Cybernetics

If it's intelligent it's Cybernetic.

A definition of Cybernetics is: the science of intelligent self control.

Another definition of Cybernetics is: the science of computation, communication and control in animals, machines and organisations. This is essentially Norbert Wiener's definition to which I have added computation and organisation to reflect current practice.

Cybernetics is concerned with how small, low power information signals may be used to control large, high power systems, in particular by the use of feedback. Cybernetic principles are used in; making machines that can imitate human behaviour (robotics), understanding how information is moved and processed in the human and other animal brains (neuroscience) and studying how organisations can operate most effectively (operational research).

Cybernetics is concerned with studying how a whole system (e.g. an animal, machine or organisation) is organised and controlled. The approach of studying the whole system without looking closely at its parts is often also called holistic.

Computation can be performed by brains or computers. Communication, of the information carrying signals, can be via nerve fibres, wires, speech, electromagnetic waves (radio, light etc.), documents, e-media (tapes, discs, RAM etc.). Control can be achieved via actuators such as muscles, motors, hydraulics, pneumatics, etc.

The equivalent of computer science departments in UK Universities are sometimes called Cybernetics departments in mainland Europe.

The most commonly addressed applications are in computer controlled systems e.g. the internet. Hence the prefix Cyber is used to mean computer controlled. Examples are Cyborg for Cybernetic organism i.e. a human, an animal or alien life form controlled by a computer; Cyberspace for the giant network of computers, memory stores and telephone links that make up the internet. Regretably the Cyber prefix is often used randomly or by people who do not know what means.

The creation of the science of Cybernetics is generally attributed to the mathematician Norbert Wiener following the publication of his book "Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and in the Machine" in 1948. However the word Cybernetique (meaning the science of government) had been used in 1838 by A.M. Ampere (the physicist and mathematician whose name is used for the unit of electrical current) in "Essai sur la philosophie des sciences....". The derivation of the word goes back to Kybernetike (meaning the art of navigation) which appeared in Plato's "The Republic" in 360 B.C.

The core technologies of cybernetics are computer science, electrical and electronic engineering (in particular control theory) and mathematics. More recently people interested in the science of effective organisation and management have taken some of the ideas of cybernetics e.g. networks and information flow and applied them to the study of effective organisations.

For more information see the Cybernetics Society website www.cybsoc.org