2. Agenda Peeking into our Cybernetic Future –Student Research Proposals Honors Essay Winners Fall 2005 Honors Seminar

3. What is Cybernetics?? Classic definition The science of communication and control in animal and machine –Norbert Wiener, Mathematician Other Definitions an experimental epistemology (the limits to how we know what we know) concerned with the communication within an observer and between the observer and his environment. – Warren McCulloch, Philosopher the science of effective organization. –Gregory Bateson, Anthropologist a science concerned with the study of systems of any nature which are capable of receiving, storing, and processing information so as to use it for control –A.N. Kolmogorov, Mathematician

4. Cybernetics Cybernetics is the study of interactions between living (changing) things and how those interactions bring about order (stasis) through circular causality (feedback) Using observations about the interactions between man and machine to project future developments in –Society –Governments and the Body Politic –Economics –Technology –Education??

5. Nicholas NegroPonte Founder of MIT Media Lab “Being Digital” 1995 –“the next decade will see cases of intellectual property abuse and invasion of our privacy” –“radical transformations of the nature of our job markets, as we work less with atoms and more with bits, will happen just at the same time the 2 billion strong labor force of India and China come on-line” –“As children appropriate a global information resource, and as they discover that only adults need learner’s permits, we are bound to find new hope and dignity in places where very little existed before”

6. Stan Davis Management Consultant Retired Harvard Professor (Social Sciences) “Lessons From the Future” 2001 –“when you connect a lot of dumb things together and let them interact—communicate with each other—then you get a smart system” –“The key to the economy of the future lies in its deep structure. And, whether this structure is rooted in information technology or biotechnology, in optical, quantum, molecular, or DNA computing, in inorganic silicon microprocessors or organic biochips, they are all code based and they all work from the bottom up.”

7. Lawrence Lessig Professor of Law Stanford Law SchoolStanford Law School “The Future of Ideas” 2001 –“ All around us are the consequences of the most significant technological, and hence cultural, revolution in generations. This revolution has produced the most powerful and diverse spur to innovation of any in modern times. Yet a set of ideas about a central aspect of this prosperity– “property”–confuses us. This confusion is leading us to change the environment in ways that will change the prosperity. Believing we know what makes prosperity work, ignoring the nature of the actual prosperity all around, we change the rules within which the Internet revolution lives. These changes will end the revolution.”

8. Other thoughts “Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit - in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.” (Hardin, 1968) In an Information Society, does the Internet represent the Global Information Commons of the future? If so, does an un-controlled Internet represent our ruin?

9. Other thoughts “Whatever gulf separates the rich from the poor, an even greater chasm separates the armed from the unarmed and the ignorant from the educated. Today, in the fast-changing, affluent nations, despite all inequities of income and wealth, the coming struggle for power will increasingly turn into a struggle over the distribution and access to knowledge.” - Alvin Toffler, Powershift, 1990 Will global informations Sharing prevent the upcoming conflict?

10. Other Thoughts Technology now has its own culture, the third culture, the possibility culture, the culture of nerds--a culture that is starting to go global and mainstream simultaneously. The culture of science, so long in the shadow of the culture of art, now has another orientation to contend with, one grown from its own rib. It remains to be seen how the lofty, noble endeavor of science deals with the rogue vernacular of technology, but for the moment, the nerds of the third culture are rising. –Kevin Kelly, Editor Wired Magazine

11. New computer technologies have brought many changes into our lives and these changes have been occurring with greater frequency and commotion. The impact of these new digital technologies resembles a revolution as economies, businesses, social interactions; governments, health care and even warfare are being digitally mutated into new cybernetic forms. Does the future bring digital utopia or dystopia? Do we get to chose or is the digital die already cast?

12. Research Proposals Stephen Dean Joshua Phillips Ray Soucy Cora Williams Sherwin Britton John Cole Torrey