The Project (1999-2000)

In recent years various theories have been developed about the relation between development and change of social systems, and the disturbing events that can occur in their environments. It has increasingly bee recognised that this relation is not one of first order cybernetic control (i.e., when initial conditions can be manipulated in order to determine later events). Social organization can be described more adequately by the notion of networks of communication that evolve recursively and interactively among human actors as their reflexive carriers. Such "self-organising" networks constitute the subject of second order cybernetics: the study of emergent order and its control. In a collaboration between seven European research institutes, we intended to apply these relatively new theoretical insights to specific experiences related to the emergence of the "European Information Society".