Utility is a metaphysical concept of impregnable circularity; utility is the quality in commodities that makes individuals want to buy them, and the fact that individuals want to buy commodities shows that they have utility.
Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity.
The banks lobbied Washington so they could write the rules that got us into this crisis. They then lobbied Washington to get the money to bail them out. And then they are lobbying Washington to write the rules so they can get us into the next crisis. It's perfect circularity.
Overemphasis of efficiency leads to an unfortunate circularity in design: for reasons of efficiency early programming languages reflected the characteristics of the early computers, and each generation of computers reflects the needs of the programming languages of the preceding generation.
For you, a thousand times over
The charge that the construction of the geologic scale involves circularity has a certain amount of validity. . . . Thus, the procedure is far from ideal and the geologic ranges are constantly being revised (usually extended) as new occurrences are found.
