What is it about?
Gregory Bateson's Cybernetic Explanation (1967) is widely recognized for introducing feedback loops, recursion, and information as difference to the study of mind and systemic processes. While his work transformed systems thinking, it largely treats cognition as a neutral flow of information and leaves ethical accountability unaddressed. My review critically examines Bateson's framework through Indigenous Hawaiian epistemologies, which integrate relational responsibility and ethical stewardship into systemic thinking. Hawaiian concepts such as pilina (relationship), mana (spiritual energy), and kuleana (responsibility) show that knowledge is not merely transmitted or processed. It is enacted within obligations to family, community, and land. These epistemologies already operate within recursive and feedback-informed systems but embed care and ethical engagement as structural necessities, extending Bateson's cybernetic model beyond abstraction. Through detailed analysis, I demonstrate how cybernetics can be enriched by Indigenous knowledge to account for relational and ethical imperatives. Bateson's principles of circular causality, mind-in-systems, and adaptive feedback remain foundational. Without an ethical dimension, systemic thinking risks being descriptive rather than prescriptive. My work shows that incorporating lived, culturally rooted responsibilities into systemic models allows for a more holistic understanding of cognition, adaptation, and relational dynamics. This review does not reject Bateson's cybernetics. Instead, it reorients its application toward frameworks that are culturally grounded, ethically accountable, and relationally embedded. By foregrounding Indigenous epistemologies, systemic theory can evolve from neutral informational flows to adaptive processes that honor care, reciprocity, and communal sustainability. This makes cybernetic thinking more relevant, responsible, and applicable in real-world systems.
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Why is it important?
This review is unique and timely because it bridges classical cybernetic theory with Indigenous Hawaiian knowledge, showing how systemic models gain ethical depth and relational rigor when epistemic diversity is included. My analysis situates Bateson's work within both a conceptual and cultural framework, showing where cybernetics aligns with Indigenous relational principles and where it requires extension. By emphasizing responsibility-bound knowledge and ethical stewardship, this work provides insights for scholars, therapists, and system thinkers seeking culturally grounded, ethically informed models of systemic cognition and adaptive processes.
Perspectives
As someone who has long studied systemic theory and Indigenous epistemologies, I approach Bateson’s Cybernetic Explanation with both deep respect and critical attention. His conceptualization of mind as distributed across relational networks remains foundational for understanding systems, feedback, and recursion. At the same time, I recognize that cybernetics as Bateson formulated it is structurally incomplete. It accounts for how information flows but does not engage the ethical obligations that are central to relational life. Drawing on Indigenous Hawaiian epistemologies, I argue that knowledge is inseparable from responsibility. Concepts such as pilina, mana, and kuleana illustrate that cognition is enacted through care, reciprocity, and communal stewardship. These perspectives already operate within recursive and feedback-informed systems, but they embed relational and ethical accountability as foundational rather than optional. My review situates Bateson’s ideas in dialogue with these traditions to show that systemic thinking reaches its fullest potential when it acknowledges and enacts responsibility-bound knowledge transmission. In my professional practice and scholarship, I have seen how systemic models without ethical grounding can remain abstract, while models informed by relational accountability produce richer, more sustainable outcomes. By highlighting the connections between cybernetic principles and Indigenous epistemologies, I hope to encourage system theorists, therapists, and scholars to move beyond purely descriptive models and toward frameworks that integrate care, cultural grounding, and ethical responsibility. This perspective reflects my commitment to advancing systemic theory in ways that are rigorous, culturally attuned, and practically meaningful for those who navigate complex relational systems.
Assoc. Prof. Ezra N. S. Lockhart
National University
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This page is a summary of: Review of "Cybernetic Explanation", May 2025, ScienceOpen,
DOI: 10.14293/s2199-1006.1.sor-uncat.a90m9o.v1.rbtiia.
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