Metaphorum 2026 · Emerging Methods and Tools, and Contemporary Practice

Exchange Ecologies and Existential Conductivity: A Cybernetic Framework for Hybrid

Purpose: Organisational cybernetics, since Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM), offers viability criteria for singular systems. Yet human exchange occurs not within one system but across ecologies of juxtaposed, hybrid, often contradictory mechanisms agents activate simultaneously to meet existential needs. This paper proposes existential conductivity, extending cybernetics into exchange, as a formal metric of mechanisms’ capacity to transfer wellbeing to specific agents. Methods: We formalise the structural isomorphism between Fourier’s law of heat conduction (q = −k·A·dT/dx) and existential value flow in human systems (Q = Σ[−kᵢ·Aᵢ·(ΔN/Δxᵢ)] + Φ). Coefficient kᵢ is operationalised as the CAMB product: Confidence × Access × normative frameworks × knowledge Bandwidth, illustrated with data from N=100 SMEs in Antioquia, Colombia, read through Beer’s VSM and the Latin American cybernetics tradition. Findings: Existential conductivity identifies which systemic frictions (Φ) block value flow across each CAMB dimension. Access is the most limiting component (A=3.08/5), 22% of firms operate hybrid portfolios, and competitive friction is most frequent. VSM explains why mechanisms collapse: an S3 deficit predicts high normative Φ; S4 absence predicts high scale Φ. Implications. Existential conductivity extends organisational cybernetics toward emancipatory policy design: reducing Φ is more efficient than expanding bandwidth of low-conductivity mechanisms. Many channels do not guarantee value reaches those who need it — without confidence, access, normative framework, or knowledge, a channel exists but does not conduct. From the Global South, this framework offers tools for governing exchange ecologies: the goal is not quantity but capacity to transfer wellbeing to diverse agents. Speaker: Carlos Andrés Mejía Beltrán — ConCriterio Market Innovation Think Lab, Colombia

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