David L. Abel, editor of The First Gene, explains in Chapter 3, “The Cybernetic Cut and Configurable Switch Bridge,”
ABSTRACT. The Cybernetic Cut delineates perhaps the most fundamental dichotomy of reality. The Cybernetic Cut is a vast ravine. The physicodynamics of physicality (“chance and necessity”) is on one side. On the other side lies the ability to choose with intent what aspects of ontological being will be preferred, pursued, selected, rearranged, integrated, organized, preserved, and used to achieve sophisticated function and utility (cybernetic formalism).
The Cybernetic Cut can be traversed across the Configurable Switch (CS) Bridge. Configurable switches are especially designed and engineered physical devices that allow instantiation of nonphysical formal programming decisions into physicality. The flow of traffic across the CS Bridge is one-way only. Physicodynamics never determines formal computational and control choices. Regulation, controls, integration, organization, computation, programming and the achievement of function or utility always emanate from the Formalism side of the Cybernetic Cut.