The theory of control has two main directions of development: applied and theoretical. This article belongs rather to the theoretical direction, although it is based on many years of experience in conducting experiments in designing and managing environments of varying degrees of complexity. At the same time, the term “cybernetics” is used in the article in a sense that differs from the concept of control by having clearer parameters and a tendency toward identifying patterns with mathematical precision.
To begin with, it is necessary to consider cybernetics as a science in its development, thus interpreting the history of cybernetics. Like any science, cybernetics evolves; let us identify three main stages or “orders” of its development. Dates are intentionally omitted, since each order of cybernetics coexists simultaneously and sometimes within the same system or environment.
Classical cybernetics, or first-order cybernetics, is built within the paradigm of classical science and corresponds to the subject–object principle. Within this binary system, direct control is possible, existing only within the limits determined by the subject. The object is a priori perceived as entirely passive rather than active. In essence, the object is a function of the subject; any manifestation of the object as a subject is either suppressed if it interferes with the intended goal or treated neutrally if it does not. The object is always passive—it is, in a sense, dead to the subject. The world is perceived as a pure possibility for the manifestation of the subject’s power. First-order cybernetics turns the object into a mechanical element within a system where only subject and object of control exist.
Second-order cybernetics is built on the subject–subject principle. Expanding the functional study of the object revealed that every object possesses properties of a subject and is capable of manifesting itself as such at a lower level of control, while also acting passively as feedback for the subject. The object is no longer a passive, inert quantity but a living, self-governing whole. At the same time, it becomes possible to select specific tools for managing each object. The object acquires a clear specialization within which it demonstrates autonomy, and using it according to its capabilities yields more effective results. One can thus speak of mutual influence between subject (in classical terms) and object. The subject can control the object only to the extent that the object allows it. Therefore, within feedback, the object acquires qualities of a subject.
Because the subject cannot realize all its potentials due to the limitations of the object, the subject itself acquires reflexive, object-like qualities (constraints). The most optimal method of control is sought for the object, and those potentials that cannot be realized are discarded. A clear example is a child: parents possess full subjectivity but must limit it due to the child’s lack of understanding and capability. At a certain point, the relationship between subject and object transforms into a subject–subject relationship, where authority and subordinate—despite differing status—exist under conditions of limited functionality. Subject–subject management has several forms, which cannot be covered in this article.
When taken to its extreme, this situation leads to the absolutization of relations between subjects, while the subjects themselves gradually lose their qualities and become merely conduits within networked relations. What was once a subject becomes a “node of relations.” A typical example is the functioning of bureaucrats, whose activity is largely devoid of subjectivity and strictly regulated by law.
Thus arises third-order cybernetics, in which relations (essentially the laws describing them) are absolutized, and the key determinant becomes object–object relations. Control is constructed as an environment with embedded parameters (laws or concepts), within which several behavioral scenarios are possible, including certain deviations, but behavior that contradicts the environment is harshly punished. The absolutization of laws governing the system within an organic whole makes it possible to call third-order cybernetics the cybernetics of the environment.
A classic example of environmental control is the market economy, where a wide variety of events may occur, but core values—such as profit—and the laws of capitalist economics remain unchanged. For an environment to exist, a clear constant is necessary—a core around which everything is structured. In capitalism, this core becomes the simple value of profit, which may be interpreted differently, though its ethical and rational meaning remains constant. Another example is sport: whether you win or lose is secondary—the rules are set by the source of authority, and you merely follow them with varying degrees of success. This source is a personified authority or something possessing the will and capacity to establish laws—not merely within a legal system, but at the level of establishing the very principles of existence.
In both first- and second-order cybernetics, rules also exist, though they are not as absolutized, and both subject and object retain more freedom than in third-order cybernetics. In first-order cybernetics, the subject explicitly sets the rules; in second-order, rules are established mutually; in third-order, rules exist above subject–object relations—they are metasubjective, as they apply even to those who establish them. The source of power itself is subject to the rules it creates.
Experiments with environments have shown that the laws governing an environment become the same for both subject and object, and within mutual influence and the resulting relations, it becomes impossible to distinguish between them. Subject and object are, in fact, conditional roles; once the performance ends, the theater closes and the actors remove their makeup. In this sense, the existence of subject and object is questionable from the outset. This question leads both to epistemology and to simulation theory. The science we construct is always a reflection of our internal structure.
If the environment is soft in nature—especially if it is self-learning—the subject as a class may cease to exist. Here it is appropriate to recall Shchedrovitsky and his principle of subjectlessness. To some extent, one can agree with Lepsky, who considers this a dead-end branch of cybernetics. If third-order cybernetics is associated with liberalism (which uses it as a model), then subjectlessness leads not only to the degradation of the environment in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, but also negatively affects the entity that established the environmental parameters. We observe a “revolt of elites” instead of the “revolt of the masses” described by Baudrillard—namely, the degradation of elites, which become nearly indistinguishable from the masses.
Subjectlessness is present to a limited extent at the primary level of the environment, where objects exist; however, given their lack of subjectivity, their very being becomes questionable. Being presupposes at least action or self-awareness, which objects largely lack. They are permeated by a managerial structure—a rhizome, a network—that eliminates not only subjectivity but, to a large extent, objectivity as well. The subject, however, retains a form of being, albeit not in the traditional sense. The environment, as a whole, becomes an instrument that envelops existence, analogous to a nervous system. It perceives being and exists within certain parameter-states. The more complex the environment, the more refined its parameters, suggesting a kind of created (contingent) nature of its being.
Fourth-order cybernetics. Speaking of environments, it must be said that the environment is such a system-forming concept that it can be elevated to an ontological category. Unlike materialism, where necessity defines existence, and idealism, where causality does, third-order cybernetics operates on a nomological principle. Fourth-order cybernetics may instead be based on a form of entelechy understood in a Christian sense, where goal and result coexist outside movement and time, and subject and object are identical, with all potentials already realized. Instrumentally, fourth-order cybernetics represents a super-stable environment beyond a progressive view of history—effectively the true “end of history.”
The environmental nature of control is predetermined by the fact that both subject and object are themselves environmental phenomena—more precisely, states of phenomena. The discreteness of the world implies the absence of fully closed and complete structures. Monadology, for this reason, appears as an exotic and flawed concept confined within a Judeo-European philosophical tradition.
We are now at the very beginning of fourth-order cybernetics, whose contours can already be outlined. One possible path is cross-subject management, where subjectlessness is replaced by subjectivity, with communication tools becoming the dominant environmental parameter. Another path is the development of poly-subjective environments. Regardless of the direction, the environmental nature of control remains a constant—from small-scale business decisions to global governance.
The construction of an environment begins with identifying values. Values generate ideas, ideas generate intentions, and intentions generate functional schemes. Today, the problem of environment design comes to the forefront—and design itself is a methodological problem. In the near future, we may see the emergence of automatic, self-designing environments, where self-governance is embedded at the code level in a flexible (“soft computing”) manner, and the environment remains open and adaptive. Programming may evolve from a practical and commercial field into something akin to a philosophical language that shapes possible actions and states within an environment.
The inherent patterning of language and mental structures reflects limitations despite the diversity of human behavior. We have already crossed the threshold of human capabilities as traditionally defined. The question remains: will we be able to evaluate these outcomes, notice them, and how quickly we will come to understand them?
* See “The World as an Organic Whole” by N. O. Lossky.
** Experiments with environments consisted in designing and implementing an environment, followed by subsequent adjustments. For more details, see the article “Environment Design”.
*** Refers to so-called soft computing.