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Introduction
Scybernethics uses the concept of “transduction” to describe the apparent transformation of an epistemological descriptive formalization (form) into a dynamic process and vice versa, bridging gaps between seemingly disparate spacialized and temporal domains. This concept is key to understanding both the historical constitution of modern science and the emergence of the information age, and to avoid the confusions (like brain/mind or model/reality) resulting from a techno-scientific lack of rigorous analytical distinction.
N.B.: This concept should not be confused with the more technically polarized “transduction” of Gilbert Simondon witch entail an amplification (cf. the example of the crystal), where the scybernethics transduction entail an attentional displacement/jump called “cut” from an epistemological dimension to another.


Transduction and the Cartesian Cut
- Scybernethics identifies a “quasi-double cut” (formalized double cut) at the heart of the Cartesian worldview, which separates mind from body and subject from object. This Cartesian cut is viewed as a process/form transduction (from individual philosophy to collective science, from methodology to worldview). The individual, philosophical act of separating mind and body was formalized and reified into a dominant cultural norm, and led to the development and institutionalization of modern science.
- This Cartesian cut enabled the rise of a mechanistic view of the world, where the human mind was seen as separate from and able to objectively study the natural world.
- This perspective emphasized a “third person” point of view, where the observer is considered separate from the observed, pushing the “thinker-actor” out of the domain of observation.
- Scybernethics posits that this focus on objective, third-person observation has led to a neglect of the phenomenological “processual knowing” or “procedural knowledge” that is an essential part of cognition, which is also referred to as the “Explanatory gap” (Levine 1983) or “Hard problem of Consciousness” (Chalmers 1994).
Transduction and the Information Age
- Scybernethics also identifies a second “double cut” that occurred with the advent of the “information age” through the work of Shannon, Turing, and von Neumann.
- This “double cut of the digital” is a technical one: first, a cut to meaning, which is reduced, and second, a cut to matter, which is abstracted (Bachimont 2021).
- The work of Claude Shannon, with Weaver collaboration, who developed an mathematical theory of communication (1948), abstracted communication from its semantic content and meaning making dimension, reifying “communication” as “information”. This transformation represents another form/process transduction.
- Alan Turing’s concept of the Turing machine formalized the mechanical process of calculation and was materially implemented by John von Neumann who coupled it with the abstract Boolean binary logic, to produce a functional automatic computing machine. This can also be seen as a transduction of a mechanical gesture of calculation into an electronic process through binary logic.
- This series of transductions, coupled with a massive cultural common-sense metaphorization (memory, mouse, windows, clouds, learning, etc) has led to a “techno-cultural collective abstraction” and a “consensual illusion” of a “virtual reality” or “cyberspace”.
- Scybernethics argues that the “hardware/software” strict distinction in computers is a “modern myth” that obscures the reality of the human-machine interaction and of the energetic consequences of massive computations. This distinction is a semi-illusion, induced by the transjectivity of technics in a dualist culture, that leads to the “technology-by-itself” fallacy.
The Scybernethic Approach
- Scybernethics seeks to reverse this trend by reintroducing the observer-actor, the meaning-maker, into the equation, recognizing that all knowing is being.
- It employs a “second-order” approach that considers not only the object of study but also the process of knowing and the knower themselves, thus promoting an “enaction of the enactor”.
- Scybernethics uses computer simulations and computer history as a way of understanding cognitive processes, seeing these models as a dynamic “modeling clay” for developing self-understanding rather than tools for creating a golem, leading to an hermeneutics/heuristics of digital technologies.
- The use of computer simulations in scybernethics is aimed at enhancing self-understanding and augmenting cognitive abilities, with a focus on “how we can think about natural cognition anew”. It’s a shift “from computers which think to computers which make me think”.
- The approach seeks to create a “virtuous co-determination” and a “hermeneutical circulation” between a traditional science and scybernethics. This means that scybernethics strives to bridge the gap between formalization and action through modeling and self-understanding.
Conclusion
By examining the historical “double cuts” and the process of “transduction” inherent in the development of science and technology, leading to the enaction of new cognitive and phenomenological domains, scybernethics aims to foster a deeper understanding of cognition and our relationship with the technologies that shape our world. It is a move toward a more integrated and self-aware mode of understanding, or “second-order rationality” (rationality²).
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References
BACHIMONT, B. (2021). La complexité herméneutique à l’épreuve du calcul. Interfaces numériques, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.25965/interfaces-numeriques.4686