Рефлексивные процессы и управление. Сборник материалов XI Международного симпозиума 16-17 октября 2017 г., Москва - стр. 22

1. Mead, Margaret 1968. Cybernetics of cybernetics. In: Foerster H. von et al. (eds.) Purposive Systems. Proceedings of the First Annual Symposium of the American Society for Cybernetics. New York, NY: Spartan Books. 1-11.

Abstract.Understanding the differences between scientific approaches to cybernetics is difficult because of the very different histories and intellectual traditions in Russia and the US. This paper, first, describes the peculiarities of the Russian style of scientific thinking in comparison with the American approach. Second, it compares Vladimir E. Lepskiy‘s and Stuart A. Umpleby‘s theories of cybernetics looking at them through the prism of Russian and American intellectual traditions.

Keywords: intellectual traditions; first-order cybernetics; second-order cybernetics; third-order cybernetics

Characterizing the Russian intellectual tradition in comparison with the American intellectual tradition requires describing several points. Therearefundamentaldifferences. Among the most important differences, from our point of view, are the following:

1. Different interpretation of some fundamental concepts, for example, the definition of "development". "Development" has been interpreted in the West mostlyin terms of technology and science (a technocratic view of the term). Technologicalprogressisamainstreamidea. ButRussian civilization interprets "development" as transfiguration, self-perfection, vanquishing sinin people (a spiritual view of the problem).[Platonov, 2010]

2. The scientific implications of such a different understanding of fundamental ideas can be illustrated by the American and Russian development of the idea of I. P. Pavlov on the "conditioned reflex".Pavlov discovered a conditioned reflex while experimenting with animals as a physiologist. Later he learned that American psychologists were experimenting in the same way. He wrote about the difference between his work and the American work by noting that the practical American mind found that it is more important to know the external behavior of a man, than to guess about his internal state. The American science of behavior teaches us to act in the right (instrumentally successful) way. Russianpsychologyteachesusto make right (ethical) decisions.

3. Many Russian scientists often used different foundation for their process of thinking, they strove to build a better world, to include ethics and spirituality in scientific theories (N. A. Berdyaev, N. G. Chernyshevsky, and others). The first systematic critiques of classical rationalism as a scientific position were formulated in Russia. (Although rationalism led us to the gate of truth, it is fated not to open the gate. I. Odoevsky).