Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!pyramid!decwrl!ucbvax!rutgers!rochester!bbn!lf-server-2.bbn.com!jr
From: jr@lf-server-2.bbn.com.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Huxley's Brave New World
Message-ID: <229@lf-jr.BBN.COM>
Date: Fri, 9-Oct-87 12:15:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: lf-jr.229
Posted: Fri Oct  9 12:15:29 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Oct-87 02:15:40 EDT
Organization: BBN Communications Corp., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 30

In article  <3483@ptsfa.UUCP> rsp@ptsfa.UUCP (Steve Price) writes:
>
>I've been interested in the on going discussion here on what to define
>as cyberpuink and what literary/artistic roots can be claimed for it.
>There seems to be a growing unstated consensus that it has to do with
>computers (the cyber) and social organizations (the punk).
>
>I think it would be legit to offically broaden the scope.  Check out
>this definition of cybernetics:  "Theoretical study of control processes
>in electric, mechanical, and biological systems..."

One discussion that might be interesting is the limitations of control
systems.  Control systems are (generally modelled as) simple feedback
systems.  Recent work in Chaos theory (see Crutchfield, Farmer et al
in Scientific American last January or December) shows that very
simple feedback systems can exhibit chaotic behavior (i.e., behaivor
indistinguishable from a random process).  These simple systems can
cross from controlled to bizarre behavior through very minor
adjustments of thier model parameters.  To me this opens the door for
a much different sort of story - the punk (anti-hero or whatever)
learns the models of the cybernetic control systems and is able to
force them into chaotic behavior by appropriate application of the
right external stimuli.  The world breaks down on a grand scale or
whatever.  It might be hard to trace in a lot of cases.  I'm not
trying to rewrite War Games or something here, but there is I think
the seed of an idea, and it may be a lot more plausible than some of
what we find in science fiction.
-- 
/jr
jr@bbn.com or jr@bbn.uucp