Holons on the Horizon: Re-Understanding Automation and Control

Abstract

In Re-Understanding Automation and Control in the era of digital automation of societal systems, we need to understand the inter-connected relations between knowledge, culture, technology and society. This in turn demands the exploration of social and cultural architectures, which facilitate them. Whilst computational model of data systems is built upon the bottom-up architecture, it is the top-down architecture of social and cultural contexts that synchronises the processing and outcomes of data systems, may they relate to organisational systems, heath and welfare systems, or institutional systems. It is this notion of the inter-dependence of the bottom-up and top-down architectures that makes us act beyond the linear gaze worldview of automation and control of production systems, and explore the multiplicity of interconnections between and across societal systems. In these horizons, we see the inter-connectedness between the unit and the whole, between the horizontal and vertical, and a symbiosis of hand and brain- an augmentation of the human and the machine. The ideas of inter-connectedness, augmentation and symbiosis lie at the core of holonic horizons. These horizons allow us to transcend the limit of the calculation and control model of automation, and enable the design of human-centred systems that valorise differences whilst utilising the richness and diversity of human-machine collaborations. When we envision these interactions and collaborations as a systems developmental process, we begin to visualise systems design from an interdependent perspective, which goes beyond the linear gaze of “utility”. The paper explores the ways holonic architectures engage us in the design process.