Stafford Beer, Morse Peckham, Stewart Brand, Edward de Bono and Christopher Alexander?

From (Richard Joly) telegraph!ricjoly@comback.login.qc.ca 
Fri Nov 18 14:42:48 1994
Subject: Beer, Brand, Bono 1-3
--------/\---------
 
This is a bit long, but I believe it helps clarifying Eno's work
by providing a context other than pop music culture. 
 
In a previous Digest, some clarifications/pointers were requested
on S. Beer & Morse Peckham. I've added my own on creativity,
cybernetics, Stewart Brand, Edward de Bono and Christoper
Alexander. 

Enjoy !                       ----->  Richard   <-----

*******> Some notes on  Stafford Beer:

"Stafford Beer was one who took operation research  from army to
industry after WW II...A pionner in the management application of
cybernetics (the science of control), he is also the author of
numerous publications, including a standard work, _ CYBERNETICS
AND MANAGEMENT (1959) and DECISION AND CONTROL (1966)."

****** > from MANAGEMENT SCIENCE-THE BUSINESS OF OPERATIONS
RESEARCH (1967) (a sample of chapters heading)

Chapter 1- Processes and Policies

An art, yes, but a science too
Figures are not enough
The beginning of operation research
Lessons from early experience
System, prediction and profit
Understand first, diagnose second, prescribe third

Chapter 2- Chance, Risk and Malice

Getting to grip with chance
The use of approximation
How simple is a simple situation
How near is near enough?
The likelihood of getting near enough
Putting probability theory into action
Assessing the ideal stock size
Keeping the queue to acceptable length
The genuinely calculated risk

Chapter 3- Quantified Risk

The situation and its models
The scientist's model
Meeting deadlines in a complex operation
Delay and amplified delay
Models as a media for simulation
The payoff of simulation

Chapter 4- An Alphabet of Models
Acoustics
Biology
Cybernetics
Demography
Engineering
Fluid dynamics
Genetics

Chapter 5 - It Works

The limitation of techniques as such
Modelling the real life situation
Using techniques to answer real life questions
When reducing costs looked too costly
Getting past the paradox to the problem
Getting past the problem to the solution

Chapter 6 - The Viable Governor

Implicit Control
What should be controlled ?
Homeostatis and ultrastability
A new model
The education of systems

Chapter 7 - Automation and such

Industry and evolution
What's holding things up ?
Rethinking about rethinking 
Why not just leave things to evolve ?
We'll-learn-in-time diehards
Death of a diehard

********>   Here's some more stuff about Beer :


"Stafford Beer is one of the half dozen international
heavyweights in cybernetics. He was hired by Allende to make the
Chilean economy cyber-responsive; soldiers cut short the
experiment. This is Beer's central book - a literate well
experienced  evocation of the best in operations  research : the
structure of management. There are insights well beyond the realm
of business here as well as clear advice on how to make your
expensive institutional computer earn its keep ."(from a 1974 
review by Stewart Brand of Beer's Decision and Control:

A definition of Cybernetics :

" Cybernetics is the discipline of whole systems thinking...A
whole system is a living system is a learning system." S. Brand
1980

And again :

" Society, from organism to community to universe, is the domain
of cybernetics " S. Brand 1980

********> Cybernetics and early Eno

The feedback loop is THE primordial concept for control in
cybernetics (or Operation Research, Systematics, Whole Systems).

At some point in his early days, while playing with recorders,
Eno discovered that the complex tape-loops he was building in the
music making domain were an exact representation (in the real
world) of a cybernetic machine.

For example, the diagram on  _Discreet Music_ shows a canonical
cybernetic system. 

Therefore,  Eno realised, any results or conclusions reached or
attaigned in OR would/could/should map _more or less_ perfectly
unto his music construction projects.

His best insight then, IMHO, was not only that he could use the
results of cybernetics to build better machines for making music.

Rather he also concluded that he could apply the lessons and
tools of cybernetics to the whole world out there, EXACTLY in the
same manner as he did in music making, literally doing meta-
cybernetics (or cybernetic-ising cybernetics).

(Oh, BTW: there's a book by that same title : The Cybernetics of
Cybernetics - E. Von Foester)

********> Online resources :  Principia Cybernetica Project

    PCP home-page
    URL=http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/
    Links to articles on evolution, self-organization and
memetics.

BTW: memetics is the nascient study of elemental thinking
elements (somewhat analogous to the *gene*, but in the mental
reprensation domain)

This is a cool place to explore.

>From telegraph!ricjoly@comback.login.qc.ca Fri Nov 18 14:45:56 1994
Subject: Beer, Brand, Bono 3-3
--------/\---------


********>Some notes on Morse Peckham (a bibliography)

After reading the FAQ related questions, curiosity got the best
of me: I did an online search on Peckham. I  dont know if it's
complete and I also dont know how this connects to Eno. Can
someone explain ?

* A recent article :
AUTHOR(s):       Peckham, Morse  TITLE(s):        Valuing.  
In:   Pre/Text.  Fall 1989 v 10 n 3 / 4  

* A list of books :

AUTHOR       Peckham, Morse.

TITLE        Art and pornography; an experiment in explanation. 
SUBJECT      Erotica.

TITLE        Beyond the tragic vision; the quest for identity in  
             the  nineteenth century. --
SUBJECT      Self-realization.
             Self-realization in literature.
             Self-realization in art.
             Civilization, Modern --19th century.
             Music --Philosophy and aesthetics.
 
TITLE        Explanation and power : the control of human
behavior 
SUBJECT      Meaning (Psychology)
             Psycholinguistics.
             Personality.
             Culture.
             Social institutions.

TITLE        Man's rage for chaos; biology, behavior, and the
arts. --
SUBJECT      Art --Philosophy.
             Literature --Philosophy.
             Performing arts.
             Aesthetics.

TITLE        Romanticism and behavior : collected essays II 
SUBJECT      Romanticism.
             Civilization, Modern.

TITLE        Romanticism; the culture of the nineteenth century.
--
SUBJECT      Romanticism.
             Romanticism in art.

TITLE        The triumph of Romanticism; collected essays. --
NOTE         Includes bibliographical references.
Toward a theory of Romanticism.--Toward a theory of Romanticism:  
II, reconsiderations.--The dilemma of a century: the four 
stages of Romanticism.--Romanticism: the present of 
theory.--The problem of the nineteenth century.--Constable and 
Wordsworth.--The place of architecture in nineteenth-century 
romantic culture.--Can Victorian have a useful meaning?--
Hawthorne and Melville as European authors.--Darwinism and 
Darwinisticism.--Aestheticism to modernism: fulfillment or  
revolution?--What did Lady Windermere learn?--The current         
crisis in the arts: Pop, Op, and Mini.--Art and disorder.--Art   
and creativity: proposal for research.--Order and disorder in     
fiction.--Discontinuity in fiction: persona, narrator, scribe.-   
-Literary interpretation as conventionalized verbal behavior.--   
Theory of criticism.--Is poetry self-expression?--Metaphor: a    
little plain speaking on a weary subject.--The intentional
fallacy?--On the historical interpretations of literature.



>From telegraph!ricjoly@comback.login.qc.ca Fri Nov 18 14:47:04 1994
Subject: Beer, Brand, Bono 2-3
--------/\---------

*******>The S. Brand/B. Eno connection 

It has a long history.                

I recall that in the first interviews given/published in the US
press  (that I read anyways ) that Eno was  always going on about
Cybernetics and Control and Randomness as an artistic tools. In
one of these, Eno was asked to list his *must-read list* and he
named Beer and Edward de Bono (more about him later), and some
others General Systems Thinkers. 

Popular treatises and information about Cybernetics were quite
rare in the popular/alternative press back in the 70s', with
Whole Earth Review, a West Coast mag, a favorite platform for
dissiminating cybernetics related ideas and information about
authors and resources. Remember this is before Yuppie-time BF
(ie. before Koons), so management theories and art-making seemed
like very unlikely bedfellows.

Stewart Brand ( who I have quoted above on  S. Beer )had started
WER inspired by the strength of whole-systemic ideas of
Buckminster Fuller, Gregory Bateson and Stafford Beer.

I guess somehow/somewhere Brandt and Eno connected, soul mates
with similar missions and similar agendas, but most importantly
the same tool-box.

Brand then went on  to  co- found the WELL Bbs system in
California  while still steering WER, till he was followed by
editors Kevin Kelly and later Howard Rheingold both of whom
recently wrote books that have been championed by Eno.

On this subject, the most curious amongst you can check the great
Eno-blurbs for, respectively  Kelly's "Out of Control- The Rise
of Neo-Biological Civilization" and Rheingold's "Virtual
Reality".

All three of them published Eno's writings in the magazine, most
notably the recent texts _ Unthinkable Futures_ and _Resonant
Complexity_.

Brand is the supposed co-author , with  Brian Eno, of
a-to-be-published book on _The Future of Culture_. (That's the
title I recall reading, but I wouldnt bet my life on it.) The
book would be taken from their e-mail exchanges
conversations/dialogues/exchanges on culture.

And for the most-anally compulsive completists amongt us, some
more gossip :

In his recent book _How Buildings Learn_, Brand tells of having a
picture of his friend Eno next to his working desk, as an
inspiration / guiding light / mentor-in-absentia, to keep him
company for the duration of the writing of the book.  Eno's
opinions on the theme of evolutionary architecture are quoted
therein. 

*******> BOOKS by Stafford Beer

* Brain of the firm; a development in management cybernetics. 
* Brain of the firm : the managerial cybernetics of organization  
* Decision and control; the meaning of operational research and 
               management cybernetics. -
* Designing freedom / by Stafford Beer ; with sketches by the 
               author. --
* Diagnosing the system for organizations / Stafford Beer. --
* The heart of enterprise / Stafford Beer. --
* Management science; the business use of operations research. --
* Platform for change; a message from Stafford Beer. --

********> RECENT ARTICLES by Stafford Beer

* Easter.; In:  Systems research :  the official journal of the  
                 1993 v 10 n 3  

* May the Whole Earth Be Happy: Loka Samastat Sukhino       
Bhavant   Lessons from Eastern philosophy for Western managers
and  management scientists ;
 In:   Interfaces.  JUL 01 1994 v 24 n 4  

* On Suicidal Rabbits: A Relativity of Systems.  
 In:   Systems practice.  APR 01 1990 v 3 n 2 

*******>  some notes about Christopher Alexander:

Another Eno rave-up, another favorite for the Point Foundation
gang (Kelly Brand Rheingold).

You can find some very interesting texts from Alexander's 
architectures classeson the WELL gopher. 

Gopher to : gopher.well.sf.ca.us  (I think)
Or try tunneling North America/USA/California/SanFrancisco; the WELL
should be around there.

*******> Some notes on Edward de Bono and the evolution of
Oblique Strategies

Anyone interested on another source for the genesis of the
Oblique Strategies method is encouraged to look up the many books
on creativity and thinking enhancement skills autored by british
author Edward de Bono.

One specific volume,  TEACHING THINKING published in 1976, refers
VERY explicitely to _oblique strategy thinking_ as an attention
director tool. 

De Bono is an internationaly renowned specialist on creativity
facilitation questions, in applying critical thinking skills to
organisation and projects, with more than 25 books available.
He's widely credited for inventing the phrase _lateral thinking_.

Of course not only is Eno a great synthesist, he's also a great
lateral thinker AND a fabulous facilitator. I think this triad is
quite rare. I mean, Bowie is a great synthesist, but it's not
like he's got a great track record at *helping* others shine.

Laurie Anderson is a lateral thinker(er) par excellence, but
again, she works alone. Quincy Jones, now ,that's a great
facilitator - moving  from jazz to pop into hiphop, from
mainstream to street, helping artists grow, empowering them.
The three talents in the same person? Very rare, I think.

De Bono is also acknowledged on some Eurythmics records for
the help his ideas and concepts  brought to Dave Stewart and
Annie Lennox for developing ideas for Eurythmics.

Amazingly there's a lot of literature on the  (related) subjects
of creativity and critical thinking tools. 

John Cage had his I-Ching, Eno his Oblique Cards. Well, Eno is in
good company : The Creative Education Foundation publishes a
some-400 pages directory of resources, classes, seminars, tools
and books on this one and only specific subject ! 

BTW : DeBono's books on creativity and creativity thinking tools
are  of very UNEVEN quality. I like the mid-period publications -
which IMHO will help a broader range of person - more than the
later books, which seem commissioned for mid-level management
types.