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back to the adaptive brain, and, again, to nonhuman systems that do not have
the option of the cognitive detour). If there are examples of Beer's exceedingly
complex systems to be found in the world, then a nonmodern approach that
recognizes this (rather than, or as well as, a modern one that denies it) might
be valuable. It is not easy, of course, to say where the dividing line between
aspects of the world that are “exceedingly complex” rather than just very com-
plicated is to be drawn. Modern science implicitly assumes that everything
in the world will eventually be assimilated to its representational schema,
but the time horizon is infinite. Here and now, therefore, a cybernetic stance
might be appropriate in many instances. This is where the intellectual gym-
nastics get serious, and where the history of cybernetics might be needed
most as an aid to the imagination.
5. I may as well note that my interest in cybernetics stems originally from
a conviction that there is indeed something
right
about its ontology, especially
the ontology of unknowability just mentioned. As I said earlier, I arrived at
something very like it through my empirical studies in the history of modern
science, though the substance of scientific knowledge speaks to us of a dif-
ferent ontology. I lacked the vocabulary, but I might have described modern
science as a complex adaptive system, performatively coming to terms with an
always-surprising world. At the time, I thought of this as a purely theoretical
conclusion. When pressed about its practical implications, I could not find
much to say: modern science seems to get on pretty well, even as it obscures
(to my way of thinking) its own ontological condition.
7
The history of cyber-
netics, however, has helped me to see that theory, even at the level of ontology,
can return to earth. Cybernetic projects point to the possibility of novel and
distinctive constructive work that takes seriously a nonmodern ontology in
all sorts of fields. They show, from my perspective, where the mangle might
take us. And one further remark is worth making. Theory is not enough. One
cannot
deduce
the homeostat, or Laing's psychiatry, or Pask's Musicolour ma-
chine from the cybernetic ontology or the mangle. The specific projects are
not somehow already present in the ontological vision. In each instance cre-
ative work is needed; something has to be
added
to the ontological vision to
specify it and pin it down. That is why we need to be interested in particular
manifestations of cybernetics as well as ontological imaginings. That is how,
from my point of view, cybernetics carries us beyond the mangle.
8
Now for the nuances. First, knowledge. The discussion thus far has empha-
sized the performative aspect of cybernetics, but it is important to recognize
