Author Archives: Harish

An Existentialist’s View of Complexity:

Art by NightCafe

In my post today, I am looking at the idea of complexity from an existentialist’s viewpoint. An existentialist believes that we, humans, create meanings for ourselves. There is no meaning out there that we do not create. An existentialist would say, from this viewpoint, that complexity is entirely dependent upon an observer, a meaning maker.

We are meaning makers, and we assign meanings to things or situations in terms of possibilities. In other words, the what-is is defined by an observer in terms of what-it-can-be. For example, a door is described by an observer in terms of what it can be used for, in relation to other things in its environment. The door’s meaning is generated in terms of its possibilities. For example, it is something for me to enter or exit a building. The door makes sense to me when it has possibilities in terms of action or relation to other things. This is very similar to the ideas of Gibson, in terms of “affordances”.

In existentialism, there are two concepts that go hand in hand that are relevant here. These are “facticity” and “transcendence”. Facticity refers to the constraints a subject is subjected to. For example, I am a middle-aged male living in the 21st century. I could very well blame my facticity for pretty much any situation in life. Transcendence is realizing that I have freedom to make choices to stand up for myself to transcend my facticity and make meaning of my own existence. We exist in terms of facticity and transcendence. We are thrown into this world and we find ourselves situated amidst the temporal, physical, cultural and social constraints. We could very well say that we have a purpose in this world, one that is prescribed to us as part of facticity or we can refer to ourselves to enable us to transcend our facticity and create our own purposes in the world.

In the context of the post, I am using “facticity” to refer to the constraints and “transcendence” to refer to the possibilities. Going back to complexity and an observer, managing complexity is making sense of “what-is” as the constraints, in terms of “what-it-can-be” as the possibilities. We describe a situation in terms of complexity, when we have to make meaning out of it. We do so to manage the situation – to get something out of it. This is a subject-object relationship in many regards. What the object is, is entirely dependent on what the subject can afford. When one person calls something as complex, they are indicating that the variety of the situation is manifold than what they can absorb. Another subject (observer) can describe the same object as something simple. That subject may choose to focus on only certain attributes of the situation, the attributes that the subject is familiar with. Anything can be called as complex or simple from this regard. As I have noted before, a box of air can be as complex as it can get when one considers the motion of an air particle inside, or as simple as it can get when one considers it as a box of “nothing”. In other words, complexity has no meaning without an observer because the meaning of the situation is introduced by the observer.

A social realm obviously adds more nuance to this simply because there are other meaning-makers involved. Going back to existentialism, we are the subject and at the same time objects for the others in the social realm. Something that has a specific meaning to us can have an entirely different meaning to another person. When we draw a box and call that as a “system”, another person can draw a different box that includes only a portion of my box, and call that as the same “system”. In the social realm, meaning-making should be a social activity as well. It will be a wrong approach to use a prescribed framework to make sense because each of us have different facticities and what possibilities lie within a situation are influenced by these facticities. The essence of these situations cannot be prescribed simply because the essence is brought forth in the social realm by different social beings. A situation is as-is with no complexity inherent to it. It is us who interact with it, and utilize our freedom to assign meaning to it. I will finish off with a great quote from Sartre:

Human reality everywhere encounters resistance and obstacles which it has not created, but these resistances and obstacles have meaning only in and through the free choice which human reality is.

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Plurality of Variety:

How Blank is Your Paper?

Art by NightCafe

This is available as part of a book offering that is free for community members of Cyb3rSynLabs. Please check here (https://www.cyb3rsynlabs.com/c/books/) for Second Order Cybernetics Essays for Silicon Valley. The ebook version is available here (https://www.cyb3rsyn.com/products/soc-book)

Stay safe and always keep on learning… In case you missed it, my last post was OC Curve and Reliability/Confidence Sample Sizes:

OC Curve and Reliability/Confidence Sample Sizes:

“Reliability” as dreamt by Dream by WOMBO

In today’s post, I am looking at a topic in Statistics. I have had a lot of feedback on one of my earlier posts on OC curves and how one can use it to generate a reliability/confidence statement based on sample size, n and rejects, c. I provided an Excel spreadsheet that calculates the reliability/confidence based on sample size and rejects. I have been asked how we can utilize Minitab to generate the same results. So, this post is mostly geared towards giving an overview of using OC curves to generate reliability/confidence values and using Minitab to do the same.

The basic premise is that a Type B OC curve can be drawn for samples tested, n and rejects found, c. On the OC curve, the line represents various combinations of reliability and confidence. The OC curve is a plot between percent nonconforming, and probability of acceptance. The lower the percent nonconforming, the higher the probability of acceptance. The probability can be calculated using binomial, hypergeometric or Poisson distributions. The binomial OC curves are called as “Type B” OC curve and do not utilize lot sizes, generally represented as N. The hypergeometric OC curves utilizes lot sizes and are called as “Type A” OC curve. When the ratio n/N is small and n >= 15, the binomial distribution closely matches the hypergeometric distribution. Therefore, the Type B OC curve is used quite often.

The most commonly used standard for attribute sample plans is MIL 105E. The sample plans in MIL 105E are identical to the Z1.4 standard plans. The sampling plans provided as part of the tables do utilize lot sizes. These sampling plans were “tweaked” to include lot sizes because there was a push for including economic considerations of accepting a large lot that may contain rejects. The sample sizes for larger lots were made larger due to this. The OC curves shown in the standards however are Type B OC curves that do not use lot sizes. Hypergeometric distribution considers the fact that there is no replacement for the samples tested. Each test sample removed will impact the subsequent testing since the number of samples is now less. However, as noted above, when the ratio n/N is small, the issue of not replacing samples is not a concern. For the binomial distribution, lot size is not considered since the samples are assumed to be taken from lots of infinite lot size.

With this background, let’s look at a Type B OC curve. The OC Curve is a plot between % Nonconforming, and Probability of Acceptance. Lower the % Nonconforming, the higher the Probability of Acceptance. The OC Curve shown is for n = 59 with 0 rejects calculated using Binomial Distribution.

The producer’s risk is the risk of good product getting rejected. The acceptance quality limit (AQL) is generally defined as the percent of defectives that the plan will accept 95 percent of the time (i.e., in the long run). Lots that are at or better than the AQL will be accepted 95 percent of the time (in the long run). If the lot fails, we can say with 95-percent confidence that the lot quality level is worse than the AQL. Likewise, we can say that a lot at the AQL that is acceptable has a 5-percent chance of being rejected. In the example, the AQL is 0.09 percent.

The consumer’s risk, on the other hand, is the risk of accepting bad product. The lot tolerance percent defective (LTPD) is generally defined as percent of defective product that the plan will reject 90 percent of the time (in the long run). We can say that a lot at or worse than the LTPD will be rejected 90 percent of the time (in the long run). If the lot passes, we can say with 90-percent confidence that the lot quality is better than the LTPD (i.e., the percent nonconforming is less than the LTPD value). We could also say that a lot at the LTPD that is defective has a 10-percent chance of being accepted.

The vertical axis (y axis) of the OC curve goes from 0 percent to 100 percent probability of acceptance. Alternatively, we can say that the y axis corresponds to 100 percent to 0 percent probability of rejection. Let’s call this confidence. This is also the probability of rejecting the lot. The horizontal axis (x axis) of the OC curve goes from 0 percent to 100 percent for percent nonconforming. Alternatively, we can say that the x axis corresponds to 100 percent to 0 percent for percent conforming. Let’s call this reliability.

We can easily invert the y axis so that it aligns with a 0 to 100-percent confidence level. In addition, we can also invert the x axis so that it aligns with a 0 to 100-percent reliability level. This is shown below.

The OC Curve line is a combination of reliability and confidence values. Therefore, for any sample size and rejects combination, we can find the required combination of reliability and confidence values. If we know the sample size and rejects, then we can find the confidence value for any reliability value or vice-versa. Let us look at a problem to detail this further:

In the wonderful book Acceptance Sampling in Quality Control by Edward Schilling and Dean Neubauer, the authors discuss a problem that would be of interest here. They posed:

consider an example given by Mann et al. rephrased as follows: Suppose that n = 20 and the observed number of failures is x = 1. What is the reliability π of the units sampled with 90% confidence? Here π is unknown and γ is to be .90. 

One of the solutions given was to find the reliability or the confidence desired directly from the OC curve.

They gave the following relation:

π = 1 – p, where π is the reliability and p is the nonconforming rate.

γ = 1 – Pa, where γ is the confidence and Pa is the probability of acceptance.

This is the same relation that was explained above.

In my spreadsheet, when we enter the values as shown below, we see that the reliability value is 81.91% based on LTPD value of 18.10%. This is the same result documented in the book.

We can use Minitab to get the same result. However, it will be slightly backwards. As I noted above, drawing the OC curve requires only two inputs – the sample size and the number of rejects allowed or acceptance number. Once the OC curve is drawn, we can then look at the different reliability and confidence combinations. We can also calculate the confidence, if we provide the reliability. The reliability is also 1 – p. In Minitab, we can input the sample size, number of rejects and p, and the software will provide us the Pa. For the purpose of reliability and confidence, the p value will be the LTPD value and the confidence value will be 1 – Pa.

I am using Minitab 18 here. Go to Acceptance Sampling by Attributes as shown below:

Choose “Compare User Defined Sampling Plans” from the dropdown and enter the different values as shown. Please note that the acceptance number is the maximum number of rejects allowed. Here we are entering the LTPD value because we know the value to be 18.10. In the spreadsheet, we have to enter the confidence level we want to calculate the reliability, while in Minitab we have to enter the LTPD value (1 – reliability) to calculate the confidence. In the example below, we are going to show that entering the LTPD as 18.10 will yield the Pa as 0.10 and thus the confidence as 0.90 or 90%.

Minitab yields the following result:

One can use the combination of sample size, acceptance number and required LTPD value to calculate the confidence value. The spreadsheet is available here. I will finish with one of the oldest statistical quotes attributed to the famous sixteenth century Spanish writer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra that is apt here:

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece.”

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Second Order Variety:

A Saint and a Leader:

Art by Dall-E

This is available as part of a book offering that is free for community members of Cyb3rSynLabs. Please check here (https://www.cyb3rsynlabs.com/c/books/) for Second Order Cybernetics Essays for Silicon Valley. The ebook version is available here (https://www.cyb3rsyn.com/products/soc-book)

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Informational Closure in the Human and the Machine:

Informational Closure in the Human and the Machine:

Art by Dall-E

One of the concepts that seems hard to grasp with regards to Cybernetics is the idea of “informational closure”. This idea was introduced by Ross Ashby as “informational tightness”. Ashby defined Cybernetics as the study of systems that are open to energy but closed to information and control – systems that are “information-tight”. Just like something that is described as water-tight, where water does not enter it from outside, information-tight refers to the condition where information does not enter it from outside.

Ashby also said that when a machine breaks, it changes its mind. Ashby referred to “machine” as a collection of parts that interact on one another and an “organization” as the specific way they are put together. For example, when a user pushes on a button, a door opens. The machine in this case is the button together with the wiring that can interact on the door together with the hinges. Ashby would say that Cybernetics in this case is the study of all possible actions that could have happened when the button was pushed, but did not. The cybernetician would ask why of all the possibilities, the action of the door opening happened? That specific action happened due to the specific manner the parts are connected to one another. If the parts were connected differently something else would have happened such as the door staying closed and refusing to open. I use the phrase “refusing to open” to tease the idea of the machine having a mind. As a nod to Descartes, in the case of this machine, its mind is indeed its body. It acts the way it does because of its structure. If there was a loose connection, then the machine would indeed change its mind, and refuse to open.

Here, the reader might be tempted to say that the user is providing an input or information via the press of the button. From a cybernetics standpoint, the user is actually perturbing the machine, and the machine’s behavior to this perturbation is to behave in a specific manner as dictated by its internal structure and organization. This is the reason why if there was a loose connection, the user pressing the button would result in a different behavior altogether. There is no information being received that is processed by the machine. The user could use the same pressing action on a keyboard and it would elicit an entirely different behavior, one that is consistent with the keyboard’s internal structure and organization. The machine’s mind is already made up, so to speak. If one were forced to define information in this regard, it would be something to the effect of “information is that which has the potential to elicit a response.” But here is the catch, what elicits a response is not the information, but the internal structure of the machine. In order to respond, the machine must have a closed organization. Information tight or informational closure means that the machine does not process information from outside. Instead, it is perturbed and this elicits a response based on its internal structure.

Two Chilean cyberneticians Humberto Maturana and Francesco Varela came up with the idea of autopoiesis that brought a new dimension to this. Their perspective is that humans are informationally closed as well. Maturana pointed out that prior to 1950’s, scientists and laypeople used to talk about neurons transferring or transmitting impulses. And after the advent of information theory by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, everything was viewed in a new light – that of information and entropy. The idea of conveying information from one person to the other, and information being processed is an attractive one. From a practical standpoint, one can see that this does not make sense. How many times have you conveyed information to another person only to have been misunderstood? As George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

We are obviously different than machines. We are not wired in order to be to elicited for specific responses. How we respond instead is based on a historical coherence. An easy example is how one responds to their own name. When we were infants, we were called our names, and we did not respond based on our then closed organization. With each repetition, we came to correlate the sound of the name to a response from us guided by reinforcement in the form of attention, love etc. The utterance of our name created a strong correlation in our behavior. There can still be instances where we may behave differently if our names are called such as in the case when your mother was using a stern voice. The history of interactions with others creates a stable response that we generally tend towards to. The more perturbations we have in the form of these interactions, the more we tend to respond in a particular manner. We have an embodied mind, unlike the machine. And unlike the machine, we are autonomous entities. We may still choose to change our mind for no good reason.

One of the examples that Maturana gave to further this idea is that of looking at a flower. The traditional way is to say that the light from the flower reaches our retina and this acts as information, and we see the flower. The informationally closed way is explained by Maturana as follows:

When light reflected by an object that the observer describes as external reaches the retina, an activity is initiated that is enclosed in the structure of the retina itself (and not in the structure of the source of light, nor in the structure of the world). The external world can only trigger such changes in the nervous system of an organism as are determined by the structure of the nervous system itself. The consequence is that there is no possible way, in principle, for the external world to communicate itself in its primordial, true form to the nervous system.

In other words, the flower does not inform the nervous system that it is a flower. Instead, the nervous system constructs an experiential reality of “flower” based on its own structure. It should refer to itself in order to make sense. This aligns with the view that each of us uniquely experience the world. What the color blue is? or what the sound of a hand clap is? – are all different for each of us, and this is based on our history of interactions and our closed interpretative framework. This brings attention to the essential point that what we experience is only one version of a human reality. To exist in a social realm requires us to be respectful of the other participants.

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was On the Ambiguities in Complexity:

On the Ambiguities in Complexity:

In today’s post, I am looking at the ambiguities in complexity. I am inspired by the brilliant French philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir. She was a proponent of existentialism, the school of philosophy that puts emphasis on human existence first and foremost. Their motto, as noted by Jean Paul Sartre, is “existence precedes essence.” This basically means that we create the meaning of our lives. There is no authority outside of us dictating what our essence must be. We are responsible for our construction of what we become.

The ideas of existentialism have many similarities with the philosophical school of constructivism in Cybernetics. I have written about this before. Similar to existentialism, constructivism says that we construct a version of reality and that we are responsible for our construction. In the social realm, constructivists believe that we aim for consistency through our continuous interactions with the other constructors. If I am constructing a version of reality, this means that others are doing the same. The language and culture act as external frames of references to provide a stable version of reality. The emphasis is not for correctness but consistency.

De Beauvoir realized that the ambiguity of our existence is part of us. We are subjects who engage in ongoing construction of a reality, at the same time we are objects in the construction of others in the social realm. In other words, we are creators while at the same time creations in someone else’s construction. What we identify as selves is in relation to others. We aim to have autonomy in our actions, and this often comes at the cost of others autonomy. The choices we make influences the choices others make and vice versa. There are no moral authorities dictating what everyone’s role is or what everyone should be doing. These ideas resonate strongly with Cybernetics. The ideas of constructivism are at the core of second order cybernetics.

De Beauvoir advised us to identify and withstand the pressures of the constraints that the contingencies of our times such as societal norms and expectations throw at us. We are to use our freedom to maximize our potentialities and shape our own lives. We can do this only when we acknowledge the ambiguities. We find freedom when we recognize the freedom of others.

With these ideas we will look at complexity. Loosely put, complexity is the interconnectedness that we identify or experience. When we pull on a thread here, something else moves in another location. Everything seems to be connected to everything else. Complexity in cybernetics is observer dependent. This means that the magnitude and “quality” of complexity can vary depending on the observer. This is also dynamic. This means that depending on when you are asking, the “what” of complexity can change. This also means that there are no clear demarcations or domains in complexity. There are certain portions that are less “complex” and some that are more “complex”. Cybernetics is not interested in the “what” but in all of the possible behaviors seen by the observer. The observer is able to make certain states occur more often than the others by playing with the constraints. Ernst von Glasersfeld wonderfully defined cybernetics as the art of creating equilibrium in a world of possibilities and constraints.

What does this mean if there are multiple observers? There are so many dimensions and so many possibilities. Cybernetics talks about the constructive dance between the observers. Every interaction is an invitation to understand each other. We need to talk about what we see and what think we see through others eyes. We face complexity as part of facing situations. We seek to obtain a stable state that covers certain desired attributes of the situation. In order to know this, we have to have a good understanding of the possibilities and the available constraints that can be used to achieve some of the possibilities. The constraints can be used to generate attractor states that the dynamic “system” latches onto and those attractor states will cover the desired states. There is a lot of literature about leaders with respect to complexity. Leaders are people who take up the responsibility to create conditions so that attractor states containing certain desired states are generated.

The discussion of complexity demonstrates the presence of ambiguity through and through. Who chooses what the desired outcomes should be? Who decides who should do what? Who decides to utilize the constraints for which some people may have to pay more? As noted, there are no moral authorities in these situations. Taking heed to de Beauvoir’s words, we should not run away from the ambiguities. Instead, we should embrace them. We should understand that there are always others in the social realm. We become a self through the others.

To say that there are rules for complexity would be a terrible idea. However, there are several heuristics that we can use to embrace the ambiguities. We should engage in the cybernetic dance and encourage being openminded to others’ viewpoints. We should practice empathy and try to understand the different perspectives. We should engage in dialogue more with the intent of actively listening. We should understand the power structure that is predominant and work with the marginalized groups so that their voices are also heard. We should celebrate the differences. We should look for similarities in differences and differences in similarities. We should cherish each other’s autonomy.

I will finish with some strong words from Simone de Beauvoir:

Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition. They know themselves to be the supreme end to which all action should be subordinated, but the exigencies of action force them to treat one another as instruments or obstacles, as means. The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces. Though they are masters of the atomic bomb, yet it is created only to destroy them. Each one has the incomparable taste in his mouth of his own life, and yet each feels himself more insignificant than an insect within the immense collectivity whose limits are one with the earth’s. Perhaps in no other age have they manifested their grandeur more brilliantly, and in no other age has this grandeur been so horribly flouted. In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men.

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Desiring and Second Order Cybernetics:

Another Post on Constraints:

In today’s post, I am looking again at the idea of constraints in relation to Ross Ashby’s ideas and the ideas of second order cybernetics. As far as I know, Ashby did not go into the differentiation of first and second order cybernetics. A lot of what he wrote can be filed away under “First order cybernetics”. But to do so will be missing the forest for the trees. A lot of Ashby’s ideas were ahead of his time and resonate with the ideas of complexity and systems thinking.

Ashby tied the idea of constraints to variety and the observer. Variety, as I have written here before, can be loosely put as the number of possible states differentiated by an observer. So, for example, an analog light switch can be said to have a variety of two – ON and OFF. Constraint is the relational part between an observer and a “system”. A “system” here is a select number of variables chosen by an observer to represent a phenomenon of interest. To elaborate these ideas, I am taking the example of an observer who chooses a Christmas tree as an area of interest. Further, let’s consider that the tree is connected to an analog switch with a variety of two as stated before. The observer can decide they would like to leave the tree ON for the entire Christmas season to reflect the Christmas spirit.  The variety of the switch is now reduced to one, barring any unforeseen incidents. The switch is always kept in the ON position. Out of the two possibilities, a constraint was applied so that there is only one possibility.

Ashby was very clear that Cybernetics is about looking at what something is doing, instead of looking at what that “something” is. From this standpoint, we are looking at possibilities, which is a “black box” view. We are looking at how something is behaving and are not really interested in the intricacies of how things are connected together.

Ashby noted in his private notebook that “A Cyberneticist is a man[sic] who observes what might have happened, but did not.”

This idea of “something that might have happened, but did not” is related to the notion of constraints. Cybernetics is often depicted as a science of teleology. This is the first order Cybernetics. For example, we often depict the idea of a steersman moving towards a goal, where a clear path is set. From the idea of constraints, we should be looking at negative explanations. We may choose the destination, but the path is set by the constraints. Gregory Bateson, another intellectual giant in Cybernetics, noted the following about negative explanation:

Negative explanation is an aspect of cybernetic theory that emphasizes restraints. According to negative explanation, events take a particular course because they are constrained from taking other courses. Alternatively, positive explanation seeks to determine the causes of particular events. Rather than focusing on “Why?”, negative explanation involves describing the constraints under which systems operate.

We consider what alternative possibilities could conceivably have occurred and then ask why many of the alternatives were not followed, so that the particular event was one of those few which could, in fact, occur.

In a similar fashion, Ashby wrote:

Cybernetics looks at the totality, in all its possible richness, and then asks why the actualities should be restricted to some portion of the total possibilities.

The real world gives the subset of what is; the product space represents the uncertainty of the observer. The product space may therefore change if the observer changes; and two observers may legitimately use different product spaces within which to record the same subset of actual events in some actual thing. The “constraint” is thus a relation between observer and thing; the properties of any particular constraint will depend on both the real thing and on the observer. It follows that a substantial part of the theory of organization will be concerned with properties that are not intrinsic to the thing but are relational between the observer and thing.

We often emphasize on having a goal or direction, but we neglect the importance of constraints. Some constraints can be physical such as a ball rolling down a chute.  The ball will always follow the same path. Now compare this to a rock falling down a hill. It may not follow the same path if you repeat rolling it down a hill. Some paths are more likely than others. And no matter how many times you roll it down a hill, some paths are never taken due to the physical constraints of the hill. These can be understood from a first order Cybernetics standpoint. From the second order Cybernetics standpoint, it is very important to understand the relational nature of constraints to the observer. What is limiting to one person can be nurturing for another. From the second order Cybernetics standpoint, the constraints are our biases and other epistemic constraints that limit or enable our actions.

According to Greek mythology, Sisyphus was made to roll a large rock up a hill and have it roll down; only to repeat this exercise again and again for eternity. He was made to do this as a punishment. Curious enough, in another part of the world, in Kerala (India), there is another mythology that talks about another character who rolled a large rock up a hill only to have it roll down. Naranath Branthan (The madman of Naranam) would roll a large rock up a hill and have it roll down. He would repeat this again and again. His reason for doing this was entirely different than Sisyphus. Naranath Branthan was not doing it for punishment. But, he was doing it for fun. The stories about him said that he would laugh with joy and clap his hands as he watched the rock roll down the hill. If Sisyphus would had found joy in what he did, the Gods would have been forced to free him from the punishment since it would cease to be a punishment.

I will finish with a wonderful story about Naranath Brandan.

One day he met Kali, an Indian goddess, as he was retiring for the night. Kali was impressed by the madman and told him that she will give him a boon (blessing).

“I do not want any boons”, the madman said. He just wanted to get on with his night and go to sleep.

Kali informed him that she has to give a boon or a curse, and she insisted that he take a boon.

“I want to increase my life time by a second”, the madman replied. Kali told him that she could not do that.

“Then I want to decrease my life time by a second”, the madman said. Kali told him she could not do that either.

The madman thought for a while and asked Kali to move the elephantiasis from his left leg to the right leg. Kali complied, and the madman lived happily with elephantiasis on his right leg from that day onwards.

Stay safe and always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Cybernetics and the Stoics: