Generic Agency Theory, Cybernetic Orders and New Paradigms

Abstract

Purpose: Anticipating behaviour and responding to the needs of complexity and the problematic issues that they generate occurs through modelling processes. This paper discusses generic modelling for living systems theory, and shows how higher cybernetic orders model can be generated through generic constructs under complexity.

Design: The paper develops a general theory for the generation of cybernetic orders. It uses a cultural agency generic model to anchor the notion of fourth cybernetics.

Findings: Cultural agency theory can be used to generate higher orders of cybernetics through principles of recursion, and hence to create a potential for the generation of families of new paradigms.

Keywords: Anticipating behaviour, complexity, generic modelling, cybernetic orders, paradigm, cultural agency theory, recursive models.