The Leo Apostel Center

in collaboration with the Doctoral Programme of the VUB invites everyone
to the 34th of its interdisciplinary seminars in the Foundations series.
In this series CLEA invites scholars that are actively engaged in the
research on the foundations of a particular discipline. Their lectures
will always be directed to an interdisciplinary audience, and the
discussions aim at confronting the foundations of the different
disciplines.


         C Y B E R N E T I C S   A S   F U N D A M E N T A L
         ***************************************************


               by Prof. Dr. Ranulph Glanville
              *******************************
        (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - Australia)



Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 5 p.m. in room G 021 (building G, esplanade)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Campus Oefenplein


About the lecture
-----------------

The cybernetics I will discuss in this presentation has developed far
from Wiener's original notions of "Communication and control in man and
machine", and is only remotely related to the popular meanings of the
prefix, "cyber-". In the period 1968-1975, cybernetics re-invented itself
in a radically new form. Addressing such unavoidable questions as "What
happens when the observer is included in the system?", and Juvenal's
ancient "But who will guard the guards?" ("Who will control the
controllers?"), it transferred its insights from a (mechanistic) world
based in engineering to a (contemplative) world based in philosophy. This
cybernetics offers us an overview that is both broad and deep, and which
can include much of how we understand the world we live in and our
experience (including the experience of selfness). It is both second
order and circular. It supports individuality of understanding, yet (in
apparent contrast to Post Modernism) provides structure and limits. In
principle, it can accommodate within its conceptual framework such
difficult concepts as complexity, communication, hierarchy, observation,
individuality, (productive) interaction, ignorance and meaning. It
includes science as a special (limited) case and can provide a radically
constructivist framework that, nevertheless, makes a place for scientific
knowledge as "objective". It can also accommodate and account for
iterative, circular processes such as interaction between people, and
designing. These are bold claims. I will attempt to argue and sustain a
reasonable sample of them-at least in outline-through an examination of
where cybernetics now starts from, and some of the key ideas/insights it
works with.


About the speaker
-----------------

Ranulph Glanville attended the Architectural Association School in
London, where he gained his Diploma in Architecture (possibly the only
one in the world ever awarded for making electronic music). He then took
a PhD in Cybernetics with Gordon Pask which he followed with second PhD
in Human Learning with Laurie Thomas: both at Brunel University. He has
spent his professional life teaching, mainly architecture, but also
design, art, cybernetics, until taking early retirement on April Fool's
Day in 1997. Since then he has been visiting fellow in the School of
Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Technical Dissertation Tutor
at the Bartlett School of University College, London, and Senior Research
Fellow in the Faculty of the Constructed Environment, Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology where he is adjunct Professor. He has written
around 200 papers and is on the editorial board of a number of Journals
and the conference committee of several conferences. He is married to a
Dutch physiotherapist, has a son living in Finland, and lives, when at
home, in the UK.

The presentation with questions will last about an hour. Afterwards, an
hour or more is reserved for an in-depth, group discussion of the topic.

More info at the CLEA office: phone 02-644 26 77 or via the Web-page:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Director of the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA)

Editor-in-Chief of Foundations of Science (FOS)

Brussels Free University, Krijgskundestraat 33
1160 Brussels, Belgium.
tel: +32 2 644 26 77
fax: +32 2 644 07 44
e-mail: diraerts@vub.ac.be

website of CLEA: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/

website of FOS: http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/FOS/