Ștefan Odobleja (; 13 October 1902 – 4 September 1978) was a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n physician and scientist, considered in Romania to be one of the precursors of

cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

. His major work, ''Psychologie consonantiste'' (first published in 1938 and 1939, in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) introduced the concept of

feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...

in psychology, ten years before

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...

published his groundbreaking book, '' Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine''.

Biography

Odobleja was born into a family of peasants in 1902, in Valea Izvorului (now Ștefan Odobleja),

Mehedinți County Mehedinți County () is a county ( ro, județ) of Romania on the border with Serbia and Bulgaria. It is mostly located in the historical province of Oltenia, with one municipality (Orșova) and three communes ( Dubova, Eșelnița, and Svinița) ...

. He attended the

Faculty of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

and became a physician. He practiced medicine as a military doctor in Bucharest,

Dej Dej (; hu, Dés; german: Desch, Burglos; yi, דעעש ''Desh'') is a municipality in Transylvania, Romania, north of Cluj-Napoca, in Cluj County. It lies where the river Someșul Mic meets the river Someșul Mare. The city administers four vill ...

Drobeta Turnu-Severin Drobeta-Turnu Severin (), colloquially Severin, is a city in Mehedinți County, Oltenia, Romania, on the northern bank of the Danube, close to the Iron Gates. "Drobeta" is the name of the ancient Dacian and Roman towns at the site, and the modern ...

, Lugoj,

Târgoviște Târgoviște (, alternatively spelled ''Tîrgoviște''; german: Tergowisch) is a city and county seat in Dâmbovița County, Romania. It is situated north-west of Bucharest, on the right bank of the Ialomița River. Târgoviște was one of the ...

, and other Romanian cities. Endowed with an uncommon capacity of work and with an astonishing inventive spirit, Odobleja left an impressive work to the posterity. His completed works run to over 50,000 pages. In 1936, Odobleja published "Phonoscopy and the clinical semiotics". In 1937, he participated in the IXth International Congress of Military Medicine with a paper entitled "Demonstration de phonoscopie", where he disseminated a prospectus in French, announcing the appearance of his future work, "The Consonantist Psychology". The most important of his writings is ''Psychologie consonantiste'', in which Odobleja lays the theoretical foundations of the generalized

. The book, published in Paris by (vol. I in 1938 and vol. II in 1939), contains almost 900 pages and includes 300 figures in the text. The author wrote at the time that "this book is... a table of contents, an index or a dictionary of psychology, ora ... great Treatise of Psychology that should contain 20–30 volumes". Due to the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the publication went unnoticed. The first Romanian edition of this work did not appear until 1982 (the first edition was published in French). The work was reprinted in 1983 as ''Cybernétique générale: psychologie consonantiste, science des sciences''. Odobleja retired from the army in 1946 and lived a modest life off his military pension. He died of cancer on September 4, 1978, leaving behind extensive manuscripts. He was buried at the

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

Cemetery in Drobeta-Turnu Severin.

Legacy

His paper, "Diversity and Unit in Cybernetics" was presented at the Fourth Congress of Cybernetics and Systems in Amsterdam, August in 1978, being reportedly received "with great acclaim". As an appreciation for his work of mapping the unknown territory of the consonantist psychology, cybernetics, and general cybernetics, in 1990 Odobleja was elected posthumously an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. In 1982 a group of scientists established in Lugoj the Cybernetics Academy "Ștefan Odobleja", an organization dedicated to promoting a better knowledge of general cybernetics; the organization is registered in

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, and is financed by the controversial Romanian billionaire

Iosif Constantin Drăgan Iosif Constantin Drăgan (; June 20, 1917 – August 21, 2008) was a Romanians, Romanian and Italy, Italian businessman, writer, historian and founder of the ButanGas company. In 2005, he was the second-wealthiest Romanian, according to the Romania ...

. High schools in Bucharest, Craiova, and Drobeta-Turnu Severin are named after Ștefan Odobleja. Streets in Bucharest, Craiova, Dej, Drobeta-Turnu Severin,

Oradea Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...

, and

Pitești Pitești () is a city in Romania, located on the river Argeș. The capital and largest city of Argeș County, it is an important commercial and industrial center, as well as the home of two universities. Pitești is situated in the historical re ...

are also named after him.

References

* Hinoveanu, Ilarie – ''Ștefan Odobleja: între "aventura științifică" și patimile glorificării'',

Craiova Craiova (, also , ), is Romania's 6th Cities in Romania, largest city and capital of Dolj County, and situated near the east bank of the river Jiu River, Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximatel ...

Scrisul Românesc Scrisul Românesc is a Romanian publishing house, founded in 1922 in Craiova Craiova (, also , ), is Romania's 6th Cities in Romania, largest city and capital of Dolj County, and situated near the east bank of the river Jiu River, Jiu in central ...

, 2003.

External links

"Two Specialists in Cybernetics: Ștefan Odobleja and Norbert Weiner. Common and Different Features"
by Nicolae Jurcau, Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, Massachusetts, August 10–15, 1998 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Odobleja, Stefan 1902 births 1978 deaths Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy alumni Cyberneticists People from Mehedinți County Romanian military doctors Romanian scientists Romanian inventors Members of the Romanian Academy elected posthumously Deaths from cancer in Romania