What is Cybernetics?
Cybernetics is a little understood and mainly philosophical area of study. It has been applied to social theory, physical and spatial relationships, and computer science, to name just a few of the many areas it touches upon. The field of study is still very young and not well-defined, so there are actually many differing ideas on the definition. Norbert Wiener, a mathematician, engineer and philosopher was the first to try to thoroughly define cybernetics. He believed it was the science of communications and control in animals and machines. He took the word from the Greek word for steersman. Ampere, who came before Wiener, wanted cybernetics to be the science of government and philosopher Warren McCulloch thought cybernetics was an experimental idea concerned with the communication with and between an observer and his environment. Some think of cybernetics as the science of effective organization, while others believe it focuses on form and pattern. Margaret Mead, the famed anthropolog
Cybernetics is about systems (and most things are a system), in particular, systems with feedback. Useful principles are equally well applied to technological systems as to those in humans and other animals, the environment and (in principle) the economy. The subject transcends traditional academic subjects – hence it provides a different perspective on looking at systems – and thus we have the Escher inspired view (below), showing aspects of the subject.
Cybernetics, in the most broad term, deals with the brains neural pathways and electro-mechanical connections that can be made to them. This term was first coined in 1948 by Claude Shannon in his paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, published for Bell Systems. Today, there are two generally regarded classes of cybernetics, implants and wearable computers.
