Integration of Cognitive Cybernetics into Intelligent

Human Systems?

Zdenko Balaž1, Davor Predavec1

1 Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Konavoska 2, Croatia

Abstract. Nowadays, intelligent technologies preoccupy humanity in already

congested information space with millions of characters and messages. Their in-
teractivity is superimposed with intelligent systems as persuasiveness. The cog-
nitive dimension as a dominant function of the mind and self-consciousness
questions what is happening with the anthropological horizon of a man who
disappears within such an intelligent human system environment. Development
of intelligent technologies firstly focused on the application in technical fields
of science has now transcended to all spheres of modern human life. Questions
and doubts that arise from such a reality are presented in this paper with the
emphasis that cognitive cybernetics help is needed in solving latter issues.

Keywords: Cognitive Cybernetics · Human Factors · Captology · Modern Life

1 Introduction

Domain of the authors’ research, defined by the question mark at the end of title, fo-
cuses on the following questions: a) why information and communication are irre-
trievably linked to successful use of intelligent systems (IS) by humans as intelligent
beings, and b) what has led to the need of designing portable intelligent technologies
as interactive systems. Answers to these questions were gained by a series of public
lectures 1, [1-4]. The results of latter, for easier perceptibility, can be summarized as:
Human Intelligence Systems, (HIS) - at the very beginning of the 1980s, researches
in the field of AI was focused on systems associated with human intelligence. Their
goal was to incorporate the principles of human intelligence into intelligent platforms
for data processing through AI systems, which in turn actively contributed to industry
development and advancement of society, such as: a) advanced development and use
of mechanical systems and devices in industrial production as intelligent autonomous
robots, b) the introduction of humanoids into the social and palliative spheres of life.
Intelligent Human Systems, (IHS) - researches from 1990s onwards, conducted on
the foundation of already developed intelligent systems with the intent of implementa-
tion in education, had included among others: a) developing and upgrading intelligent
interactive technologies for the use in systems with algorithms which involve princi-

1 Namely: ‘The Brain Awareness Week (BAW)’ traditionally being held for the last five years
at Technical Department of Zagreb University of Applied Sciences.
ples of human thinking, b) scientific analysis of social activities and human intelli-
gence through mathematical modeling, brain research and cognitive sciences.
Such IS contain the knowledge of certain domains with sophisticated decision-
making processes and the ability to explain their own behavior. This feature shows the
most important aspect of such systems - their ability to effectively interact with people
in social environment, teaching, and assisting in availability of and complex data ma-
nipulation. Furthermore, their use has led to a significant impact on human resources
with the effect as is increased demand for the education.

1.1. Research Area of Intelligent Human Systems

Aforementioned demands are justified through interdisciplinary research of cognitive
science that made the shift from classical engineering education towards intelligent
human systems, Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 - Development of cognitive science through interdisciplinary research with a cybernetic

approach to engineering education focused on intelligent human systems

2 The Cybernetic Component of Integrativeness

Today’s time and space are characterized by the well-known but transformed science,
determined and guided by a new fundamental science called cybernetics. This science
corresponds with the definition of a man as intelligent and social-working being, and
is itself characterized through determinants that manifest as:
 the theory of managing, a possible planning, and the work organization,
 transformation of language in the tool of information exchange,
 characterizing and managing the phenomena of the whole world and the posi-
tion of an intelligent human being in it,
 accepting and presenting ontology of various intelligent human being accom-
plishments through nature, history, law, art, etc.,
 setting the theory of structural changes of the appropriate subject area that ac-
cepts only cybernetic functions and deny any ontological meaning,
 a triumph of a managed scientific-technical world arrangement, and a world of
corresponding social order.
The autonomy of cultural-anthropological scientific areas gains the role of logic as
logistics and semantics, and in these conditions philosophy becomes an empirical
knowledge about the man as intelligent human being, and about everything that can
be an experiential subject for his technique, which helps to place itself in the world
while dealing with it according to the multifaceted production methods. Descartes has
further argued that philosophy is like a tree, whose roots are metaphysics, its trunk is
physics, and branches are all other sciences. But the question is raised of how many
new branches have grown up to date, and whether all these are even sciences compre-
hensible with the philosophy. Instead giving the answer, hypothesis of the positivism
of science is set, which can be identified by the analysis of the following conditions:
 an identifiable discovery as a possible topic of theoretical description,
 recognizability in pre-scientific approach and within the indication of reality,
 it is relationally contained within the proposal of non-conceptual understanding,
 it is the founding discovery of one's unknowable inner aspect of being, or the
battle for the will of self-revelation.
Cognitive cybernetics help to bring the understanding of a triad (system – process –
relationship) in intelligent human systems, dominated by the human intelligent being.
The science of aprioristic approach (e.g. a project) of the being’s organization in its
subject area, who accordingly develops its own special methods, conceptual structure,
corresponding possibility of truth, and the logic of proof and communication, is inter-
preted as a specific phenomenon of the new age, primarily regarded as a mathematical
natural science directly promoted in the management technique of the nature. Specific
features and characteristics of the information age on the subject of science have cast
the shadow over technological aspect as a destiny of the modern world. This world,
with the sharp accents of cultural criticism, unconditionally forces human beings to
become ‘gadgets’, for attitude towards technology is influenced by the lack of reason-
able attention to things and unwillingness to see the complete truth about it.
Modern society is defined by the logic of a techno-science, acting as ultimate regu-
lation of the world’s entire space and time, which started its expansion: a) by the ad-
vent of informatics science, b) by the theory of media, and c) by development of
communication technologies. Today's concept of cybernetics in terms of ending phi-
losophy has been revealed by Heidegger in 1964, who argued that philosophy finishes
in the technical era of cyberspace.
From the cybernetic requirement to manage all life-giving and life-cycle processes
through feedback, balance and control of information exchange between the system
and environment, techno-science begins to construct the human life through radical
transformation of the being into the post-human state 2. Therein, the governance of a
new information code in societies is but a creation of virtual worlds of artificial mind
and ultimately, a life that is crushed by the crisis of ideas of the community as a unity
and truth. So, from the aesthetic construction of a techno-sphere comes the primacy of
the form over matter. This is a bioethical call toward a communion of the nature and a
living machine in a cybernetically understood environment. Kierkegaard's exposition
of existence is recognized by opening up the question of modern understanding in
which a special place takes a freedom, through its three different modes: the will for
the power, the practice of work and the existential conviction, respectively.

2 The books: ‘The post-human state’, ‘The end of humans and the possibility of another histo-
ry’, and ‘The sphere of existence’ have been explained by Žarko Paić, PhD, in Croatia.
3 The Cognitivistic Component of Integrativeness

Cognitive aspect is part of the mind, therefore not something that belongs to seeker of
empirical occurrences and their causes in the subject world. Mind goes beyond the
common sense, and also allows latter; and is the logic of infinite advances in the field
of techno-science. Spinoza's provision of freedom as a ‘perceived necessity’ of con-
sciousness development strives toward noosphere, but not as means of explaining the
purpose of technics, but as an absolute science of the being in terms of comprehend-
ing one’s own thoughts, (i.e. opinion over first opinion; self-query); all latter in the
sense what makes the ‘system’ and the ‘method’ an absolute representation of ideas.
When cognitive or intellectual aspect is represented as an ambivalent project, the
end of philosophy in techno-science is indeed the result of dissolution of absoluteness
in the rational reality of the world, which has become a machine, to be said. Hence,
the efforts through researches has led to the need for clarification of cognition. Latter
have foundation on the work of Descartes3, who gave the best explanation for the
cognition - the dominant component in cognitive cybernetics. It is explained through
different forms, as follow.

3.1. Cogito, Cogitatio & Cogitationes

The word cogito (a famous Descartes's expression), translated from Latin as ‘I think’,
but hereafter - ‘I am aware’, is composed of two parts: ‘co’ and ‘agito’. Co relates to
the kind of attachment or familiarity with something, and can mean ‘to gather’ or ‘to
collect oneself’. On the other side, agito is iterative of the word ago and it means
constantly (i.e. constantly again, to impose or to make toward something). Important
for agito (i.e. pursue towards, to force to) is directedness toward something deter-
mined, and in fact it is a kind of a focus directed to different spiritual activities such as
uncertainty, understanding, confirmation, denial, will, imagination, observation, etc.
Next to it, cogitatio (lat. cogitans, res cogitans) introduces the term ‘reflection’, as
to when someone perceives something, also observes that has noticed latter. This second
observation refers only to the reason (i.e. consciousness), which seems so attached that
doesn’t look like they can be mutually separated. But if what one imagines is some-
thing already implied, then no imagination is true, although the power of imagination
exists, and is indeed the part of its consciousness (cogitatio). Finally, cogitationes is
explained not only as a consideration and manifestation of the will, but also as activity
of seeing, listening, and deciding for the single concrete situation. The ‘opinion’ thus
understood dynamically and actionably is presented as a ‘self-consciousness’, [5].
Today, in setting the theory of an intelligent human system, a thinking machine
corresponds to logic based on computing, planning and construction. The essence of
such logic comes from the techno-sphere. Therefore, a link is found within cybernetic
schemes of action as optimal environmental control and chaos management. Contem-
porary technology within techno-sphere facets places itself on the other side of this
metaphysical set of binary oppositions, and hence forgets the importance of the psy-
chology of situation and the forms of meaning.
3 Descartes's Meditationes de prima philosophia; analysis was conducted by Damir Barbarić,
PhD, in Croatia.
4 The Persuasive exposure

The meaning of afore statements based of conducted researches shows that the overall
aspiration toward technology replaced the individual (human) with ‘intelligent human
system’ in order to further modernize a society that has been recognized with different
characteristics and different phases: a disciplinary and supervisory society, a society
of power transcoding, a society of social event simulacrum, a society with installed
system of domination, a society of technological social environment governance, a
society of dehumanization process, a society of necessity of re-humanization, a trans-
humanistic society (extropian), a posthumanistic society (singular).
By supervision and discipline mechanisms of individuals through persuasive expo-
sure (captology) in according social environment, the society also conducts a self-
supervision, [6]. Important is to note how a disciplinary and supervisory society is an
information society that has become dominant over others, for the numeric code is
translated into the language of reign policy. If the social/cultural capital of individuals
and the community accumulates in higher education, the reign of cybernetics code
based of the life of all people gain a universal power. Despite all the relevant theoreti-
cians of the information society and the postmodern, a supervisory society with the
core role as a corporation has broken the meaning of a modern subject and a modern
individual, where such individual can no longer oppose the mass. Therefore, the indi-
vidual and the mass are binary opposites that disappear in supervisory captological
society. Latter are being replaced by data, market examples and databases from the
‘big data’ program [7]. The concept of the apparatus and disposition of power are
replaced by a discourse marked by a series of rules and codes, while socially organ-
ised structures are reduced to the structuring of power over life itself, Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 - Persuasive exposure of an individual in supervised society

Today's sense of discourse is a purely schematic representation of dialectics.

Through its history, primarily in the philosophy, dialectics was primarily the method
of debating based on indirect evidences. As a sophistic argumentation, it was a pro-
cess of acquiring knowledge from sensory reality on one side, to the perception of
supernatural reality on the other side, [8]. Newer interpretations were opposed dialec-
tics to discovering things or concepts by eliminating opposition. Discourse (lat. dis-
cursus), if we look at it as speech, conversation, or parsing, it is in fact an analysis.
Through presented facts and contradictions faced as antitheses, they result as a solu-
tion or a new understanding what presents synthesis, respectively. These abilities are
attributed only to the human being. An open question remains about how to start
alongside with cognitive cybernetics and how to deal with freedom and time while not
to ignite the crisis of the human system [9], Fig. 3.
 Fig. 3 - Dialectics of IHS technics characterized by the Freedom and Time

5 Conclusion

In the world of planetary technics, the need for a different opinion can only be achieved
by the application of cognitive cybernetics whose motto is ‘Education must be a way
toward moral behavior’. Such education must include nature and nurture as a new cog-
nitive school of high and low levels of understanding (a school of nerve-efficiency, with
the acceptance of all technologies: physical, sensory, genetic and mental). Human fac-
tors (i.e. formation of synaptic brain organization) are changed by the experience, cir-
cumstances and needs.
On these foundations, instead of the conclusion, we state Kierkegaard's preface to the
‘Singular Individual’: ‘The misfortune of our time is that it has become explicitly re-
duced on time, change, unwillingness to hear anything about eternity, hence from this
arises - whether is iniquitous or too vigorous - that by systematic actions as a whole
strives to substitute eternity with something exceedingly transient, while this never
worked to anyone since while we are thinking of being able to deny eternity, in fact, we
need it more and more intensely’. We also stand up with a question can freedom be a
new event, if its time has gone irreversibly into eternity? Can a human being deny an
intelligent human system?

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