Cybernetics is the study of auto-regulating systems, in which inputs and outputs form a loop which regulates some mechanism or process, typically either maintaining homeostasis (think of a thermostat) or facilitating man-machine interface (think of a servomechanism). Originally a technical innovation, the underlying principle has gained wide purchase in fields including biology, sociology, economics, and psychology.
Overview[edit | edit source]
Etymology[edit | edit source]
The term "cybernetics" comes from the Greek word "kybernetes," which means "governor" or "helmsman," and was coined by mathematician Norbert Wiener in the late 1940s. The word organism comes from Royal Society - simply meaning meaning a self-organizing system. With cybernetics metaphors of organism come full circle in hypostasis as Cybernetics. “Self organizing systems,” they tell us, must be seen as “organisms” - a term originally meaning nothing but a self organizing system.
Interdisciplinary[edit | edit source]
Essentially interdisciplinary, Cybernetics explores the structure, function, and processes of systems and how they can be controlled and communicated. The life-blood of Cybernetics is information, which is concerted to coordinate and regulate biological, mechanical, or social systems. Imperative is that these systems are not considered as discontinuous. Taking as essential that each is a system regulated by information, insights from one field are broadly applied to others, generating novel concepts and understandings. This attitude is largely responsible for both the vitality and the failures of Cybernetics as a paradigm.
Cybernetics has had a profound impact on fields ranging from engineering and computer science to biology and psychology. It has been used to develop self-regulating machines and systems, to model and simulate complex biological and ecological systems, and to study the behavior of social and economic systems.
Historical Background[edit | edit source]
WWII and feedback[edit | edit source]
Cybernetics is forged in the crucible of global apocalyptic industrial warfare. And the men who fought the war fought it with intelligence systems. Codebreaking, models for bomber runs, efficient transmission of information, rocket systems. During the height of WWII, military commands were dealing with the complexity of their battlefields. Developments in aviation technology produced more complex scenarios of payload delivery, as planes began to fly higher and deliver strikes of more complex nature.
Norbert Wiener, theorist of negative feedback, was one scientist enlisted into this mission. Weiner, with the help of resident engineer Julian Bigelow, formulated the problem as fundamentally one dealing with the interface between human and machine systems- “in order to obtain as complete a mathematical treatment as possible of the over-all control problem, it is necessary to assimilate the different parts of the system to a single basis either human or mechanical.”[1] In essence it was a problem of feedback systems. Humans interface with a machine, the machine does something, how do we maximize the efficacy of the relationship between input and output? Key to this, it turns out, is developing a reliable looping system in which each human input is matched with a machine output, not only in terms of whatever the machine is doing but in terms of feedback to the human operator.
Now abstract from this the human operator.
Macy Conferences[edit | edit source]
Held from 1941-1960, the Macy Conferences focused on interdisciplinary research in Cybernetics and feedback systems. Prominent academics including as Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, and Claude Shannon discussed the nature of communication and control, touching on topics ranging from social psychology to artificial intelligence. The conferences laid the foundation for modern computing and information theory.[2]
Vietnam[edit | edit source]
On the battlefield of the future, enemy forces will be located, tracked, and targeted almost instantaneously through the use of data links, computer assisted intelligence evaluation, and automated fire control. With first round kill probabilities approaching certainty, and with surveillance devices that can continually track the enemy, the need for large forces to fix the opponent becomes less important. I see battlefields that are under 24-hour real or near-real time surveillance of all Tags. I see battlefields on which we can destroy anything we can locate through instant communications and almost instantaneous application of highly lethal firepower ... In summary, I see an Army built into and around an integrated area control system that exploits the advanced technology of communications, sensors, fire direction, and the required automatic data processing.[3]
General Westmoreland, Commander-in-Chief of US forces in Vietnam, made this famous prophecy of a frictionless and cybernetic form of warfare.
Project Cybersyn[edit | edit source]
This was Allendes short lived attempt to harness cybernetics and internet technology (ARPANET completed two years earlier in 1969) for the purposes of managing a nationalized economy under siege. In July of 1971 Fernando Flores of the Chilean Production Development Corporation (CORFO) brought in Manchester cybernetician Stafford Beer. Around 500 telex machines were placed in factories across the country, where they would relate basic data (raw material input, production output, number of absentees, etc.) to a central computer which would make short term predictions and necessary adjustments. It was utilized effectively during the October 1972 CIA/AFL-CIO instigated trucker strike.
Further Reading[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Norbert Wiener I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy Doubleday, 1956 pg. 251
- ↑ Summary: The Macy Conferences (asc-cybernetics.org)
- ↑ Quoted: Antoine Bousquet “Cybernetizing the American War Machine: Science and Computers in the Cold War” Cold War History Vol. 8, No. 1, February 2008, pgs. 77-102)