Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as
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 regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson maintains a steady course in a changing environment by adjusting their steering in continual response to the effect it is observed as having. Cybernetics is concerned with circular causal processes such as steering however they are embodied,
[Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall, p. 1.] including in ecological, technological,
biological
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...
, cognitive, and
social systems
In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. ...
, and in the context of practical activities such as designing, learning,
managing,
conversation
Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
, and the practice of cybernetics itself. Cybernetics'
transdisciplinary and "antidisciplinary" character has meant that it intersects with a number of other fields, leading to it having both wide influence and diverse interpretations.
Cybernetics has its origins in exchanges between numerous fields during the 1940s, including anthropology, mathematics, neuroscience, psychology, and engineering. Initial developments were consolidated through meetings such as the
Macy Conferences and the
Ratio Club. At its most prominent during the 1950s and 1960s, cybernetics is a precursor to fields such as
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...
,
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 ...
,
cognitive science,
complexity science, and
robotics
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
, among others. It is closely related to
systems science, which was developed in parallel. Early focuses included purposeful behaviour,
neural networks
A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...
,
heterarchy
A heterarchy is a system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non-hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways. Definitions of the term vary among the disciplines: in soci ...
,
information theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...
, and
self-organising systems. As cybernetics developed, it became broader in scope to include work in domains such as design,
family therapy
Family therapy (also referred to as family counseling, family systems therapy, marriage and family therapy, couple and family therapy) is a branch of psychology and clinical social work that works with families and couples in intimate relation ...
, management and organisation,
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
,
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
, and the creative arts. At the same time, questions arising from circular causality have been explored in relation to the philosophy of science, ethics, and constructivist approaches, while cybernetics has also been associated with counter-cultural movements.
[Dubberly, H., & Pangaro, P. (2015). How cybernetics connects computing, counterculture, and design. In Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia. Walker Art Center. http://www.dubberly.com/articles/cybernetics-and-counterculture.html] Contemporary cybernetics thus varies widely in scope and focus, with cyberneticians variously adopting and combining technical, scientific, philosophical, creative, and critical approaches.
Overview
Definitions
Cybernetics has been defined in a variety of ways, reflecting "the richness of its conceptual base". One of the most well known definitions is that of
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 ...
who characterised cybernetics as concerned with "control and communication in the animal and the machine".
Another early definition is that of the
Macy cybernetics conferences, where cybernetics was understood as the study of "circular causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social systems".
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard C ...
emphasised the role of cybernetics as "a form of cross-disciplinary thought which made it possible for members of many disciplines to communicate with each other easily in a language which all could understand".
Other definitions include: “the art of governing or the science of government” (
André-Marie Ampère
André-Marie Ampère (, ; ; 20 January 177510 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as "electrodynamics". He is also the inventor of nu ...
); "the art of steersmanship" (
Ross Ashby); "the study of systems of any nature which are capable of receiving, storing, and processing information so as to use it for control" (
Andrey Kolmogorov
Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov ( rus, Андре́й Никола́евич Колмого́ров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ kəlmɐˈɡorəf, a=Ru-Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov.ogg, 25 April 1903 – 20 October 1987) was a Sovi ...
); "a branch of mathematics dealing with problems of control, recursiveness, and information, focuses on forms and the patterns that connect" (
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include ''Steps to ...
); "the art of securing efficient operation" (
Louis Couffignal);
[Couffignal, Louis, "Essai d’une définition générale de la cybernétique", ''The First International Congress on Cybernetics'', Namur, Belgium, June 26–29, 1956, Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1958, pp. 46-54.] "the art of effective organization." (
Stafford Beer); "the science or the art of manipulating defensible metaphors; showing how they may be constructed and what can be inferred as a result of their existence" (
Gordon Pask); "the art of creating equilibrium in a world of constraints and possibilities" (
Ernst von Glasersfeld); "the science and art of understanding" (
Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana Romesín (September 14, 1928 – May 6, 2021) was a Chilean biologist and philosopher. Many consider him a member of a group of second-order cybernetics theoreticians such as Heinz von Foerster, Gordon Pask, Herbert Brün a ...
); "the ability to cure all temporary truth of eternal triteness" (
Herbert Brun
Herbert may refer to:
People Individuals
* Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert
Name
* Herbert (given name)
* Herbert (surname)
Places Antarctica
* Herbert Mountains, Coats Land
* Herbert Sound, Graham Land
Australia
* Herbe ...
); "a way of thinking about ways of thinking (of which it is one)" (
Larry Richards Laurence Dale Richards (born 1946) has been a key figure in the modern development (since 1981) of cybernetics as a transdisciplinary field of inquiry, often referred to as the new cybernetics. He was the first to create interdisciplinary masters ...
);
Etymology
According to Norbert Wiener, the word ''cybernetics'' was coined by a research group involving himself and
Arturo Rosenblueth in the summer of 1947.
It has been attested in print since at least 1948 through Wiener's book ''
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine''. In the book, Wiener states:
Moreover, Wiener explains, the term was chosen to recognize
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...
's 1868 publication on feedback mechanisms involving
governors, noting that the term ''governor'' is also derived from κυβερνήτης (''kubernḗtēs'') via a Latin corruption ''
gubernator''. Finally, Wiener motivates the choice by
steering engines of a ship being "one of the earliest and best-developed forms of feedback mechanisms".
Independently, the French term ''cybernétique'' was used in 1834 by
André-Marie Ampère
André-Marie Ampère (, ; ; 20 January 177510 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as "electrodynamics". He is also the inventor of nu ...
in ''Essai sur la philosophie des sciences'' to describe the science of civil government.
Closely related fields
Systems science, systems theory, and systems thinking
Cybernetics is sometimes understood within the context of systems science,
systems theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
, and
systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
.
Systems approaches influenced by cybernetics include:
*
Critical systems thinking
Critical systems thinking (CST) is a systems approach designed to aid decision-makers, and other stakeholders, improve complex problem situations that cross departmental and, often, organizational boundaries. CST sees systems thinking as essential ...
, which incorporates the
Viable System Model from the work of Stafford Beer.
*
Systemic design
Systemic design is an interdiscipline that joins systems thinking to design methodology, integrating systems thinking and human-centred design, with the intention of helping designers cope with complex design projects.
The recent challenges to d ...
, which has drawn on the work of cyberneticians
Ranulph Glanville,
Klaus Krippendorff
Klaus Krippendorff (1932–2022) was a communication scholar, social science methodologist, and cyberneticist. and was the Gregory Bateson professor for Cybernetics, Language, and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School f ...
, and
Paul Pangaro
Paul may refer to:
* Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
.
*
System dynamics
System dynamics (SD) is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and time delays.
Overview
System dynamics is a methodology and mathematica ...
, which is based on the concept of causal feedback loops.
Other intersecting fields
Cybernetics' broad scope and tendency to transgress disciplinary norms means its own boundaries have shifted over time and can be difficult to define. Many fields trace their origins in whole or part to work carried out in cybernetics, or were partially absorbed into cybernetics when it was developed. These include:
* Artificial intelligence
*
Bionics
Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology.
The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 1 ...
* Cognitive science
*
Control theory
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control system, control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive ...
* Complexity science
* Computer science
*
Information theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...
* Robotics
Key concepts
Key concepts in cybernetics include:
Black Box
Distinction
George Spencer Brown's Laws of Form became influential in cybernetics, including in the work of
Francisco Varela, and
Louis Kauffman
Louis Hirsch Kauffman (born February 3, 1945) is an American mathematician, topologist, and professor of mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is known for th ...
.
Eigenform
The notion of eigenform is an example of a self-referential system that produces a stable form. It plays an important role in the work of Heinz von Foerster and is "inextricably linked with second order cybernetics".
Feedback
Feedback is a process where the observed outcomes of actions are taken as inputs for further action in ways that support the pursuit and maintenance of particular conditions or their disruption, forming a circular causal relationship. Cybernetics is named after an example of feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson maintains a steady course in a changing environment by adjusting their steering in continual response to the effect it is observed as having.
Other examples of circular causal feedback include: technological devices such as
thermostats (where the action of a heater responds to measured changes in temperature, regulating the temperature of the room within a set range); biological examples such as the coordination of volitional movement through the
nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes ...
; and processes of social interaction such as conversation.
Feedforward
Homeostasis
Law of requisite variety
Self-organisation
Notable subfields and theories
Notable subfields and theories of cybernetics include:
Autopoiesis
Double bind theory
Double binds are patterns created in interaction between two or more parties in ongoing relationships where there is a contradiction between messages at different logical levels that creates a situation with emotional threat but no possibility of withdrawal from the situation and no way to articulate the problem.
[ Mary Catherine Bateson. (2005). The double bind: Pathology and creativity. ''Cybernetics and Human Knowing''. ''12''(1-2)] While the theory was first described by Gregory Bateson and colleagues in the 1950s with regard to the origins of
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social w ...
,
[Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Haley, J. & Weakland, J., 1956, Toward a theory of schizophrenia.''Behavioral Science'', Vol. 1, 251–264.] it is also characteristic of many other social contexts.
Conversation theory
Enactivism
Cybernetics is associated with the enactive approach to cognitive science through the work of
Francisco Varela.
Good regulator theorem
Perceptual control theory
Radical constructivism
Radical constructivism is an approach to epistemology developed initially by
Ernst von Glasersfeld. It is closely associated with second-order cybernetics.
Second-order cybernetics
Second-order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself and the practice of cybernetics according to such a critique. It has seen development of cybernetics in relation to family therapy, the social sciences, the creative arts, design research, and philosophy. It is associated with
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard C ...
,
Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster ( German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice ...
, the
Biological Computer Laboratory The Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) was a research institute of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It was founded on 1 January 1958, by then Professor of Electrical Engineering Heinz von Fo ...
and the
American Society for Cybernetics.
Viable system model
History
Precursors
The
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
term κυβερνητικης (kubernētikēs, '(good at) steering') appears in
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's ''
Republic
A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...
'' and ''
''Alcibiades'''', where the metaphor of a
steersman
A helmsman or helm (sometimes driver) is a person who steers a ship, sailboat, submarine, other type of maritime vessel, or spacecraft. The rank and seniority of the helmsman may vary: on small vessels such as fishing vessels and yachts, the fu ...
is used to signify the
governance
Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the g ...
of people.
The French word ''cybernétique'' was also used in 1834 by the physicist André-Marie Ampère to denote the sciences of government in his classification system of human knowledge.
The first artificial automatic regulatory system was a
water clock
A water clock or clepsydra (; ; ) is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount is then measured.
Water clocks are one of the oldest time- ...
, invented by the mechanician
Ktesibios; based on a tank which poured water into a reservoir before using it to run the mechanism, it used a cone-shaped float to monitor the level of the water in its reservoir and adjust the rate of flow of the water accordingly to maintain a constant level of water in the reservoir. This was the first artificial truly automatic self-regulatory device that required no outside intervention between the feedback and the controls of the mechanism. Devices constructed by Ktesibios and others such as
Hero of Alexandria
Hero of Alexandria (; grc-gre, Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, ''Heron ho Alexandreus'', also known as Heron of Alexandria ; 60 AD) was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. H ...
,
Philo of Byzantium, and
Su Song, are early examples of cybernetic principles in action.
In the late 18th century
James Watt
James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was ...
's steam engine was equipped with a governor, a centrifugal feedback valve for controlling the speed of the engine. In 1868,
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...
published a theoretical article on governors, one of the first to discuss and refine the principles of self-regulating devices.
Jakob von Uexküll applied the feedback mechanism via his model of functional cycle (''Funktionskreis'') in order to explain animal behaviour and the origins of meaning in general. Electronic control systems originated with the 1927 work of
Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer
Harold S. Black on using negative feedback to control amplifiers. In 1935 Russian physiologist
P. K. Anokhin published a book in which the concept of feedback ("back afferentation") was studied.
Other precursors include:
Kenneth Craik
Kenneth James William Craik (; 1914 – 1945) was a Scottish philosopher and psychologist.
Life
He was born in Edinburgh on 29 March 1914, the son of James Craik, a solicitor. The family lived at 13 Abercromby Place in Edinburgh's Second New ...
and
Ștefan Odobleja
Ștefan Odobleja (; 13 October 1902 – 4 September 1978) was a Romanian physician and scientist, considered in Romania to be one of the precursors of cybernetics and artificial intelligence.
His major work, ''Psychologie consonantiste'' (firs ...
.
Foundations
The study and mathematical modeling of regulatory processes became a continuing research effort and two key articles were published in 1943: "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" by Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and
Julian Bigelow –based on the research on living organisms that Rosenblueth did in Mexico–; and the paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by
Warren McCulloch and
Walter Pitts. In the early 1940s
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest c ...
contributed a unique and unusual addition to the world of cybernetics:
von Neumann cellular automata
Von Neumann cellular automata are the original expression of cellular automata, the development of which was prompted by suggestions made to John von Neumann by his close friend and fellow mathematician Stanislaw Ulam. Their original purpose wa ...
, and their logical follow up, the
von Neumann Universal Constructor. The result of these deceptively simple thought-experiments was the concept of
self-replication, which cybernetics adopted as a core concept.
The foundations of cybernetics were developed through a series of transdisciplinary conferences funded by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, between 1946 and 1953. The conferences were chaired by
McCulloch and had participants included
Ross Ashby,
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include ''Steps to ...
,
Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster ( German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice ...
,
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard C ...
,
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest c ...
, and
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 ...
.
In the spring of 1947, Wiener was invited to a congress on
harmonic analysis
Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with the representation of functions or signals as the superposition of basic waves, and the study of and generalization of the notions of Fourier series and Fourier transforms (i.e. an ex ...
, held in
Nancy (France was an important geographical locus of early cybernetics together with the US and UK); the event was organized by the
Bourbaki and mathematician
Szolem Mandelbrojt
Szolem Mandelbrojt (10 January 1899 – 23 September 1983) was a Polish-French mathematician who specialized in mathematical analysis. He was a professor at the Collège de France from 1938 to 1972, where he held the Chair of Analytical Mechanic ...
. During this stay in France, Wiener received the offer to write a manuscript on the unifying character of this part of applied mathematics, which is found in the study of
Brownian motion
Brownian motion, or pedesis (from grc, πήδησις "leaping"), is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas).
This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations in a particle's position insi ...
and in telecommunication engineering. The following summer, back in the United States, Wiener decided to introduce the neologism ''cybernetics'', coined to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms", into his scientific theory: it was popularized through his book ''Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine''.
In the UK this became the focus for the
Ratio Club. In 1950, Wiener popularized the social implications of cybernetics, drawing analogies between automatic systems (such as a regulated steam engine) and human institutions in his best-selling ''
The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society'' (Houghton-Mifflin). Published in 1954,
Qian Xuesen
Qian Xuesen, or Hsue-Shen Tsien (; 11 December 1911 – 31 October 2009), was a Chinese mathematician, cyberneticist, aerospace engineer, and physicist who made significant contributions to the field of aerodynamics and established engineering ...
published work "Engineering Cybernetics" was the basis of science in segregating the engineering concepts of Cybernetics from the theoretical understanding of Cybernetics as described so far historically.
Cybernetics in the Soviet Union
Cybernetics in the Soviet Union
Cybernetics in the Soviet Union had its own particular characteristics, as the study of cybernetics came into contact with the dominant scientific ideologies of the Soviet Union and the nation's economic and political reforms: from the unmitigat ...
was initially considered a "pseudoscience" and "ideological weapon" of "imperialist reactionaries" (Soviet Philosophical Dictionary, 1954) and later criticised as a narrow form of cybernetics. In the mid to late 1950s
Viktor Glushkov
Victor Mikhailovich Glushkov ( rus, Виктор Миха́йлович Глушко́в; August 24, 1923 – January 30, 1982) was a Soviet mathematician, the founding father of information technology in the Soviet Union and one of the foun ...
and others salvaged the reputation of the field. Soviet cybernetics incorporated much of what became known as computer science in the West.
The design of self-regulating control systems for a real-time planned economy was explored by economist
Oskar Lange, cyberneticist
Viktor Glushkov
Victor Mikhailovich Glushkov ( rus, Виктор Миха́йлович Глушко́в; August 24, 1923 – January 30, 1982) was a Soviet mathematician, the founding father of information technology in the Soviet Union and one of the foun ...
, and other
Soviet cyberneticists
Cybernetics in the Soviet Union had its own particular characteristics, as the study of cybernetics came into contact with the dominant scientific ideologies of the Soviet Union and the nation's economic and political reforms: from the unmitiga ...
during the 1960s.
Split from artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) was founded as a distinct discipline at the
Dartmouth workshop
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was a 1956 summer workshop widely consideredKline, Ronald R., Cybernetics, Automata Studies and the Dartmouth Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Annals of the History of ...
in 1956. After some uneasy coexistence, AI gained funding and prominence. Consequently, cybernetic sciences such as the study of
artificial neural network
Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains.
An ANN is based on a collection of connected unit ...
s were downplayed; the discipline shifted into the world of social sciences and therapy.
Biological Computer Laboratory
The Biological Computer Laboratory at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Un ...
, under the direction of
Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster ( German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice ...
, was a major center of cybernetic research, founded in 1958 and active until the mid-1970s.
Further development and new directions
In the 1970s,
new cyberneticians emerged in multiple fields, but especially in biology. The ideas of
Maturana,
Varela and
Atlan, according to Jean-Pierre Dupuy (1986) "realized that the cybernetic metaphors of the program upon which molecular biology had been based rendered a conception of the autonomy of the living being impossible. Consequently, these thinkers were led to invent a new cybernetics, one more suited to the organizations which mankind discovers in nature - organizations he has not himself invented".
[Jean-Pierre Dupuy, "The autonomy of social reality: on the contribution of systems theory to the theory of society" in: Elias L. Khalil & Kenneth E. Boulding eds., ''Evolution, Order and Complexity'', 1986.] However, during the 1980s the question of whether the features of this new cybernetics could be applied to social forms of organization remained open to debate.
In the 1980s, according to Harries-Jones (1988) "unlike its predecessor, the new cybernetics concerns itself with the interaction of autonomous political
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...
s and subgroups, and the practical and reflexive consciousness of the subjects who produce and reproduce the structure of a political community. A dominant consideration is that of recursiveness, or self-reference of political action both with regards to the expression of political consciousness and with the ways in which systems build upon themselves".
[Peter Harries-Jones (1988), "The Self-Organizing Polity: An Epistemological Analysis of Political Life by Laurent Dobuzinskis" in: ''Canadian Journal of Political Science'', Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 431-433.]
One characteristic of the emerging new cybernetics considered in that time by
Felix Geyer
Rudolf Felix Geyer (born 13 October 1933) is a Dutch sociologist and cybernetician, former head of the methodology section of SISWO (Interuniversity Institute for Social Science Research) at the University of Amsterdam, known for his work in the f ...
and
Hans van der Zouwen, according to Bailey (1994),
Kenneth D. Bailey
Kenneth Dillon Bailey (October 21, 1910 – September 26, 1942) was a United States Marine Corps officer who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroic conduct during action during the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. H ...
(1994), ''Sociology and the New Systems Theory: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis'', p.163. was "that it views information as constructed and reconstructed by an individual interacting with the environment. This provides an epistemological foundation of science, by viewing it as observer-dependent. Another characteristic of the new cybernetics is its contribution towards bridging the ''micro-macro gap''. That is, it links the individual with the society".
Another characteristic noted was the "transition from classical cybernetics to the new cybernetics
hatinvolves a transition from classical problems to new problems. These shifts in thinking involve, among others, (a) a change from emphasis on the system being steered to the system doing the steering, and the factor which guides the steering decisions; and (b) new emphasis on communication between several systems which are trying to steer each other".
Recent endeavors into the true focus of cybernetics, systems of control and emergent behavior, by such related fields as
game theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...
(the analysis of group interaction),
systems of feedback in evolution, and
metamaterials (the study of materials with properties beyond the Newtonian properties of their constituent atoms), have led to a revived interest in the field.
Practice and application
Cybernetics' transdisciplinary origins have led to a wide variety of applications, approaches and associations.
In the natural sciences and technology
Biology
Many early cyberneticians worked in
neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated ...
, including
Grey Walter,
Warren McCulloch, and Arturo Rosenbluth. This remained a focus as cybernetics developed.
Other applications of cybernetics in biology include the physicist
George Gamow
George Gamow (March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov ( uk, Георгій Антонович Гамов, russian: Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a Russian-born Soviet and American polymath, theoret ...
's article in ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'' called "Information transfer in the living cell", and biologists
Jacques Monod and
François Jacob use of cybernetics as a language for formulating their early theory of
gene regulatory networks in the 1960s.
Engineering and computing
Medicine and medical technology
Cybernetics has been used as a general reference for the science between the interjection of disciplines Medicine and technology. This involves sciences such as
bionics
Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology.
The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 1 ...
,
prosthetics, neural networks,
microchip implants,
neuroprosthetics, and
brain-computer interfaces.
Other
* In Earth system science. geocybernytics aims to study and control the complex co-evolution of
ecosphere and
anthroposphere,
[Schellnhuber, H.-J., Discourse: Earth system analysis - The scope of the challenge, pp. 3-195. In: Schellnhuber, H.-J. and Wenzel, V. (Eds.). 1998. Earth system analysis: Integrating science for sustainability. Berlin: Springer.] for example, for dealing with planetary problems such as anthropogenic
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
.
[Schellnhuber, H.-J., Earth system analysis and the second Copernican revolution. ''Nature'', 402, C19-C23. 1999.] Geocybernetics applies a
dynamical systems
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a ...
perspective to
Earth system analysis
Earth system science (ESS) is the application of systems science to the Earth. In particular, it considers interactions and 'feedbacks', through material and energy fluxes, between the Earth's sub-systems' cycles, processes and "spheres"—atmo ...
. It provides a theoretical framework for studying the implications of following different
sustainability
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
paradigms on co-evolutionary trajectories of the planetary
socio-ecological system to reveal
attractors in this system, their stability, resilience and reachability. Concepts such as
tipping points in the
climate system
Earth's climate system is a complex system having five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things). '' ...
,
planetary boundaries
Planetary boundaries is a concept highlighting human-caused perturbations of Earth systems making them relevant in a way not accommodated by the environmental boundaries separating the three ages within the Holocene epoch. Crossing a planetary ...
, the
safe operating space
Planetary boundaries is a concept highlighting human-caused perturbations of Earth systems making them relevant in a way not accommodated by the environmental boundaries separating the three ages within the Holocene epoch. Crossing a planetar ...
for humanity, and proposals for manipulating Earth system dynamics on a global scale such as
geoengineering have been framed in the language of geocybernetic Earth system analysis.
* In physics.
Cybernetical physics Cybernetical physics is a scientific area on the border of cybernetics and physics which studies physical systems with cybernetical methods. Cybernetical methods are understood as methods developed within control theory, information theory, sys ...
is an approach to studying physical systems using cybernetics.
In the social and behavioural sciences
Anthropology
Anthropologists working in cybernetics include Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead,
Mary Catherine Bateson, and
Genevieve Bell
Genevieve Bell is an Australian cultural anthropologist best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice research and technological development (including as a pioneer in the field of futurist research), and for being an industry ...
.
Economics and economic planning
Psychology and cognitive science
Concepts from cybernetics spread throughout psychology from the 1950s onwards. The psychological theory of
reversal theory was rooted in cybernetics and continues to be the basis of research and practice.
Sociology
By examining group behavior through the lens of cybernetics, sociologists can seek the reasons for such spontaneous events as
smart mob
A smart mob is a group whose coordination and communication abilities have been empowered by digital communication technologies. Smart mobs are particularly known for their ability to mobilize quickly.
The concept was introduced by Howard Rhei ...
s and riots, as well as how communities develop rules such as etiquette by consensus without formal discussion.
Affect Control Theory In control theory, affect control theory proposes that individuals maintain affective meanings through their actions and interpretations of events. The activity of social institutions occurs through maintenance of culturally based affective meaning ...
explains
role behavior,
emotions
Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...
, and
labeling theory in terms of homeostatic maintenance of sentiments associated with cultural categories.
The most comprehensive attempt ever made in the social sciences to increase cybernetics in a generalized theory of society was made by
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in soci ...
. In this way, cybernetics establishes the basic hierarchy in Parsons'
AGIL paradigm, which is the ordering system-dimension of his
action theory. These and other cybernetic models in sociology are reviewed in a book edited by McClelland and Fararo.
[McClelland, Kent A., and Thomas J. Fararo (Eds.). 2006. Purpose, Meaning, and Action: Control Systems Theories in Sociology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.]
In creative, practical, and therapeutic disciplines
Architecture
Cybernetics has been influential in architecture, especially through the work of Gordon Pask. Pask collaborated with architect
Cedric Price
Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture.
The son of an architect (A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon), Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire ...
and theatre director
Joan Littlewood on the influential
Fun Palace
Fun is defined by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as "Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement; boisterous joviality or merrymaking; entertainment".
Etymology and usage
The word ''fun'' is associated with sports, entertaining medi ...
project during the 1960s and became a consultant to
Nicholas Negroponte's
Architecture Machine Group
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
, forerunner of the
MIT Media Lab. Pask's 1950s Musicolour installation was the inspiration for John and Julia Frazer's work on Price's Generator project.
Architects influenced by cybernetics include
Lebbeus Woods and
Neil Spiller
Neil is a masculine name of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. ...
.
Creative arts
Cybernetic art is
contemporary art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...
that builds upon the legacy of cybernetics, where feedback involved in the work takes precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. The relationship between cybernetics and art can be summarised in three ways: cybernetics can be used to study art, to create works of art or may itself be regarded as an art form in its own right.
The prominent and influential
Cybernetic Serendipity
Cybernetic Serendipity was an exhibition of cybernetic art curated by Jasia Reichardt, shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England, from 2 August to 20 October 1968, and then toured across the United States. Two stops in the Un ...
exhibition was held at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the I ...
in 1968 curated by
Jasia Reichardt, including Schöffer's ''CYSP I'' and Gordon Pask's ''Colloquy of Mobiles'' installation. Pask's reflections on ''Colloquy'' connected it to his earlier ''Musicolour'' installation and to what he termed "aesthetically potent environments", a concept that connected this artistic work to his concerns with teaching and learning.
The artist
Roy Ascott elaborated an extensive theory of cybernetic art in "Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision" (''Cybernetica'', Journal of the International Association for Cybernetics (Namur), Volume IX, No.4, 1966; Volume X No.1, 1967) and in "The Cybernetic Stance: My Process and Purpose" (''Leonardo'' Vol 1, No 2, 1968). Art historian
Edward A. Shanken has written about the history of art and cybernetics in essays including "Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s" and ''From Cybernetics to Telematics: The Art, Pedagogy, and Theory of Roy Ascott'' (2003), which traces the trajectory of Ascott's work from cybernetic art to
telematic art (art using computer networking as its medium, a precursor to
net.art
net.art refers to a group of artists who have worked in the medium of Internet art since 1994. Some of the early adopters and main members of this movement include Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, Heath Bunting, Daniel Garcí ...
).
Others in the creative arts who are associated with cybernetics include Herbert Brun,
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop a ...
,
Ruairi Glynn
Ruairi Glynn (born 1981) is an installation artist who has exhibited internationally with shows at the Centre Pompidou Paris, the National Art Museum of China Beijing, and the Tate Modern, London. His kinetic and interactive art works reflect on ra ...
,
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
,
Tom Scholte
Tom Scholte is a Canadian actor and academic.Lynn Mitges, "Students acting like they should; Program at UBC gives them the tools to take into the real world". ''The Province'', January 10, 2008. He is most noted for his performances in the film '' ...
, and
Stephen Willats
Stephen Willats (born 1943 in London) is a British artist. He lives and works in London.
Stephen Willats is a pioneer of conceptual art. Since the early 1960s he has created work concerned with extending the territory in which art functions. H ...
.
Design
Cybernetics was an influence on thinking in design in the decades after the Second World War. Ashby and Pask were drawn on by design theorists such as
Horst Rittel,
Christopher Alexander
Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander (4 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature ...
and
Bruce Archer
Leonard Bruce Archer CBE (22 November 1922 – 16 May 2005) was a British chartered mechanical engineer and Professor of Design Research at the Royal College of Art (RCA) who championed research in design, and helped to establish design as an a ...
. Later figures include
Ranulph Glanville,
Klaus Krippendorff
Klaus Krippendorff (1932–2022) was a communication scholar, social science methodologist, and cyberneticist. and was the Gregory Bateson professor for Cybernetics, Language, and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School f ...
, and
Annetta Pedretti
Annetta is a town in Parker County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,288 at the 2010 census.
The town is named after the daughter of the founder of the town, a Mr. Fraser who built a station and general store in the area in the mid-18 ...
.
The cybernetic study of design has continued to contribute to design methods and design research and to the development of
systemic design
Systemic design is an interdiscipline that joins systems thinking to design methodology, integrating systems thinking and human-centred design, with the intention of helping designers cope with complex design projects.
The recent challenges to d ...
and
metadesign
Metadesign (or meta-design) is an emerging conceptual framework aimed at defining and creating social, economic and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place. It consists of a series of practical design-r ...
practices.
Education
Cybernetics has been influential in the development of educational technology, notably in the work of Gordon Pask, and in theories of teaching and learning, including Pask's
Conversation Theory, Ernst von Glasersfeld's
Radical Constructivism Radical constructivism is an approach to epistemology that situates knowledge in terms of knowers' experience. It looks to break with the conception of knowledge as a correspondence between a knower's understanding of their experience and the wor ...
, and Gregory Bateson's conception of
deuterolearning.
Management and organisation
Management as a field of study covers the task of managing a multitude of systems (often
business systems), which presents a wide natural overlap with many of the classical concepts of cybernetics. Management cybernetics includes approaches such as Stafford Beer's
Viable System Model and
Syntegration.
Psychotherapy
The development of ''family therapy'' was significantly influenced by cybernetics through the work of Gregory Bateson, as was the work of
R. D. Laing and his work ''Knots''.
The method of levels is an approach to
psychotherapy
Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...
based on
perceptual control theory where the therapist aims to help the patient shift their awareness to higher levels of perception in order to resolve conflicts and allow reorganization to take place.
Notable devices and projects
A distinctive quality of cybernetics, especially as developed by British cyberneticians, is that it was often progressed through experimental devices and social projects. Notable examples include:
Colloquy of Mobiles
Colloquy of Mobiles was an installation by Gordon Pask at the
Cybernetic Serendipity
Cybernetic Serendipity was an exhibition of cybernetic art curated by Jasia Reichardt, shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England, from 2 August to 20 October 1968, and then toured across the United States. Two stops in the Un ...
exhibition in 1968.
Elmer and Elsie
Elmer and Elsie were a pair of robot "tortoises" developed by
William Grey Walter.
Fun Palace
The Fun Palace was a radical architectural project developed in the 1960s by the architect
Cedric Price
Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture.
The son of an architect (A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon), Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire ...
, theatre director
Joan Littlewood, and cybernetician Gordon Pask. Although unbuilt, the project was widely influential, notably on the design of the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
.
Homeostat
The Homeostat was a device built by Ross Ashby that was capable of adapting itself to the environment, exhibited behaviours such as habituation, reinforcement and learning through its ability to maintain homeostasis in a changing environment.
Musicolour
Musicolour was an interactive light installation developed by Gordon Pask during the 1950s. It responded to musicians' variations and, if they did not vary their playing, it would become 'bored' and stop responding, prompting the musicians to respond.
Project Cybersyn
Project Cybersyn attempted to apply cybernetics to the economy at large scale during the early 1970s.
School for Designing a Society
The School for Designing a Society is a project of teachers, performers, artists, and activists, influenced by cybernetics, where the question “What would I consider a desirable society?” is given serious playful thoughtful discussion. Founders and guests include Susan Parenti, Mark Enslin, Herbert Brun, and
Larry Richards Laurence Dale Richards (born 1946) has been a key figure in the modern development (since 1981) of cybernetics as a transdisciplinary field of inquiry, often referred to as the new cybernetics. He was the first to create interdisciplinary masters ...
. A premise of the school was that social change can be realized in a transformation from the current to a new society (a change of system), not only in improvements to the current society (changes in a system).
Philosophical concerns
Ecological aesthetics
Gregory Bateson saw the world as a series of systems containing those of individuals, societies and ecosystems. Each of these systems has adaptive changes which depend upon feedback loops to control balance by changing multiple variables. He saw the natural ecological system as innately good as long as it was allowed to maintain homeostasis, and that the key unit of survival in evolution was an organism and its environment.
Bateson, in this subject, presents western epistemology as a method of thinking that leads to a mindset in which man exerts an
autocratic rule over all cybernetic systems and in doing so he unbalances the natural cybernetic system of controlled competition and mutual dependency. Bateson claims that humanity will never be able to control the whole system because it does not operate in a linear fashion, and if humanity creates his own rules for the system, he opens himself up to becoming a slave to the self-made system due to the non-linear nature of cybernetics. Lastly, man's technological prowess combined with his scientific hubris gives him the potential to irrevocably damage and destroy the "supreme cybernetic system" (i.e. the
biosphere
The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also ...
), instead of just disrupting the system temporally until the system can self-correct.
Epistemology and the philosophy of science
Second-order cybernetics is associated with a radically constructivist approach to epistemology and the philosophy of science.
Ethics
The critique of objectivity developed in second-order cybernetics led to a concern with ethical issues. Foerster developed a critique of morality in ethical terms, arguing for ethics to remain implicit in action.
[Foerster, Heinz von. (1992). Ethics and second-order cybernetics. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 1(1), 9-19.] Foerster's position has been described as an "ethics of enabling ethics" or as a form of "recursive ethical questioning". Varela published a short book on "ethical know-how". Glanville identified a number of "desirable" ethical qualities implicit in the cybernetic devices of the black box, distinction, autonomy, and conversation. Others have drawn connections to design and
critical systems heuristics
Critical or Critically may refer to:
*Critical, or critical but stable, medical states
**Critical, or intensive care medicine
* Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences.
*Critical Software, a company specializing i ...
.
Logic
Logicians working in cybernetics include
Gotthard Günther and
Lars Löfgren
Lars Löfgren is a Swedish cybernetician. He was awarded the Wiener Gold Medal by the American Society for Cybernetics in 2008.
Lars Löfgren was involved in extending the logical and linguistic approaches to various problems raised by early cybe ...
.
Wider influence
Counter culture
Cybernetics was influential on the development of countercultural movements through figures such as
Stewart Brand and publications such as the
Whole Earth Catalogue
The ''Whole Earth Catalog'' (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and artic ...
and
Co-Evolution Quarterly
''CoEvolution Quarterly'' (1974–1985) was a journal descended from Stewart Brand's ''Whole Earth Catalog''. Stewart Brand founded the ''CoEvolution Quarterly'' in 1974 using proceeds from the ''Whole Earth Catalog.'' It evolved out of the o ...
.
Deleuze and Guattari
Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, ...
were influenced by the work of Gregory Bateson.
Feminisms
Ideas from cybernetics have influenced
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
s through the work of Margaret Mead, Mary Catherine Bateson,
Donna Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies. Sh ...
, and
Sadie Plant
Sadie Plant (born Sarah Jane Plant; 16 March 1964 in Birmingham, England) is a British philosopher, cultural theorist, and author.
Education
She earned her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Manchester in 1989 and subsequently taught at ...
.
Gaia hypothesis
The
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that help ...
was informed by the first wave of cybernetic concepts -
homeostasis
In biology, homeostasis (British English, British also homoeostasis) Help:IPA/English, (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physics, physical, and chemistry, chemical conditions maintained by organism, living systems. Thi ...
,
self-organization
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suffi ...
, negative feedback, and self-regulation - and later by the
second-order cybernetic theory of
autopoiesis
The term autopoiesis () refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts.
The term was introduced in the 1972 publication '' Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living'' by Chilean biologist ...
.
Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
refers to cybernetics as a discipline that could help economists understand the "self-organizing or self-generating systems" called
markets
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
* Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
* Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, a ...
.
McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...
was influenced by
I. A. Richard's notion of
feedforward.
Posthumanism
Cybernetics' relevance across and between the domains of
"the animal and machine" have been an influence on the development of posthumanism, such as in the work of
N. Katherine Hayles
Nancy Katherine Hayles (born December 16, 1943) is an American postmodern literary critic, most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, electronic literature, and American literature. She is the James B. Duke Di ...
.
Other
* A model of cybernetics in Sport was introduced by Yuri Verkhoshansky and Mel C. Siff in 1999 in their book ''Supertraining''.
* ''
Psycho-Cybernetics
''Psycho-Cybernetics'' is a self-help book written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz. Many of the ...
'' is a
self-help book
A self-help book is one that is written with the intention to instruct its readers on solving personal problems. The books take their name from '' Self-Help'', an 1859 best-seller by Samuel Smiles, but are also known and classified under "self- ...
written by
Maxwell Maltz
Maxwell Maltz (March 10, 1899 – April 7, 1975) was an American cosmetic surgeon and author of '' Psycho-Cybernetics'' (1960), which was a system of ideas that he claimed could improve one's self-image leading to a more successful and fulfilling ...
in 1960.
Journals
* ''
Constructivist Foundations
''Constructivist Foundations'' is an international triannual peer-reviewed academic journal that focuses on constructivist approaches to science and philosophy, including radical constructivism, enactive cognitive science, second-order cyberneti ...
''
* ''
Cybernetics and Human Knowing''
* ''
Cybernetics and Systems''
* ''IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems''
* ''IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems''
* ''IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics''
* ''IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems''
* ''
Kybernetes
''Kybernetes'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of information and knowledge management exploring the complex relationships between information systems and management theory and practice to determine how humans develop meaningful and satisfyi ...
''
Organisations
Organisations primarily concerned with cybernetics or aspects of it include:
American Society for Cybernetics
Cybernetics Society
IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
Metaphorum
The Metaphorum group was set up in 2003 to develop Stafford Beer's legacy in Organizational Cybernetics. The Metaphorum Group was born in a Syntegration in 2003 and have every year after developed a Conference on issues related to Organizational Cybernetics' theory and practice.
RC51 Sociocybernetics
RC51 is a research committee of the
International Sociological Association
The International Sociological Association (ISA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific purposes in the field of sociology and social sciences. It is an international sociological body, gathering both individuals and national sociolo ...
promoting the development of (socio)cybernetic theory and research within the social sciences.
SCiO - Systems and Complexity in Organisation
SCiO (Systems and Complexity in Organisation) is a community of systems practitioners who believe that traditional approaches to running organisations are no longer capable of dealing with the complexity and turbulence faced by organisations today and are responsible for many of the problems we see today. SCiO delivers a apprenticeship on masters level and a certification in systems practice.
See also
Further reading
*
*
*
Ascott, Roy (1967). Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision. ''Cybernetica'', Journal of the International Association for Cybernetics (Namur), 10, pp. 25–56
*
*
*
François, Charles (1999).
Systemics and cybernetics in a historical perspective. In: ''Systems Research and Behavioral Science''. Vol 16, pp. 203–219 (1999)
*
*
*
*
*
Heylighen, Francis, and
Cliff Joslyn
Cliff Joslyn (born 1963) is an American mathematician, cognitive scientist, and cybernetician. He is currently the Chief Knowledge Scientist and Team Lead for Mathematics of Data Science at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Seattle, Was ...
(2002).
Cybernetics and Second Order Cybernetics, in: R.A. Meyers (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology'' (3rd ed.), Vol. 4, (Academic Press, San Diego), p. 155-169.
* Hyötyniemi, Heikki (2006)
''Neocybernetics in Biological Systems'' Espoo: Helsinki University of Technology, Control Engineering Laboratory.
* Ilgauds, Hans Joachim (1980), ''Norbert Wiener'', Leipzig.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Umpleby, Stuart (1989).
tp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/Papers_Umpleby/Science-Cybernetics.txt "The science of cybernetics and the cybernetics of science" in: ''Cybernetics and Systems", Vol. 21, No. 1, (1990), pp. 109–121.
*
von Foerster, Heinz, (1995)
Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics
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Notes
References
External links
; General
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; Societies
American Society for CyberneticsIEEE Systems, Man, & Cybernetics Society International Society for Cybernetics and Systems ResearchThe Cybernetics Society
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Transhumanism