ANNOTATION:
re cybernetic principles/primitives

I strongly recommend that you include the concept of 'structure' 
as one of you primitives.  By structure I mean 'spatio-temporal
differentiation', if you want to get even more 'primitive'.  All
features of our experience of the world and of information involve
 structure as described.
A second primitive that I think is essential to cybernetics is
the concept of 'mapping', as in the mapping of one structure onto
another.  Such mapping is a fundemental feature of nature as we
experience it, and includes everything from meteor craters, to 
fossils, all the way up to human nervous systems mapping the 
structure of their environments, and using those neuro-maps 
as information/instructions/programming to direct their reactions 
to subsequent environmental stimuli.

A third essential ingredient, which I am struggling to define 
(I think due simply to my own ignorance of engineering concepts 
and terminologies), and perhaps someone on your end can assist me, 
has to do with 'control circuits'.  i.e. a 'device' (or 'structure' 
or 'agent' or 'processor') which recieves an input of a certain 
structure, whether 'information' or 'raw materials' or 'electrical 
signals' or whatever, and converts it into an output of a different 
structure which may in turn be used as input by yet another such
'processor'.  Such a series of processors may comprise a 
self-sustaining 'circuit', which in turn constitutes a 'processor' 
(or 'super-processor'?)within its own environment.  I need a 
terminology and concept for this generic 'processor'in its most
elementary or abstract form.
Comments please.
Thanks a lot,
Christopher L. Turner 8/15/00 RIGHTSBOY [at] AOL.COM

REPLY: Dealing with the INHERENT IMPLICATE

Greetings CYBSPRIN.0: 
I'm uncertain as to whom your message was intended, however I am involved in an area of research that deals directly in metacognitive primatives which is epistemologically 'driven'. The concept of COMPLEMENTARY DIALECTICS is of key importance here: one such "level one" pairing is that of PROCESS-STRUCTURE that are pivotal system concepts (ubiquitous in nature). This pairing and two others held in juxtaposition, create what is refered to as a focal unity... ostensibly an octahedral matrix involved in METACOGNITION and the study of HRD's or human reconnoitering dialogues. My group is The Tensegrity Group and you and others are welcomed to send along quieries, points of interest,etc to my email.
Always interested in human dialogue in the search for truth, knowledge, an meaning...
Sincerely,
Timothy