Literatur

An Approach to Cybernetics

Über G. Pask Ranulph Glanville: Lernen ist Interaktion in: D. Baecker: Schlüsselwerke rosen_pask: control: The control of control – Gordon Pasks kybernetische Ästhetikl

zur Person

Gordon Pask (1928-1996) war wohl einer der ersten Autoren, die den Beobachter behandelten. G. Pask im Netz: cyboc biogr

We can expect a rush of interest in things Paskian, now that Gordon isn't here to confuse us with the facts of his work as he preferred them. Much of the reappraisal will be possible because some of the world has moved towards his innovations. He didn't invent the World Wide Web but he specified a (still unused) logic for representing individual knowledge in a global repository. Conversation Theory, of which he was the primary driver and author, defines the conditions required for agreement and delineates an architecture in which understanding can occur. He warned about confusing mere "communication" (exchanging messages containing what is already known) with "conversation" (a generative activity that gives identity to participants and leads to what is new). Pask's was a prolific voice in the development of "second-order" cybernetics, where the subjectivity of the observer is a critical element in the describing process of science. He was serious about making "a theory of everything." Although he mirrored the structure of great scientific theories, his content was unique; for example, insisting that which is conserved in conversation is consciousness - that which is shared among the participants. To put it another way, nothing that has ever been thought is fully lost.

Whether the worlds he affects wil know the name Pask is a question similar to whether cybernetics will be recognized for the shift it brings to science: the embrace of the subjective as an explicit part of every human endeavor. At least in the world of cybernetics, we will not lose the irreplaceables that Pask has brought to us.

Farewell to Gordon Pask

For all of us who had been looking forward to seeing Gordon at the European Systems Research and Cybernetics Conference in Vienna it was a terrible shock when the meeting opened with the announcement of his death. One has seen him so many times dealk with physical problems in unpredictable ingenious ways that he had come to seem immune. He had turned chronic insomnia into the opportunity to do more thinking - thinking that remained totally unperturbed by whatever troubles his frail body presented. He was a living symbol of mind over matter. One came to accept this as one accepted the help he was always ready to give.

Now he is gone and we are left to mourn a unique human being whose unceasing effort to make us understand whose generosity in matters of ideas and personal support has left us with a debt we cannot repay. He changed our way of thinking and enriched the world of ideas with more than we can hope to explore. He will not be forgotten.

Ernst von Glasersfeld