The
concept of cybernetics as it is defined by
Wiener means “the science of
control and
communication, in the animal and the machine”. It is all about
coordination,
regulation, and
control in the
biological sciences. The
Principia Cybernetica adds the following:
Cybernetics is committed to an
epistemological perspective that views material
wholes as
analysable without loss, in terms of a set of components plus their organization. Organization accounts for how the components of such a system interact with one another, and how this
interaction determines and changes its
structure. It explains the difference between parts and wholes and is described without
reference to their
material forms. The disinterest of cybernetics in material
implications separates it from all sciences that designate their
empirical domain by subject matters such as
physics,
biology,
sociology,
engineering and general
systems theory. Its epistemological focus on organization, pattern and communication has generated methodologies, a
logic, laws, theories and insights that are unique to cybernetics and have wide-ranging implications in other fields of
inquiry.
The topic of cybernetics was popularized by
George Ashby in
1956, who wrote the book 'An introduction to cybernetics'. For those who are interested, the complete book is available online at
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html.