How Alchemy and Cybernetics Intertwine: a journey through self-transformation and system feedback

Explore the fascinating overlap between alchemy and cybernetics, two disciplines that shape our understanding of self-transformation and feedback systems.

Imagine watching a conversation between two friends who speak different languages, yet manage to understand each other through shared gestures and symbols. This is somewhat like the relationship between cybernetics and alchemy: two seemingly distant fields of knowledge that find a surprising harmony through common principles.

Cybernetics is a science that studies how machines, organisms, and social systems communicate and adapt through processes of control and feedback. In simpler terms, it seeks to understand how everything around us — from technology to human dynamics — organizes and self-regulates to maintain balance or adapt to change.

On the other hand, alchemy is not just the ancient practice of turning lead into gold but also a philosophy exploring the inner transformation of the soul and the human psyche. Carl Jung, one of the founders of modern psychology, described alchemy as a symbolic precursor to psychology, a way to represent the processes of spiritual growth and integration of our hidden psychological parts.

So, how do these two disciplines connect? Picture an ellipse with two focal points: one representing cybernetics, with its focus on external, technological systems, and the other representing alchemy, centered on the inner processes of the soul. At the center of the ellipse stands the observer — us — trying to find balance between the opposing forces of these two worlds.

In the short essay “Elliptical Conversation: Alchemy and Cybernetics,” Diego Fagundes da Silva outlines such intriguing relationship between alchemy and cybernetics, which he calls "elliptical conversation."

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The concept of an "elliptical dialogue" between cybernetics and alchemy described by the author offers an insightful framework for understanding the complexity of our world and the pivotal role we play in our own lives, and by extension, in the collective. In simpler terms, it can serve as an operational framework for a self-initiation path into the Digital Age.

Fagundes notes that alchemy and cybernetics can be connected through a kind of conversational model. However, to grasp this relationship, one must first understand what the author means by "conversation" or "conversational model." This theme has already been explored by various cybernetic thinkers, such as Gordon Pask.

Communication and Conversation

For Pask, communication is a linear, transmissive process where information is simply sent from a sender to a receiver. It is a transfer of information (or bits) that does not alter or transform the cognitive structures of the participants.

Conversely, conversation is an interactive process that, beyond the transfer of information, involves mutual learning — often conflictual — where the entities involved influence each other. In conversation, or dialogue, there is a feedback mechanism that allows the participants to co-construct meaning and adapt over time.

Essentially, one could say that conversation between parts of a complex system — through feedback and continuous adaptation — is one of the elements of cybernetics. If cybernetics is the study of how various parts of a system (machines, humans, societies) interact and integrate, alchemy similarly studies how different parts of a human being (psyche, soul, collective archetypes) interact and integrate.