On Charles Musés
On Charles Musés
Ribert Vallée
Keywords: Cybernetics, Philosophy, Logic
AbstractConsiders the contribution of the late Charles Musès, a man of wide culture and intellect, to cybernetics and systems. Highlights his original mind and varied interests which included a deep insight into his favourite field of philosophy. Discusses his views of mathematical logic, the neuro-cognitive sciences as well as his main concern with "consciousness".
Charles Musès had a very original mind. A man of wide culture, he mastered perfectly both English and French and knew both literatures. His main interests concerned logic, mathematics, physics, biology, to quote only a few. They gave him deep insights in philosophy, a field he liked above all. Very naturally cybernetics and systems gave him the opportunity of many important reflections written in a bright style of his own, for example in his study of meaning (Kybernetes, Vol. 19, No. 5, 1990, pp. 15-17) and of complexity (Kybernetes,Vol. 29, Nos 5/6, 2000, pp. 612-637). In many domains, he gave an important place to the historical point of view, looking often for forgotten or concealed,anteriorities as he did in a paper on Coxeter's polytopes (Kybernetes,Vol. 25, No. 5, 1996, pp. 48-52) or introducing a cybernetics of history aiming at the optimal development of human societies (Kybernetes, Vol. 20, No. 6, 1991, pp. 57-67).
He criticized mathematical logic as formalized by Russell and Whitehead (Kybernetes,Vol. 24, No. 4, 1995, pp. 33-45) and proposed views on set theory (Kybernetes,Vol. 22, No. 6, 1993, pp. 91-99). The role of feedback in cybernetics appeared to him as a way to correct the dangerous consequences of the use of logic starting with omissive premises acting as a blind spot (Kybernetes, Vol. 24, No. 7, 1995, pp. 6-20). Recognition of this so frequent cause of failure as well as the role played by the neglect of subjectivity, values and motives,would be a progress in the domain of action, close to cybernetics which he considered, among other points of view, as a science of consequences, linked to what we call "epistemo-praxiology" (Kybernetes, Vol. 26, No. 8, 1997, pp. 936-938).
Neuro-cognitive sciences attracted his interest. He proposed, before K. Pibram, the brain function as holographic (Kybernetes, Vol. 27, No. 1,1998, pp. 26-28). He also had an interest in what he called cybernetic music and conformal harmonics with analogies between music scales and sphere packings (Kybernetes,Vol. 23, No. 6-7, 1994, pp. 111-122). But his main concern in this field was"consciousness". He pointed out the difficulties encountered in neo-Darwinism,mechanical explanations and the concept of emergence (Kybernetes, Vol. 25, Nos 7/8, 1996, pp. 109-129).
Charles Musès' approach to problems was unconventional. He devoted much of his efforts to the most fundamental questions of cybernetics and systems seen with the eyes of a mathematician and philosopher.
Editor's note
The Special Double Issue of Kybernetes "Charles Musès in memoriam"was published in 2002 – Kybernetes Vol. 31, Nos 7/8. pp. 941-1177.
