- Norbert Wiener, a mathematician, introduced the term cybernetics.
- Other key people in this field are Warren McCulloch and Jay Forrester.
- Cybernetics refers to the science of communication and control in the animal, machine, and society.
- It is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems.
- The term cybernetics originated from Greek word ‘kubernetes’ means ‘steering’ and ‘governor’ in Latin.
- Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, systems theory and control theory.
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It operates on two levels:
- study of an observed system - 1st-order cybernetics.
- study of the people studying a system - 2nd-order cybernetics.
- Cybernetics is defined as the study of systems and processes that interact with themselves and produce themselves from themselves. (
Major Concepts
- Cybernetics introduces the concept of circularity and circular causal systems.
- Systems are defined by boundaries.
- Every system has a goal.
- System acts, aims toward the goal.
- Environment affects aim.
- Information returns to system — ‘feedback’.
- System measures difference between state and goal
- Detects ‘error’.
- System corrects action to aim toward goal.
- Cycle repeat.
Scope & Application Cybernetics
- Basis of modern communication systems.
- Application in cognitive science for modeling of learning.
- Application in management science.
Conclusion
- Cybernetics is applicable in any discipline relying on feedback processes including health sciences, sociology and psychology, which are based on communication process.
References
- Steve J. Heims (1980), John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death, 3. Aufl., Cambridge.
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