Cybernetic Pursuit of Happiness

Ah, the  Humanities Division

Cybernetics.

In the 1940's Gregory Bateson 
with other scientists and math
people  were studying (among 
other things) how systems self-

correct, so as to stay on course.
Smart bombs & later heat seeking
missiles, cruise control, techno-
logical helio-tropism: what is
the nature, they asked, of the
feed-back information loops that 
recursively  SUSTAIN a system's 
intended GOAL AIM, Target, 
 Harbor ....purpose in life &
measurable outcomes?

A cybernaut is a helmsman. 
Pilot. Steersman. A navigational 
metaphor: how do I  reach my

goal at sea, so to speak,  in the
dark, no stars above, no clue 
below to set a course by.

(Indo European: nau—navigate.
 “noise” and “nausea” come from 
the same nautical root.  Maybe 
you can see why—or feel the

connection.)

                  QUESTION

       How does a Conscious System

                  SELF-Correct

        without de-moralization?

   Cracking up? Breaking down so as

To Transform,  Reconfigure, Reformat,
                    Reform?.

Ooops,

ooheck,

ah

damnit,

ouch

o o o,

hmm

aha,

oops

mercy me

ah

 yes, Yes YES

oops

oodoggone

Something like that:

let that represent (stand-for) the 
sound of System Self Correction
going on--boom-lay, boom-lay,
boom-lay, boom. Maybe  you

can improve my terms, as long 
as you capture the spirit of the
ordeal, venture, agony, agon:

wretched, wrangling,  wrestling 
with all the forces of the 
environment and disruption

that PLAY into and against my 
questing voyage, path, journey, 
track, aim:  my Directional 
Navigational Algorithms (DNA): 

a homing-system of  guidance &
feedback & recalibration potential 
so as to make  it back to Kansas, say
—or Oz, if  that's the  destination, or  
arriving where I started and

now knowing  it for the first time..

UNLESS: the goal is to optimize 
one of the poles against the other,
to privilege Affect, say—over Intellect. 
Or vice versa. Or to make Pleasure 
Prince and Pain  Pain-in-the-Ass.

To be courting  Clarity  and castigating

Confusion. LOVING  LOVE over Hate,

 and privileging  Good over Evil.

That screws up the whole navigating
system: a depravity LIKE separating 
Siamese Twins—flaying & ripping 
asunder natural born siblings and 
celebrating One and calling the other:

Bastard! One humane: the other inhuman.

When the overall GOAL is collapsed, 
conflated,  confused and identified 
with only one  half of its cybernetic 
negative/positive food-back loops

(privileging pleasure, say: health,
the pursuit of happy-nessl),  the self-
corrective systems become something 
like a dog chasing  his tail, damaged,

damnit. Round & Round..