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Cultural, scientific and technical antecedents of the Cybersyn project in Chile

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Abstract

The Cybersyn project has lately received increased attention. In this article, we study the local technical antecedents of Stafford Beer's Cybersyn project in Chile, particularly regarding Cybernetics and Systems ideas and local computing and networking developments. We show that the Cybersyn project in Chile was hosted by a rich intellectual environment that understood Cybernetics and Systems ideas; that it found a mature computer community and infrastructure whose high point was the State Computing Enterprise EMCO/ECOM, and an advanced networking experience whose flagship was the automation of the State Bank that involved a pioneering network of teleprocess. In summary, this paper attempts to unveil the deep historical background over which the globally unique cybernetic experiment called Cybersyn flourished.

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Notes

  1. Interestingly, both authors, reflecting on the birth of the idea two decades later, do not mention any local tradition or antecedent before the decade of 1960 that could have influenced their idea (Maturana and Varela 1994).

  2. It comes as no surprise that Maturana and Varela took up those Cybernetics and Systems ideas when approaching their project of defining life. As Varela recollects, “[I] discovered, thanks to Heinz von Foerster, the world of Cybernetics, models and systemic reflection. […] This was a particular way of thinking that emerged in the fifties, more clearly with the publication of the book Cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and under the influence of another great MIT person, Warren Mc Culloch, whom Humberto Maturana met in 1959–60 when he worked at MIT.” (Maturana and Varela 1994, p. 39).

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  1. Department of Computer Science, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Juan Alvarez & Claudio Gutierrez

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  1. Juan Alvarez
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  2. Claudio Gutierrez
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Correspondence to Juan Alvarez.

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Alvarez, J., Gutierrez, C. Cultural, scientific and technical antecedents of the Cybersyn project in Chile. AI & Soc 37, 1093–1103 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01343-5

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