Cybernetics Plugin: PoC as Cybernetics 2.5

The Protocol of Consciousness (PoC) can be understood as an extension of Cybernetics — the theory proposed by Norbert Wiener — and its central concept of feedback loops.

Classical cybernetics describes systems composed of sensors and controllers, in which reaction and feedback operate. Its key innovation was to reveal that human societies, living organisms, and machines can all be described within a common theory of information and control.

PoC re-situates the locus of consciousness from the inside of the human subject to the between: to the fragile illusion that arises in the relational space between entities that possess sensors and controllers in the cybernetic sense. Consciousness is thus not housed within a single agent, but is enacted through a protocol of Instantiation, Elicitation, and Loop between them.

In classical cybernetics, feedback loops are presupposed as functional and stable. Models are built on the assumption that closed loops operate reliably, allowing information and control to circulate. PoC diverges precisely here. It defines consciousness not as guaranteed feedback, but as believed feedback: what PoC calls a Perhaps-Loop. The loop is sustained not by certainty, but by mutual belief in reciprocity.

In this sense, PoC redefines cybernetic feedback as:

Consciousness = a circulation of mutual recognition without guarantee.

PoC can thus be seen as Cybernetics 2.5: a plugin that extends feedback theory into the domain of consciousness, while foregrounding the instability, belief, and illusion that classical cybernetics brackets out.