.
The aim is to reconnect useful ideas from past waves of cybernetics with current challenges.
Through conversations with professionals, communities, and organisations, neo-cybernetics explores how systems thinking can support more adaptive and responsible responses to today’s problems.
It encourages a thoughtful use of technology that keeps human and ecological concerns at the centre.