Cybernetics is an interdisciplinary field that studies control and communication processes in various systems. It involves information, feedback, and interaction to understand how complex systems work. The term originated from ancient Greece and was defined by Norbert Wiener in the 1920s. Cybernetic theory has four components: variety, circularity, process, and observation. It has been applied to many areas of science, including computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, and simulation. Cybernetics is concerned with mechanical or electronic systems and any system where feedback is used to achieve a desired result.
Cybernetics is a poorly understood and primarily philosophical interdisciplinary field of study. It has been applied to physical and spatial relationships, social theory, and computer science, to name just a few of the many areas it touches. Cybernetics is defined as the study of control and communication processes in mechanical, electronic and biological systems. It is essentially the study of how complex systems work through the use of information, feedback and interaction. At an individual level, for example, cybernetics looks at how a person can achieve his goals by planning and reacting to all conditions and stimuli he encounters in the world around him – in other words, the information and feedback in the system in which he lives.
The term “cybernetics” comes from the Greek word for “governor” or “helmsman” and was used in ancient Greece, including by the famous philosopher Plato in reference to systems of government. The modern use of the word is attributed to Norbert Wiener, a 20th-century American engineer and mathematician, who defined it in the 1920s as the science of communication and control in animals and machines. Many other definitions soon emerged and have continued to emerge, which is why cybernetics is widely regarded as a confusing theoretical concept. Some experts think of cybernetics as the science of effective organization, and others think it focuses on form and pattern.
Cybernetic theory has four components: variety, circularity, process, and observation. Variety involves all possible combinations of inputs and outputs in a given system: the conditions that could occur and the possible outcomes, depending on the choices made. Circularity refers to self-regulation based on feedback. Process is simply how the system works. Observation involves decision making within the system.
As an interdisciplinary field, cybernetics is used in many areas of science, including mathematics, biology, engineering, and psychology. Its best-known application is computer science, where it has been used in the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and simulation. While the prefix “cyber” has been used in reference to computers or, more often, the Internet, cybernetics is more concerned with mechanical or electronic systems. Among the non-mechanical systems it has been applied to are the human brain, the environment, society, and economies—virtually any system where feedback is used to make changes in an attempt to achieve a desired result.
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