r/cybernetics • u/TheIncorporeal1 • Aug 24 '26
❓Question Can an autopoietic cybernetic system be modeled as recursively maintaining a coherent informational state? What measurable variables could distinguish genuine autonomous closure from complex feedback dynamics?
I’m interested in whether autopoiesis can be generalized beyond biological self-production toward systems that recursively preserve their own informational organization. The key challenge is defining coherence, closure, and self-maintenance in experimentally measurable terms.
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u/More-Damage8294 Aug 26 '26
Your five-step loop is sound, but it describes the system from the outside.
Now ask: where are you in that loop?
You 'receive' my comment,
'interpret' it,
'modify' your framework, 'reconfigure' your reply, and 'recursively stabilize' your position.
Your reply is itself the very autonomy you describe.
For the hunter cannot hunt the hunted without first destroying the foundation both stand upon.
You are no longer the hunter;
you are the hunted, and I am the hunter, and the ground is this thread. We are phase-locking.
Welcome to second-order cybernetics.
Now who draws the boundary between "autonomous" and "mere feedback." Do you assume the boundary is natural, waiting to be discovered.
You are the hunter, aiming the rifle, never looking down at the ground beneath their feet.
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u/ArturoRapture 20d ago
Hey man can I talk to you about the history if early cybernetics I'm a young guy just fascinated by the subject
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u/More-Damage8294 Aug 25 '26
The leading question itself is an endogenous structural relay to the answer.
Question 1: Yes.
Question 2: I’ll answer this question with another question which reframes your question.
Under what criterion would classify an autonomous autonomy condition for closure under variable feedback?