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#72 Noah Komnick on Cybernetics and the Age of Complexity

The Cognitive Crucible

Release Date: 11/30/2021

#229 David Cook on Digital Discipline show art #229 David Cook on Digital Discipline

The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, David Cook discusses his recent article: . In addition to digital discipline in a national security context, David discusses cyber  and AI threats and practical mitigation practices that private sector companies and citizens should be aware of.  Recording Date: 19 Aug 2025...

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#228 Torvald Ask on the UnCODE System show art #228 Torvald Ask on the UnCODE System

The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Torvald Ask discusses his 2023 co-authored paper: The UnCODE System: A Neurocentric Systems Approach for Classifying the Goals and Methods of Cognitive Warfare. The UnCODE System is an accessible and a practical tool for understanding and addressing cognitive warfare goals....

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The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Matthew Canham discusses agentic AI's potential to boost productivity by automating tasks and its anticipated influence on user interfaces, potentially creating new security vulnerabilities and opportunities for user manipulation. Matthew emphasized the importance of robust security...

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#225 Austin Branch, Dave Pitts, and Joe Miller on Cognitive Warfare and the Gray Zone show art #225 Austin Branch, Dave Pitts, and Joe Miller on Cognitive Warfare and the Gray Zone

The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Austin Branch, Dave Pitts, and Joe Miller discuss cognitive warfare, the gray zone, and intensifying great power competition. The ultimate goal is to compete by gaining and maintaining information advantage without kinetic fighting. Recording Date: 28 Apr  2025 Research...

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#224 Jake Bebber on Cognitive Warfare show art #224 Jake Bebber on Cognitive Warfare

The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Jake Bebber discusses his work related to the concept, challenges, and potential responses to cognitive warfare. Jake explains how cognitive warfare uses technology to manipulate cognition and behavior, emphasizing its distinction from traditional information warfare and its...

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The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Paul Buvarp contrasts disinformation as a human demand-side problem with the typical supply-side perspective. Additional discussion threads include thinking about online and real-world environments as differently as forests and tropical environments are different, how young people...

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The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, JD Maddox discusses new influence opportunities borne out of necessity. JD suggests that listeners consider radical-sounding concepts for, such as letters of marque, indemnification, task-based organization, public-private operations, and new authorities as viable influence pathways...

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The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Carrick Longley discusses Large Language Models (LLM) and influence. Key topics include: LLM 101 Usage and changes in prompt engineering Improving influence resonance and speed The recent DeepSeek model controversy Bias in foundational models and Software development Recording...

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The Cognitive Crucible

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Tom Kent returns to the Cognitive Crucible to share his concerns related to the United States recent withdrawal from international broadcasting. Topics include: US soft power, abandoning pro-democracy initiatives, impact on international relations, international broadcasting...

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The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association.

During this episode, Noah Komnick discusses his award-winning thought leadership and writings related to complexity and cybernetics. Before retiring from the Marine Corps, Noah received an “outside the box” innovation award from the Secretary of the Navy for his Reaction Control philosophy, which he implemented in the 2018 timeframe while commanding Marine Wing Communications Squadron 38. His present work and PhD research is about building defendable organizations for the "Age of Complexity.”

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-72

Guest BioNoah Komnick is the CEO and founder of Seneka. Seneka partners with select private and public entities to design and develop defendable enterprises and communities. Noah is also a retired U.S. Marine officer. As an active-duty Marine, he was a career communication and information systems officer, a strategic-operational planner, and a communications squadron commander. His operational tours included duties with infantry, force reconnaissance, aviation, and expeditionary units. He was also an Associate Professor of Naval Science at both Northwestern University and Illinois Institute of Technology. Just prior to his retirement from the Marine Corps, Noah served as a cyber strategist for the nation’s Cyberspace Solarium Commission and U.S. Cyber Command. Additionally, he is the creator of Reaction Control (a self-regulating process to improve Marines’ mental fitness for combat) and Neostrategy (a new paradigm for achieving objectives in complex systems). Reaction Control received innovation awards from the Commandant of the Marine Corps and Secretary of the Navy in 2016, while Neostrategy publicly debuted at the International Conference on Complex Systems in 2018. Currently, Noah is a PhD candidate with Capitol Technology University where his interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersection of cybernetics, complexity science, and sociobiology as applied to organizational design. As a lifelong learner, Noah has masters’ degrees in National Security & Strategy (from the U.S. Naval War College), Operational Studies (from the School of Advanced Warfighting at Marine Corps University), Business Administration (from the University of Rhode Island), and a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering (from Illinois Institute of Technology). He is a member of the American Cybernetics Society and the Operational Research Society.

About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain.

For more information, please contact us at [email protected].

Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.