Systems, Games, and the Player: Did We Manage to Become Human?

The essay is part of an overall effort to translate the traditions of German idealism and contemporary systems theory into a discourse infused by the rhetoric and operations of cybernetics. This is a step best tracked explicitly. The language of open as opposed to closed systems, feedback loops, autopoeisis, turbulence, chaos, and gaming not only characterizes a vast amount of the scientific and cultural programming taking place today; it is a rhetoric with deep roots in the traditions of critical theory, hermeneutics, and language-intensive philosophy. With reference above all to Kant, Hegel, Walter Benjamin, James Gleick, Fritjof Capra, Anthony Wilden, and Niklas Luhmann.