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<p style="font-size: 48px;">The Fabulous Loop de Loop</p>
<div class="container">
<p style="font-size: 24px; margin-top: -32px;">The cybernetic discourse as read through seven feedback machines</p>
<p style="font-size: 24px; margin-top: -18px;">A project by Steve Rushton</p>


<hr>
<div class="container-box">
'''SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION (NOT YET PUBLIC)'''
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[PREFACE]]<br>
[[File:PT_silhouette.png|300px|link=PREFACE]]
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==Contents==
<div class="container-box">
[[Chapter Outline]]
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[THE GOVERNOR]]
<p class="loglines"><b>The 1800s–</b><em>The Governor</em> in a steam engine carries news of change through the system and adapts to that change (feedback).
Some people think that the adaptability and flexibility of the governor follows the same principle of adaptability and flexibility that we see in the natural world.</p>
[[File:GV_silhouette.png|200px|link=THE_GOVERNOR]]</p>
</div>
</div>


[[Introduction: The Foundations of Cybernetic Discourse]]
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<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[M. SPECULARIX (The Cybernetic Tortoise)|M. SPECULARIX<br>(The Cybernetic Tortoise)]]
<p class="loglines"><b>The late 1940s–</b><em>The Cybernetic Tortoise</em> moves about, responding to light and touch. Does its movement demonstrate behaviour? Does its behaviour demonstrate thought?</p>
<br>
[[File:CT_silhouette.png|150px|link=M._SPECULARIX_(The_Cybernetic_Tortoise)]]</p>
</div>
</div>


===THE GOVERNOR===
<div class="container-box">
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[THE PORTAPAK: SONY VIDEOROVER DV-2400 (1967)|THE PORTAPAK:<br>SONY VIDEOROVER DV-2400 (1967)]]
<p class="loglines"><b>The late 1960s-early 1970s–</b><em>The Sony Portapak</em> was a video system used to develop community media.
Does the interaction between humans and machines represent an ecology?</p>
[[File:PP_silhouette.png|250px|link=THE_PORTAPAK:_SONY_VIDEOROVER_DV-2400_(1967)]]</p>
</div>
</div>


[[Samuel Butler – The Vapour Engine]]                                                         
<div class="container-title">
<div class="title">The Fabulous Loop de Loop</div>
<div class="title">(Floop)</div>
<div class="subtitle"><em>A cybernetic discourse as read through seven feedback machines</em></div>
<div class="byline">A project in progress by Steve Rushton</div>
</div>


[[Samuel Butler – Vibrations]]
<div class="container-box">
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[SEER (SEquence Extrapolating Robot)|SEER<br>(SEquence Extrapolating Robot)]]
<p class="loglines"><b>The early 1950s–</b><em>The SEER (SEquence Extrapolating Robot)</em> plays a simple guessing game with humans.
Is SEER one of the first “thinking machines”?</p>
<br>
[[File:Mind-reading_machine_silhouette.png|150px|link=SEER_(SEquence_Extrapolating_Robot)]]</p>
</div>
</div>


[[Edward Craik – A (Proto) Cybernetic Explanation]]
<div class="container-box">
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[THE HOMEOSTAT]]
<p class="loglines"><b>The late 1940s–</b><em>The Homeostat</em> explores the degree of self-organization afforded within a complex system.
If you disturb the homeostat, it will adapt and return to a stable state. Does the "mind" of this machine extend into its environment?</p>
[[File:HMST_silhouette.png|250px|link=THE_HOMEOSTAT]]</p>
</div>
</div>


[[Gregory Bateson – From Schizmogenesis to Feedback]]
<div class="container-box">
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[THE ELECTROPSYCOMETER (The E-Meter)|THE ELECTROPSYCOMETER<br>(The E-Meter)]]
<p class="loglines"><b>The early 1950s–</b><em>The E-Meter (Electropsycometer)</em> is used in Scientology auditing sessions.
The E-Meter uses feedback to regulate and monitor the actions and re-actions of the user.</p>
<br>
[[File:EM silhouette.png|200px|link=THE_ELECTROPSYCOMETER_(The_E-Meter)]]</p>
</div>
</div>


[[Gregory Bateson, Warren S. McCulloch & Lawrence Kubie – Three Cyberneticians’ Discourse on Freud’s Dynamic Psychology]]
<div class="container-box">
<div class="right-curve">
<p class="machine">[[THE STRUCTURAL DIFFERENTIAL (The Anthropometre)|THE STRUCTURAL DIFFERENTIAL<br>(The Anthropometre)]]
<p class="loglines"><b>1924–</b><em>The Structural Differential</em> is a “plastic diagram” that helps users understand the difference between an object and the word representing that object.</p>
[[File:SD silhouette.png|100px|link=THE_STRUCTURAL_DIFFERENTIAL_(The_Anthropometre)]]</p>
</div>
</div>


</div>


===M. SPECULARIX (The Cybernetic Tortoise)===
<div class="container-shell">
 
</div>
[[W. Grey Walter – The Body in Pieces]]
 
[[Jacques Lacan – The Tortoise and Homeostasis]]
 
[[Gregory Bateson – Bateson’s Negentropic Discourse Matrix]]
 
 
===SEER (SEquence Extrapolating Robot)===
 
[[Warren S. McCulloch and Jacques Lacan – Play Like an Idiot]]
 
[[Jacques Lacan – Lacan Builds a Circuit: Cybernetics and the Unconscious]]
 
 
===THE STRUCTURAL DIFFERENTIAL (The Anthropometre)===
[[File:SD silhouette.png|100px|frameless]]
 
[[Alfred Korzybski and Gregory Bateson – Why “The Map is NOT the Territory”]]
 
===THE ELECTROPSYCOMETER (The E-Meter)===
 
[[Alfred Korzybski and William Burroughs – Time-Binding and Time-Scrambling]]
 
 
===THE HOMEOSTAT===
 
[[W. Ross Ashby and Gregory Bateson – Steps Towards a (Media) Ecology]]
 
 
===THE PORTAPAK: SONY VIDEOROVER DV-2400 (1967)===
 
[[Radical Software, Guerrilla Television and Gregory Bateson – The Fabulous Loop de Loop]]
 
 
===CONCLUSION===
 
This has been the Fabulous Loop de Loop.
 
So, we end where we began, with Gregory Bateson invoking the wisdom of Samuel Butler. Butler had the foresight to recognise that the adaptability and flexibility of governor on a steam engine followed the same principle as the adaptability of evolution, they were both self-regulating systems which carried news of change through the system and adapted to that change.  It was Butler who intuited that the line between the organism and its environment was arbitrary and that the essentialist notion of the “self” was a self-serving illusion. Butler recognised a wholistic system regulated by “vibrations”– messages of difference sent through the system to allow change and adaptation and ensure constancy.
 
As the loop de loops to the end of the 1960s many of Butler’s intuitions have been confirmed by the cybernetic revolution that proceeded it and knowledge of the fabulous loop de loop had transformed culture (art incorporated self-reflexivity as the grounds of art, ecology and media were structured alike).
 
Bateson, even at the end of his life, was still invoking Butler’s visions, weaving them into the cybernetic innovations of Norbert Wiener and Warren McCulloch (both enthusiastic loop de loopers). He synthesised and recontextualised their thoughts to deliver the message that humans are threatening the very diversity and flexibility that has allowed them to prosper.
 
To survive we must acknowledge that we do not think the way we think we think; we must find our place in the ecology of mind which extends beyond the individual and into the environment and into the organisms and machines that surround us.
 
This escape is possible, but by no means certain and because the loop de loop is a negative feedback loop, we do not end where we started, things have change and adapted along the way. We can acknowledge our place in the ecology of mind (which is the privilege of the loop de loop) or we can carry on regardless. If we do the latter, this might be our last loop de loop…
 
==THE ANNOTATION==
 
(An ongoing annotated bibliography)
 
[[The Annotation]] runs as a parallel text alongside The Fabulous Loop de Loop.
 
 
==THE LICENCE==
 
 
<hr>
[[Mediawiki cheatsheet]]

Latest revision as of 10:49, 31 January 2024

PREFACE

THE GOVERNOR

The 1800s–The Governor in a steam engine carries news of change through the system and adapts to that change (feedback). Some people think that the adaptability and flexibility of the governor follows the same principle of adaptability and flexibility that we see in the natural world.

M. SPECULARIX
(The Cybernetic Tortoise)

The late 1940s–The Cybernetic Tortoise moves about, responding to light and touch. Does its movement demonstrate behaviour? Does its behaviour demonstrate thought?


THE PORTAPAK:
SONY VIDEOROVER DV-2400 (1967)

The late 1960s-early 1970s–The Sony Portapak was a video system used to develop community media. Does the interaction between humans and machines represent an ecology?

The Fabulous Loop de Loop
(Floop)
A cybernetic discourse as read through seven feedback machines
A project in progress by Steve Rushton

SEER
(SEquence Extrapolating Robot)

The early 1950s–The SEER (SEquence Extrapolating Robot) plays a simple guessing game with humans. Is SEER one of the first “thinking machines”?


THE HOMEOSTAT

The late 1940s–The Homeostat explores the degree of self-organization afforded within a complex system. If you disturb the homeostat, it will adapt and return to a stable state. Does the "mind" of this machine extend into its environment?

THE ELECTROPSYCOMETER
(The E-Meter)

The early 1950s–The E-Meter (Electropsycometer) is used in Scientology auditing sessions. The E-Meter uses feedback to regulate and monitor the actions and re-actions of the user.


THE STRUCTURAL DIFFERENTIAL
(The Anthropometre)

1924–The Structural Differential is a “plastic diagram” that helps users understand the difference between an object and the word representing that object.

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