Introduction

Intelligence broadly speaking relates to viability and performance, despite different perspectives distributed across different fields of study and paradigms. Intelligence in individuals/collectives implies individual/collective minds and individual/collective consciousness (Haslam & Baron, 1994; Yolles, 2009b). In social theory there is a consistent endeavour to relate organization and individual theory together, synergizing and harmonizing apparently distinct terms of reference (Bridges, 1992; Boje, 2004). Perhaps more well-known is the work of Kets de Vries (1991) who adopts a Freudian (1962) view of dysfunctional and neurotic organizations. Agencies can develop feelings of guilt, adopt collective psychological defences that reduce pain through denial and cover-up, and operate through processes of power that might be unproductive. Yolles (2008) refers to the collective psyche of a social agency, which behave consistently and have an explainable rationality. The social agency may behave independently from the individuals that compose it because of the cultural normative anchors that constrain social behaviour, which may not be the same as individual idiosyncratic anchors, as illustrated by the literature on Strategic Groups (Fiegenbaum & Thomas, 1995) and Herding (Welch, 2000; Hirshleifer & Teoh 2003).

If the notion of intelligence is to have broad validity it should be generic and thus needs to be defined in a way that can have relevance across different fields of interest. To do this effectively a meta-framework is required. As indicated in the preface to this book, a meta-framework is capable of reflecting a ‘theory of meaning’ (Oakley, 2004) through its meta-theory, enabling it to respond to both theory-doctrine and problem-based issues. The interest in cybernetics is that, unlike most other fields from which a meta-framework can arise, it is interdisciplinary and concerned with the control and communication features of coherently controlled (systemic) structures and their regulation that are essential to all social contexts. It is in particular concerned with ‘circular causality’, illustrated by the action of a system in an environment that causes change. That change is manifested in the system through information feedback, which in turn can affect the way the system then behaves. In a meta-framework, theories may be seen as being either oriented towards theory doctrine, or more pragmatic problem-based issues (Jokisch, 2001; Oakley, 2004).