Author: Editors ,
Date : Jan 22, 1996 (modified); Jul 8, 1993 (created)
Welcome to the Principia Cybernetica Web
This is the WWW server of the Principia Cybernetica Project (PCP), an international organization. The Project's aim is the computer-supported collaborative development of an evolutionary-systemic philosophy. Put more simply, PCP tries to tackle age-old philosophical questions with the help of the most recent cybernetic theories and technologies.
To get started, there is an introduction which gives background and motivation of the project (especially for new readers), and an
overview which provides a formal summary of the project as a whole.
News: the final selection of papers to be presented at our next Symposium on "Theories and Metaphors of Cyberspace" (Vienna, April 1996) is now available.
Main subjects
- MetaSystem Transition Theory
- this is what we call the evolutionary world-view which PCP is developing. This node links to the major theoretical results of PCP.
- Project Organization
- details the practical methods and tools used by PCP.
- Cybernetics and Systems Theory
- a collection of background material on this domain, including a Glossary of terms.
- Related servers
- an extensive list of other Internet resources covering systems, cybernetics, complexity, man-machine interaction, cognition, philosophy, evolution, networking, knowledge integration, and future developments.
Navigation aids
There are over 800 "nodes" (hyperdocuments), lots of text files and many different kinds of information available in Principia Cybernetica Web. The following guides may help you to quickly find your way around:
- Recent changes
- "What's new" on this server
- Searchable index
- keyword search of all documents (titles and full-text).
- Table of contents
- a long hierarchical outline, which provides a "standard ordering" through the material.
- "Hit parade"
- nodes ordered according to popularity, and other usage statistics for the server (not up-to-date).
- Map
- the picture below is a clickable map of the most important nodes of the PCP hierarchy.
About the Web
Although Principia Cybernetica Web is getting many positive reviews, the work is of course never finished. The material in this web is continuously being added to and improved. Nodes followed by the mention "[empty]" don't contain any text yet, only a menu of linked nodes. Some important results have not yet been converted to hypertext, but may be found in the papers in our FTP-archive.
Comments about content and presentation of the information are appreciated. If you have any technical problems, questions or suggestions on our Web, please contact the "Webmaster", Francis Heylighen (fheyligh@vnet3.vub.ac.be). Comments about the content of a node can be addressed to its author(s). You can also directly annotate each node separately, or add general comments to the User Annotations.
We apologize for possible difficulties you might have in getting files from this server: Internet connections between Belgium and especially America are often overloaded. Try to avoid the most busy periods: 15.00 to 0.00 hrs (European time), i.e. 9.00 to 18.00 (US East Coast) or 6.00 to 15.00 (US West Coast), on weekdays. We would like to establish a mirror site in the US in order to avoid this problem in the future: proposals welcome! At present we only have a Belgian back-up FTP-server with WWW documents at ftp.vub.ac.be for emergencies, but it is not kept up-to-date.
If you plan to regularly consult this server, you might keep a copy of this home page on your own computer. These servers are part of the network of the Free University of Brussels.
Child Nodes:
URL= http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html
