Native American Cybernetics

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Native American Cybernetics: Indigenous Knowledge Resources in Information
Technology 
by  Ron Eglash

The term ?indigenous knowledge? usually refers to the understanding of
natural processes, such as ethnobotany or ethnomedicine. Yet Native
American knowledge systems include many aspects of contemporary information
technologies, and native communities have become increasingly adept in
appropriating computing and communication devices for their own use. I
refer to this complex of indigenous and appropriated information
technologies as Native American Cybernetics. The term ?cybernetics? was
coined by mathematician Norbert Wiener to describe his vision for a unified
science of control, communication, and computation in both natural and
artificial systems. Cybernetics is particularly appropriate for Native
American technological practices, in which the flow of information across
mental and material, natural and human, and mundane and spiritual domains
have been so important. 

--Sim-Sho-Ban (simulation of Shoshoni social ecology) 

--Computation, Complexity and Coding in Native American Knowledge Systems
(paper) 

--The Virtual Bead Loom (java simulation) 

http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/nacyb.htm

(also African fractals: http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/afractal.htm)

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org


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