The ‘Cybernetic Cut’: Progressing from Description to Prescription in Systems Theory

Howard Pattee championed the term “epistemic cut” to describe the symbol-matter, subject-object, genotypephenotype distinction. But the precise point of contact between logical deductive formalisms and physicality still needs elucidation. Can information be physical? How does nonphysical mind arise from physicality to then establish formal control over that physicality (e.g., engineering feats, computer science)? How did inanimate nature give rise to an algorithmically organized, semiotic and cybernetic life? Both the practice of physics and life itself require traversing not only an epistemic cut, but a Cybernetic Cut. A fundamental dichotomy of reality is delineated. The dynamics of physicality (“chance and necessity”) lie on one side. On the other side lies the ability to choose with intent what aspects of ontological being will be preferred, pursued, selected, rearranged, integrated, organized, preserved, and used (cybernetic formalism).