Pub Date : 2018-12-26DOI: 10.26754/OJS_JOS/JOS.201823286
P. Altmann, R. Peters
If not even earlier, then at the latest when Oxford Dictionaries selected ‘post-truth’ as Word of the Year 2016, did the global public become aware that ‘truth’ is not an uncontested and finite concept but a social construct. Are we, then, standing on the threshold of a new ‘post-truth age’ as – for instance – The Independent has claimed? (Norman 2016) Certainly, the Word of the Year 2016 has cast a bright light onto the case that there is not ‘one truth only’ but that there are facts that can be interpreted – or rejected – in different ways. This means that truth is ‘produced’, but is it produced as scientific or religious truth or as political truth? Just think of `fake news´ and its strategic use in influencing elections, as in the case of the latest presidential elections in the US or Brazil, or the leave campaign in the case of the Brexit referendum. Thus, the production of truth is undertaken by society, at least on the level of concrete actions. This situation becomes more complicated if we consider modern complex society. The increasing globalization of economies and societies has made the world more complex than it has ever before been.
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Pub Date : 2018-12-26DOI: 10.26754/OJS_JOS/JOS.201822645
P. Altmann
Truth is always a reduction of complexity. The various aspects of an observed phenomena are reduced to only those that relate to how truth is defined by the observer. In this sense, social sciences create society by applying theories that define what is truth to it. This logic becomes a problem when the social sciences in question do not reflect a wide range of different theories that can complement and criticize each other, providing a more complex observation and, thus, a more complex truth. This is the case with some social sciences of the Global South, especially, in early stages of their institutional and organizational development. However, decisions made in early stages of a system can only be changed with considerable effort later on. There tends to be an effect of path dependency, especially in organizations engaged in social sciences in the Global South. This article will explore the mechanisms of production of truth and thus of reduction of complexity by Marxist critical sociology in Ecuador, between the 1960s and 2010. A focus will be the institutionalization of these mechanisms in organizations and the augmentation of complexity within critical sociology, usually connected to certain ideas of politics and sciences.
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Pub Date : 2018-07-17DOI: 10.26754/ojs_jos/jos.202013051
K. Sidorova
The paper presents an applied research project that looks into whether the Yucatec Maya language can become an identity factor for the urban youth of Maya descent inhabitants of a marginal urban area in southeastern Mexico, against the entropic tendency towards the Yucatec Maya language loss in the urban environment. Our starting point is Maturana’s idea that through languaging and emotioning human worlds are built and maintained; our lives are intertwined in interactional networks, therefore we only exist as human beings through conversations we hold with other human beings. We go on to explore the types of connection to the Maya culture and language in the case of the young men and women who took part in a workshop “My life and the Maya culture: roots and relations”, and how this connection is constructed through languaging and emotioning whithin their families, personal networks, and the workshop itself. The conversations –that emerge through languaging and emotioning– are seen as potential triggers of changes in representations and attitudes towards the minorized language and culture. We also maintain that for the changes to be sustainable, the rest of the local society, viewed as a cultural multiverse (Krotz, 2004), is to recognize Maya speakers as legitimate others (Maturana & Nisis, 2014), so that the non-Maya groups are also to engage to ensure the structural coupling between the diverse parts that conform the multiverse. Our role as researchers, then, is not that of external observers; we assume our part in the cultural multiverse as participants in its construction who by languaging, emotioning, and subsequent acting, seek to contribute to a broader acceptance and respect towards the minorized language and its speakers.
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Pub Date : 2018-07-13DOI: 10.26754/OJS_JOS/JOS.201812138
B. Scott
The aim of this paper is to show how sociocybernetics can usefully combine biological, psychological and sociological concepts to provide conceptual clarification and insightful understandings of human consciousness. Following a brief discussion and critique of how the term “consciousness” is used in contemporary cognitive science, awareness and consciousness are characterised in cybernetic terms as the dynamics of self-organising, autopoietic systems and their interactions. Sociocybernetic models of conscious systems are presented and discussed. It is argued that in order to characterise human consciousness it is necessary to make a distinction between bio-mechanical systemic unities and psychosocial systemic unities. Reflexively, this gives rise to a second-order cybernetics in which the observer explains herself to herself. Finally, there is a discussion of how sociocybernetic understandings of consciousness can give guidance for how to create and sustain communities in which good will prevails.
{"title":"Sociocybernetic understandings of consciousness","authors":"B. Scott","doi":"10.26754/OJS_JOS/JOS.201812138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26754/OJS_JOS/JOS.201812138","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this paper is to show how sociocybernetics can usefully combine biological, psychological and sociological concepts to provide conceptual clarification and insightful understandings of human consciousness. Following a brief discussion and critique of how the term “consciousness” is used in contemporary cognitive science, awareness and consciousness are characterised in cybernetic terms as the dynamics of self-organising, autopoietic systems and their interactions. Sociocybernetic models of conscious systems are presented and discussed. It is argued that in order to characterise human consciousness it is necessary to make a distinction between bio-mechanical systemic unities and psychosocial systemic unities. Reflexively, this gives rise to a second-order cybernetics in which the observer explains herself to herself. Finally, there is a discussion of how sociocybernetic understandings of consciousness can give guidance for how to create and sustain communities in which good will prevails. ","PeriodicalId":130009,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sociocybernetics","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129790982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-07-13DOI: 10.26754/ojs_jos/jos.201811476
B. Scott
In this paper, I discuss the concept of a ‘message’ as applied to the different forms of communication: between man and machine, between machine and machine and between man and man. The term ‘message’ can refer to a relatively simple cause and effect interaction. An example is the transmission of a mechanical signal that, when decoded by a receiving system, triggers a standard response. It can also refer to the much more subtle and complex case where recipients construct meanings on the basis of the messages they receive. I contend that it is only in this latter case that we can properly refer to the interaction as a ‘conversation’. In the paper I present cybernetic models of these two usages. I relate the abstract discussion to current developments concerned with man-machine interaction and the development of a ‘global brain’.
{"title":"On Messages","authors":"B. Scott","doi":"10.26754/ojs_jos/jos.201811476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_jos/jos.201811476","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I discuss the concept of a ‘message’ as applied to the different forms of communication: between man and machine, between machine and machine and between man and man. The term ‘message’ can refer to a relatively simple cause and effect interaction. An example is the transmission of a mechanical signal that, when decoded by a receiving system, triggers a standard response. It can also refer to the much more subtle and complex case where recipients construct meanings on the basis of the messages they receive. I contend that it is only in this latter case that we can properly refer to the interaction as a ‘conversation’. In the paper I present cybernetic models of these two usages. I relate the abstract discussion to current developments concerned with man-machine interaction and the development of a ‘global brain’.","PeriodicalId":130009,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Sociocybernetics","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114066010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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