Cybernetic Theory: So much more than robots

Catherine Novak

INDS 500

March 17th 2013

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From “steersman” to self-organizing systems

Kybernetes (Greek def.)

Person at the wheel of ship, with their eye on the horizon “steersman”

Latin version: gubernator

Cybernetics

the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine (Weiner, 1948)

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Key concepts:

Cybernetics focuses on systems which adjust automatically to feedback

A cybernetic system includes organism/machine/organization AND its environment

Recursion: cyclical process of reproduction; e.g. chicken and egg, opposing mirrors

Autopoeisis: the system can self-replicate. Applied to biological systems, language and more.

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Origins of cybernetics

Idea of cybernetics dates back to time of Aristotle

Automated systems have been in existence for hundreds of years

With industrial revolution, the idea of cybernetics resurfaces, although it wasn't called that until the 1940s

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The Macy Conferences (1942-53)

Numerous specialists met to find interdisciplinary solutions to W.W. II, then to explore other collaborative ideas

Anthropologists

Computer scientists

Mathematicians

Neuroscientists

Physicists

From their work, Norbert Weiner coined the term for the modern study of cybernetics. (1948)

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Entropy vs. Self-Organization

Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics

Entropy: matter becomes more chaotic, varied

Information, acted upon, reverses this law

Computer Code

DNA

Mind

Self-organization limits possibilities, reduces entropy

A self-organizing system is cybernetic

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Relationships, activities, feedback

Cybernetic theorists are more interested in what a system does than what its components are

Information is the “electron” of a cybernetic circuit

Can be active or quiescent

Flows from origin to environment and back

Maintains or alters the system

Bateson defined information as “differences that make a difference” (1971, 2000)

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Second-order cybernetics

“Cybernetics of cybernetics” (von Foerster)

Second-order cybernetics “Studies the role of the (human) observer in the construction of models of systems and other observers” (Heylighter, 2001)

“No data are truly 'raw', and every record has been somehow subjected to editing and transformation either by man or by his instruments” (Bateson, 1971, 2000 p. xxvi)

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Applications

Cybernetics involves studies of goal-oriented, functional systems

Machines (Weiner)

Animals

Computers

Machine/Animal hybrids

Ecosystems

The Mind (Bateson)

Communication (Pask)

Societies (Beer)

Creativity (Iba)

etc.

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More applications than theory

Interdisciplinary cybernetic research reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s

Much cybernetic research is now specific to applied research such as robotics, AI, meteorology, biology, neuroscience

General systems theory has adopted many of the tenets of cybernetics

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The last word

“The characteristic of a non-trivial system that is under control, is that

despite dealing with variables too many to count,

too uncertain to express,

and too difficult even to understand,

something can be done to generate a predictable goal.” (Beer, 2002)

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ReferencesAmerican Society of Cybernetics. (n.d.) Foundations: History of cybernetics. Retrieved March 16th, 2013 from http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/timeline.htm

Bateson, G. (2000). Steps to an ecology of mind, with a new foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press.

Beer, S. (2002) What is cybernetics? Kybernetes, 31(2), 209-219. doi:10.1108/03684920210417283

Heylighten, F. & Joslyn, C. (2001). Cybernetics and second-order cybernetics in R.A. Meyers (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Academic Press

Leaning, M. (2002). The person we meet online. In Convergence, 8(1) 18-27. doi:10.1177/135485650200800103

Rudall, B.H. (2000). Cybernetics and systems in the 1980s, Kybernetes, 29(5/6), 595-611. doi:10.1108/03684920010333071

Takashi Iba, (2010). An autopoietic systems theory for creativity. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(4). 6610-6625 Retrieved March 16th 2013 from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810011298

Wiener, N. (1950). The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and society. Retrieved from http://books.google.ca/books?id=ra8HqPk-wMIC&dq=Weiner+AND+cybernetics&lr=

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Image credits

1. Cirius Cybernetics: Creative Commons attribution license by Bryan K. Ward

2. Steersman: Creative Commons attribution license

3. Droste cocoa package: public domain

4. Dipping bird: Creative Commons attribution license Wikimedia Commons

5. Weiner cover by George Giusti: Creative Commons attribution license by Crossett Library Bennington College

6. Information superhighway Creation Commons attribution license

7. From Heylighter & Joclyn, 2001, p. 16

8. Second-Order Cybernetics: Creative Commons attribution – share alike license Wikimedia Commons

9. From Iba, 2010

10. Rudall, 2000, p. 598

11. By Joachin Stroh. Retrieved March 16th 2013 from https://plus.google.com/100641053530204604051/posts/dFpRvJUwRhw