Honors 353:002
Technology in American Culture: Cybernetics to Cyberspace
Assignments
The first essay asks you to interpret some observed behavior in light of Wiener's concept of cybernetics. The behavior you observe may be biological, social, mechanical, digital, or any combination of these. But you must offer an interpretation of the system as a feedback/control system.
The essay should be approximately 5 pages, doublespaced, with standard margins and fonts. Research is not required, but sources must be cited (MLA style) if used.
Some questions to consider (you may, of course, consider other questions):
- What are the components of the system?
- How do the components communicate?
- How does the system utilize negative feedback to achieve homeostasis?
- If the system is not biological, how does it differ from a biological system?
- If the system is biological, what separates it from non-biological systems?
25%
The second essay asks you to describe an example of emergent behavior in a complex adaptive system. Unlike Wiener's homeostatic systems, complex adaptive systems make use of positive feedback (often combined with negative feedback). Due to positive feedback, these systems are dynamic, not (homeo)static. Johnson's examples include ant colonies, cities, brains, and computer software. You will need to find other, or at least more specific or more recent examples (such as newer software, or other communities).
The essay should be approximately 5 pages, doublespaced, with standard margins and fonts. Research is not required, but sources must be cited (MLA style) if used.
Some questions to consider:
- What are the components of the system?
- How do the components communicate?
- What types of feedback are used (both positive and negative)?
- How does the system adapt?
- Does the system learn? If so, is it intelligent?
25%
Research Project: The research project will be an research essay updating one of the issues discussed in Lessig's Code, for possible inclusion in an updated online edition of the text.
30%
Final exam: This will be an in-class, open book exam. This will be a short essay exam; you will have choices from among several questions, most of which will ask you to discuss more than one concept from the list below. Not all of these terms will be on the exam, but all of the exam terms are on the list.
20%
Study terms:
| Cybernetics | Complex Adaptive System | cyberspace |
| contingency | positive feedback | latent ambiguity |
| Manichean & Augustian evil | emergent phenomena | architecture |
| homeostasis | "more is different" | east coast & west coast code |
| negative feedback | latent & manifest purposes | intellectual property |
| 2nd Industrial Revolution | "control artists" | monitored vs. searchable |
| Memex | fitness landscape | substantive vs structural limits |
| top-down & bottom-up structures | Information Age | "echo chamber" effect |
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