Responsibilities of Competence

Should you care to look closer, you may discover that Theorem 2 could serve as a corollary to Theorem 1. This will become obvious when we contemplate for a moment the method of inquiry employed by the hard sciences. If a system is too complex to be understood it is broken up into smaller pieces. If they, in turn, are still too complex, they are broken up into even smaller pieces, and so on, until the pieces are so small that at least one piece can be understood. The delightful feature of this process, the method of reduction, “reductionism”, is that it inevitably leads to success. Unfortunately, the soft sciences are not blessed with such favorable conditions. Consider, for instance, the sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, linguist, etc., if they would reduce the complexity of the system of their interest, i.e., society, psyche, culture, language, etc., by breaking it up into smaller parts for further inspection they would soon no longer be able to claim that they are dealing with the original system of their choice. This is so, because these scientists are dealing with essentially nonlinear systems whose salient features are represented by the interactions between whatever one may call their “parts” — whose properties in isolation add little, if anything, to the understanding of the workings of these systems when each is taken as a whole. Consequently, if he wishes to remain in the field of his choice, the scientist who works in the soft sciences is faced with a formidable problem: he cannot afford to loose sight of the full complexity of his system, on the other hand it becomes more and more urgent that his problems be solved. This is not just to please him. But now it has become quite clear that his problems concern us all. “Corruption of our society”, “psychological disturbances”, “cultural erosion”, the “breakdown of communication”, and all the other of these “crises” of today are our problems as well as his. How can we contribute to their solution? My suggestion is that we apply the competences gained in the hard sciences — and not the method of reduction — to the solution of the hard problems in the soft sciences. I hasten to add that this suggestion is not new at all. In fact, I submit that it is precisely Cybernetics that interfaces hard competence with the hard problems of the soft sciences. Those of us who witnessed the early development of cybernetics may well remember that before Norbert Wiener created that name for our science it was referred to as the study of “Circular-Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems”, a description it carried even years after he wrote his famous book. Of course, in his definition of Cybernetics as the science of “communication and control in the animal and the machine” Norbert Wiener went one step further in the generalization of these concepts, and today “Cybernetics” has ultimately come to stand for the science of regulation in the most general sense. Since our science embraces indeed this genera! and all-pervasive potion, why then, unlike most of our sister sciences, do we not have a patron saint or a deity to bestow favors on us in our search for new insights, and who protects our society from evils from without as well as from within? Astronomers and physicists are looked after by Urania; Demeter patronizes agriculture; and various Muses help the various arts and sciences. But who helps Cybernetics? One night when I was pondering this cosmic question I suddenly had an apparition. Alas, it was not one of the charming goddesses who bless the other arts and sciences. Clearly, that funny little creature sitting on my desk must be a demon. After a while he started to talk. I was right. “I am Maxwell’s Demon”, he said. And then he disappeared.