Understanding Cybernetics
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Level: Undergraduate, Graduate
Division: The New School for Public Engagement
School: School of Media Studies
Department: Media Studies
Course Number: NMDS 5212
Course Format: Lecture
Location: Online
Permission Required: No
Description:
Cybernetics is considered by many as the biggest breakthrough we've had in communications theory in the last 2,000 years. Mainstream culture is now trying to absorb cybernetics through electronic media such as the Internet. Cybernetics, or systems theory, was spawned during the Macy Conferences that followed World War II. To understand cybernetics, we will structure this course as a dialogue with a principal member of the Macy Conferences, anthropologist, Gregory Bateson. Subsequent to the Macy Conferences, Bateson engaged the facts of life and behavior from a cybernetic or systems theory vantage. He studied family dynamics, articulated the double bind theory of schizophrenia, offered an explanation of why Alcoholics Anonymous was successful, elaborated a theory of play and fantasy, initiated a systemic approach to learning theory, analyzed dolphin communication, criticized evolutionary theory and engaged the ecological crisis. Bateson was distrustful of conscious purpose that disregarded the circuitry of mind. As a corrective to conscious purpose, he looked to aesthetics and to the sacred, even though he was an atheist. William Blake was his favorite artist. Often his lucid essays include epigrammatic statements of key ideas. For example: Information is a difference that makes a difference. Validity is a function of belief. Communication is the creation of a redundancy pattern. Students will use cybernetics to address common topics and to explore specific interests of their own. The prime objective of this course is not to learn about cybernetics, but to learn to think cybernetically by engaging Bateson.
Restrictions:College
Open to New School Public Engagement students.
Level
Open to Graduate students.
Major
Open to Documentary Media Studies students.
Open to Environmental Studies students.
Open to Global Studies students.
Open to International Affairs students.
Open to Liberal Arts students.
Open to Media Studies students.
Open to Media Management students.
Open to Media Management students.
