The Cybernetics Sequence
From System Dynamics to Epistemic Architecture
Cybernetics provides a precise vocabulary for understanding how agents act coherently within their environments. At its core lies a simple but far-reaching principle: every form of effective regulation requires a model. Models allow systems to discriminate states, anticipate consequences, and adjust behavior in ways that preserve goals.
This sequence gathers the posts that develop this theme within Axio. Together they show how representation, control, and agency emerge from model-based processes, whether implemented explicitly in theories or implicitly in biological and artificial systems.
Understanding Requires Models
Cognition as conditional structure.
Argues that all empirical knowledge is model-mediated, showing that understanding arises from representational frameworks rather than direct access to reality.
Control Requires Models
The cybernetic structure of regulation.
Introduces the Good Regulator Theorem and demonstrates why any system capable of reliable control must embody a model of the system it regulates.
Models, Beliefs, and Agents
Clarifying representational levels.
Distinguishes the internal models required for regulation from the beliefs we attribute to agents at the interpretive level.
Lookup Tables and Agents
Minimal models in biological and artificial systems.
Examines systems whose behavior can be described by simple condition–action mappings, illustrating how lookup tables function as degenerate but effective models in limited domains.
What Is a Model?
The structure and function of representational systems.
Defines what qualifies as a model across scientific, biological, and cognitive settings, unifying the representational assumptions underpinning cybernetic reasoning.
Principia Cybernetica
A historical and conceptual bridge.
Examines the Principia Cybernetica Project as an early attempt to systematize cybernetic epistemology, setting the stage for contemporary model-based approaches.
Together, these posts introduce the foundations of cybernetic thinking within the Axio framework. They show how model-based architecture supports prediction, explanation, and control—and why agents of any kind require structured representations to act coherently in the world.