[1]Principia Cybernetica Web

                    Reviews of Principia Cybernetica Web by others

   The Principia Cybernetica Web is being linked to by more and more other web
   pages. You can get a [externallink.GIF] [2]partial list of the thousands of sites
   linking to PCP Web from the AltaVista catalog. The following quotations give a
   good idea of how Principia Cybernetica Web is perceived by others. I have
   separated "personal" comments (made in various places linking to PCP Web because
   they find the subject interesting) from "professional reviews" by various web
   surveying service, which are not a priori interested in the subject, but try to
   evaluate PCP web for the "general reader" who is unlikely to know anything about
   cybernetics. Other evaluations can be found in the [3]review in Wired magazine,
   and the [4]nomination for the Best of the Web Awards.

Personal appreciation

     "Bow down before Principia Cybernetica, perhaps the most extensive single
     Complexity resource on the Web. Go here and you may never return". (
     [externallink.GIF] [5]PCC- Complexity Theory Resources)

     "Principia Cybernetica Project. Philosophy on the Net. As only could be done
     on the Net. This is complex but amazing". ( [externallink.GIF] [6]Cool links)

     "an excellent resource for cybernetics, systems theory, and other disciplines
     often mentioned in Neuro-Linguistic Programming circles" ([7]Neuro-Linguistic
     Programming and Design Human Engineering )

     "The most impressive Cybernetics resource I've ever seen". ([8]Intelligent
     Systems )

     "An extraordinary experience of collective creation on the Web : an
     international group of research scientists is writing an hypertext on the
     global brain created by the interconnection of men, computers and network. A
     quantum leap into the third millenium". ( [externallink.GIF] [9]Joël de
     Rosnay's list of Web Future Sites)

     "This rich and complex site investigates systems science and cybernetics in an
     attempt to integrate technology into an organized philosophy. The site
     solicits contributions on cybernetic epistemology, process metaphysics and
     even asks and discusses the meaning of life! This is a thought-provoking,
     challenging yet quite lucid source of information". ( [externallink.GIF]
     [10]TeachersFirst Content Matrix)

     "An extraordinarily interesting site about evolution, cybernetics and
     philosophy". ( [externallink.GIF] [11]Evolution Resources on the Internet)

     "This "Universal Knowledge System for Cybernetics and Systems Science"--put
     together by Belgium's Dr. Francis Heylighen with a prestigious international
     team--is a wonderland in which you could wander for months. It covers memes,
     genes, evolution, the global brain, epistemology, metaphysics, ontology, "the
     meaning of life," and nearly every conceptual cutting edge". (
     [externallink.GIF] [12]Howard Bloom's list of related links).

     "... for easy to understand definitions of cybernetics and virtual reality" (
     [externallink.GIF] [13]Virtual Reality Research)

     "an excellent resource for systems science. " ( [externallink.GIF] [14]Jon
     Wallis' Home Page)

     "The stated goal of the Principia Cybernetica Project is to link all of
     Mankind's knowledge... have to give them credit for ambition". (
     [externallink.GIF] [15]Recommended Internet Resources)

     "An intriguing place" ( [externallink.GIF]
     [16]http://www.honors.indiana.edu/docs/interest.html)

     "Everything you ever wanted to know about systems and cybernetics".(
     [externallink.GIF] [17]Web Sites With Information on Systems Science Topics)

     "congratulations on a job well-done, both in initiating Principia Cybernetica
     in the first place, and also in implementing the Principia Cybernetica Web,
     which is a rare and rich site on the Net". ([18]Arkuat's comments on PCP )

     "...and finally, the ultimate...
     Principia Cybernetica" (Onar Aam's ; [externallink.GIF] [19]Related Servers
     page)

     "An extremely sensible philosophy. The next step in human evolution!" (
     [externallink.GIF] [20]Expanding Your Consciousness )

     " For some theoretical background try [...] the Principia Cybernetica Web
     which will stretch your mind a little" ( [externallink.GIF] [21]Media lab).

     "an excellent site" ( [externallink.GIF] [22]Wiener: ideas)

     " This is a remarkable site: Systems Science, Feedback Loops, etc. It's a very
     busy site, so be patient and keep trying". ( [externallink.GIF] [23]Quality
     related Information Sources)

     " More than you can ever learn on cybernetics and related issues - the Website
     is overwhelming! ( [externallink.GIF] [24]Frontier organizations on the Web)

     "The Principia Cybernetica site is the largest Web 'nexus' on cybernetics and
     general systems theory".( [externallink.GIF] [25]Guide to Autopoiesis related
     Internet Resources)

     "a fascinating collection of indexes and links on a diverse range of topics
     collateral to Gestalt and Systems conceptualization" ( [externallink.GIF]
     [26]Psychology and Psychotherapy sources)

     "[...]This is a very worthy project. It is attempting a task that must be
     done; a task essential for the advancement of mankind's knowledge, and hence
     the advancement of mankind itself. However, if PCP has a flaw, it is that the
     work maintains a somewhat narrow, academic context". [...and more
     [externallink.GIF] [27]Comments on the Principia Cybernetica Project]

     " a massive and ambitious site that covers such things as the Social Dilemmas,
     Memes, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Psychology, Communications, Computers,
     etc., etc. The table of contents is overwhelming, although probably most items
     are empty at this time. It appears that it will take years to finish this
     project! "( [externallink.GIF] [28]The Social Dilemmas)

     " much more than an introduction to systems theory; it is more like an online
     course!" ( [externallink.GIF] [29]KAM resources)"

     "Vast site of information on cybernetics and many related areas of science
     including open systems, chaos, evolution, artificial intelligence. A really
     good site for scientifically based philosophical thinking. The site
     articulates an integrative and comprehensive theoretical approach to
     understanding humanity, the universe, and existence. Relevant to the
     philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, contemporary scientific
     thought, the future, and general contemporary intellectual thought. One of the
     best sites on philosophy and science. "( [externallink.GIF] [30]Philosophy WWW
     Bibliography)

     "another handy link; although the contents are overly cosmic/far-out in
     places, there's loads of interesting and well-written stuff available there".
     [externallink.GIF] [31](Sites related to Life science site)

     "Un extraordinario proyecto que prentende lograr las respuestas a las
     preguntas fundamentales del ser humano a traves de la inteligencia
     artificial".( [externallink.GIF] [32]Teor*ias Generales de Avanzada)

     "By now the alarm was permanently set at 4:30 am but Timothy Alan Hall never
     heard it. He had rewired the little clock radio to activate an ancient
     reel-to-reel recorder on the other side of the trailer, hooked up an equally
     old set of theatre speakers and had it rigged to play his tape recording of a
     vintage 8086 computer booting up off dual floppies, grinding into first gear
     with a seriously irritating reminder of days long gone.[...] Tim was perfectly
     aware of the existence of memetic evolution, an obvious competition going on
     between genes and memes and his favorite web site was [33]Principia
     Cybernetica which he studied when time permitted. The various philosophical
     subjects and New Agey topics failed to hold his interest for long but the
     truth was that memes did exist, were powerfully motivated and his own life had
     been changing positively because of them. The truth was inescapable".(
     [externallink.GIF] [34]TRAP CITY: A Serial Story)

Reviews by web services

     "What can artificial systems tell us about the meaning of life? What are we
     doing here anyway? These are some of the questions tackled on the PCP's Web
     server at the Free University of Brussels". ( [externallink.GIF] [35]Global
     Network Navigator)

     "The cool, the innovative, the excellent - they're all here in our gallery of
     Internet resources that exemplify the pioneering spirit of the Internet. These
     are the pages we like this week: December 30, 1994 to January 5, 1995.
     Academia: [36]Cybernetics and Systems Theory" ( [externallink.GIF]
     [37]Netscape's "What's Cool" list)

     [38]NetGuide Platinum Site "A platinum site: Overall Rating: 5 stars (out of
     5), content: 5 stars, presentation: 4 stars, personality: 4 stars
     The Principia Cybernetica Project brings together a number of scholars from
     around the globe to tackle age-old philosophical problems with the aid of
     modern cybernetic theories and technologies. If cyberphilosophy is your forte,
     you can delve into subtopics that include ethics, metaphysics, ontology, and
     many other disciplines identified by long words. Even people with less arcane
     interests will find the Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems useful". (
     [externallink.GIF] [39]NETGUIDE'S BEST OF THE WEB, details on PCP site)

     "A 3 star site. Rating Summary:
     Net Appeal: 8 [out of 10], Depth of Coverage: 8, Ease of Exploration: 8
     Audience: Philosophers, Evolutionists, System Theorists
     Description: The Principia Cybernetica Web is the home of a project that
     promotes the computer-supported collaborative development of an
     evolutionary-systemic philosophy. This project tackles philosophical questions
     with the help of cybernetic theories and technologies. Visitors to the site
     will find an overview of the plan and details of its metasystem transition
     theory, among others". ( [externallink.GIF] [40]Magellan's ;
     [externallink.GIF] [41]review of the PCP site)

     Selected by PC Webopaedia Congratulations. The following URL at your site has
     been selected to be included in the  [externallink.GIF] [42]PC Webopaedia:
     http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/CYBSYSTH.html

     "Content: 41/50, Presentation: 34/50, Experience: 35/50
     The Principia Cybernetica Project is an in-depth look at the whole of
     philosophical thought, and it's not for armchair thinkers. Using a system of
     "nodes," it attempts to fill in the whole of human philosophical thought, from
     ethics to physics to evolutionary theory. In its complete form, the authors
     maintain it will give you the answer to basic questions like "Who am I? Why am
     I here?" It's quite involving, though occasionally we'd be happy with the
     answer to "What the heck does this mean?" on some of these pages. " (
     [externallink.GIF] [43]Point's review of the PCP site)

       Key Resource Congratulations! Your page: http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/ has been
     selected to receive a  [externallink.GIF] [44]Links2Go Key Resource award in
     the Philosophy topic. The Links2Go Key Resource award is both exclusive and
     objective. Fewer than one page in one thousand will ever be selected for
     inclusion. Further, unlike most awards that rely on the subjective opinion of
     "experts," many of whom have only looked at tens or hundreds of thousands of
     pages in bestowing their awards, the Links2Go Key Resource award is completely
     objective and is based on an analysis of millions of web pages. During the
     course of our analysis, we identify which links are most representative of
     each of the thousands of topics in Links2Go, based on how actual page authors,
     like yourself, index and organize links on their pages.

     [45]StudyWeb Award Your website, http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html, has
     been selected as a featured site in StudyWeb as one of the best educational
     resources on the Web by our researchers. ( [externallink.GIF] [46]StudyWeb)

     Date Reviewed: April 24,1997
     This academic and technical site dates back to the beginning of the WWW and is
     hosted by the Principia Cybernetica Project (PCP), an international
     organization. Principia Cybernetica Web is one of the oldest (registered July
     1993), best organized, and largest, fully connected hypertexts on the Net. It
     contains over 1300 hypertext pages.
     Content: 4 Ages: Adult
     Depth: 5 Ease of Use: 4
     Amount of Graphics: 2 Quality of Graphics: 3
     Objectivity: 4 Timeliness: 4 ( [externallink.GIF] [47]Soundprint Science
     Scouts in Cyberspace)

     [lback1.gif] "Links 'ground-zero' for industrial/cyber-culture and memetics.
     Excellent introductory point to memetics resources on the web. Developed by
     Belgium's Dr. Francis Heylighen and his international team, this 'Universal
     Knowledge System for Cybernetics and Systems Science' also covers genes,
     evolution, the global brain, epistemology, metaphysics, and other cutting
     edges of conceptual and cultural development".
     " Congratulations: the editors of Disinformation (www.disinfo.com) have chosen
     your Web site for the Disinformation Subversive Site Award! We have linked to
     your site in Disinformation's Memetics dossier as one of the most informative
     sites on that topic. Since 1996 Disinformation has been the Web's leading
     source for news, information and opinions that the establishment media prefers
     to ignore or suppress.". ( [externallink.GIF] [48]Disinformation)

     [alba36FeaturedLink.GIF]

     "You are publishing important, high-quality material on the Web. For this
     reason, ISI has selected [49]your site for inclusion in [externallink.GIF]
     [50]Current Web Contents , a new section of Current Contents Connect TM (CC
     Connect TM ). [externallink.GIF] [51]CC Connect offers Web access to Current
     Contents, the ISI premier current awareness database that provides information
     in the fields of science, social science, technology, and the arts &
     humanities. For more than 40 years, ISI has delivered this multidisciplinary
     table-of-contents database to researchers, scientists and information
     professionals around the world. Since its inception, this journal-based
     resource has reflected the strict guidelines for selection developed by the
     ISI Editorial Development Staff. The result is the most prestigious database
     available internationally.
     [ISIlogo.GIF] High standards of selection -- and data quality -- have made ISI
     a leader in the information industry.
     ISI has now applied similarly high [externallink.GIF] [52]selection standards
     , specialized to the medium, in the creation of Current Web Contents, an
     ever-growing collection of high-quality, scholarly Web sites. ISI editors have
     visited your site, reviewed it, developed a standardized descriptive record,
     written an abstract and created a link from CC Connect to your site".

     An Emerald Coolsite
     " Congratulations on being awarded five stars by Emerald Abstracts Computing
     Coolsites, our indexed reviews of the best of the Web. Only exceptional sites
     are included in Coolsites and are eligible to display this award".
     "... although we often refer here to the standard academic style and note that
     the content is more important than the page design in many cases, this site
     shows that even academic information can be attractively designed. So, this
     site is worth visiting, not only as an introduction to cybernetics, but also
     as an exemplar of how academic sites can be designed" (from the
     [externallink.GIF] [53]Emerald Review)"
     ____________________________________________________________________________

   [54]Copyright© 2001 Principia Cybernetica - [55]Referencing this page

   Author
   F. [56]Heylighen,

   Date
   Nov 8, 2001 (modified)
   Jul 19, 1994 (created)

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References

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   3. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REVWIR.html
   4. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/BESWEB.html
   5. http://pcc.ciis.edu/complexity/complexity.html
   6. http://128.32.176.53/cool-links.html
   7. http://www.actwin.com/NLP/index.html
   8. http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~brendy/life_sys.html
   9. http://www.cite-sciences.fr/derosnay/e-index.html
  10. http://www.teachersfirst.com/cnt-sci-mh-f.htm
  11. http://weber.u.washington.edu/~clipo/evolution.html
  12. http://www.bookworld.com/lucifer/links.html
  13. http://pacific.st.usm.edu/~mnmiller/vr.html
  14. http://scitsc.wlv.ac.uk/~cm1906/index.html
  15. http://www.metronet.com/~tennant/resource.htm
  16. http://www.honors.indiana.edu/docs/interest.html
  17. http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~shervais/sysc/sysc.html
  18. http://www.c2.org/~arkuat/meme/prncyb.html
  19. http://www.hsr.no/~onar/Home/servers.html
  20. http://www.cris.com/~jgriggs/blasph/mind.html
  21. http://www.salsa.net/medialab.html
  22. http://www.well.com/user/mmcadams/wiener.html
  23. http://www.qualinet.com/isopage.htm
  24. http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/org.html
  25. http://www.informatik.umu.se/~rwhit/Guide.html
  26. http://www.europa.com/~brownell/psych_and_therapy.html
  27. http://www.zip.com.au/~guyd/pc_cmt.htm
  28. http://www.magnolia.net/~leonf/sd/sd.html
  29. http://www.lib.waldenu.edu/kamres.html
  30. http://www.rio.maricopa.edu/ci/riointernet/library/elib/reservephi.html
  31. http://nua-tech.com/paddy/links.shtml
  32. http://access.tasco.cl/~affs/stheories.html
  33. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html
  34. http://www.hooked.net/users/robotemp/
  35. http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/wic/comput.24.html
  36. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSYSTH.html
  37. http://home.mcom.com/home/whatscool/whats_cool_12.94.html
  38. http://www.netguide.com/
  39. http://www.netguide.com/server-java/NGPage/SearchBrowseResultsDetail-SiteApp.SiteID=3243
  40. http://www.mckinley.com/
  41. http://www.mckinley.com/idoc.pl-dhdf+unix+_free_user_+magellan.mckinley.com..80+magellan-dbgroup+magellan-dbgroup+magellan+magellan++Principia%26Cybernetica
  42. http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/
  43. http://point.lycos.com/reviews/database/1_11_066.html
  44. http://www.links2go.com/topic/Philosophy
  45. http://www.studyweb.com/
  46. http://www.studyweb.com/
  47. http://soundprint.org/science/cybsctpop.phtml
  48. http://www.disinfo.com/disinfo?p=folder&title=Memetic+Engineering
  49. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html
  50. http://www.isinet.com/isi/products/cc/cwc/webselect.html
  51. http://www.isinet.com/isi/products/cc/ccconnect/cccind.html
  52. http://www.isinet.com/isi/hot/essays/23.html
  53. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/abstracts/computing/coolsites/cme_reviews.htm#5FE
  54. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/COPYR.html
  55. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REFERPCP.html
  56. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
  57. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html
  58. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/INTRO.html
  59. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HISTORY.html
  60. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REACT.html
  61. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REVWIR.html
  62. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASSORGS.html
  63. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MAKANNOT.html
  64. http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/hypercard.acgi$annotform?

   Hidden links:
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[USEMAP]
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