"Men, Machines, and the World About" (1954)

Cybernetics

INTRODUCTION

Cybernetics

Norbert Wiener (1894 – 1964)
“American mathematician and philosopher. He was Professor of Mathematics at MIT.” Wikipedia.

INTRODUCTION

Wiener Perspective about Scientists

“... to provide scientific information is not a necessarily innocent act, and may entail the gravest consequences.”

“The interchange of ideas which is one of the great traditions of science must of course receive certain limitations when the scientist becomes an arbiter of life and death.”

ORIGIN OF THE WORD

Greeek Word - Kibernetes (steersman)

"The science of control and communication in the animal and the machine

PREVIOUS PARADIGM

Before, technology was described in terms of mechanisms.

Systems are seen as information processors.

This overflows isolated systems

PREVIOUS PARADIGM

Linear, newtonian, cause & effect: billiard balls.

Predictable and describable machines.

PREVIOUS PARADIGM

There are problems that can not be described linearly
Systems difficult to describe because multiple interactions involved.
Beyond Cause & Effect.

DEFINITION

Study of “communication and control in the animal & machine”

While science is interested in matter and energy.
Cybernetics is interested in control: Information controls energy.
Builds a bridge between living things and physical phenomena.

CONCEPTS - FEEDBACK LOOPS

Non Linear approach
Positive Feedback & Negative Feedback

CONCEPTS - POSITIVE FEEDBACK

Result of a process reinforces the process.

CONCEPTS - NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

Result of a process reduces the process.

CONCEPTS - RECURSIVENESS

Repetitive process

CONCEPTS - RECURSIVENESS

Fractals - self similarity - feedback

CYBERNETICS FLAVOURS

1st order & 2nd Order

CYBERNETICS 1st ORDER

Observer is outside the object, machine controls.
Centrifugal Governor (James Watt’s Steam enginne)

CYBERNETICS 2nd ORDER

Observer is in the system.
Cybernetique: André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836): uses the concept vos Science of Government

CYBERNETICS 2nd ORDER

Maturana & Varela Autopoiesys.

CYBERSYN

Chile, 1970-73

Stafford Beer

CYBERSYN

Based on Biological Obserations of Nervous system

"...distributed decision support system to aid in the management of the national economy. The project consisted of four modules: an economic simulator, custom software to check factory performance, an operations room, and a national network of telex machines that were linked to one mainframe computer"
Elements: System, Meta System, Environment

CYBERSYN

Viable System Model (VSM)

Systems inside other systems
Human Nervous Systems. 6 function of control:

• - Operation
• - Coordination
• - Direction
• - Audit
• - Planing
• - Identity

CYBERSYN

Social Contorol over the Economic Production

From the worker, to the management, to the centralized communicaiton system (Telex), to the central Government.

CYBERSYN

Social Contorol over the Economic Production

The Ops Room, office for coordination.

CYBERSYN

Militar Coup

Process interrupted violently by Pinochet's state coup.
People escaped with documents, literaly, under the coat.

CYBERSYN

Stafford Beer Archives

John Moore University, England

CYBERSYN

Book

Eden Medina Research

REFERENCES

- “Men Machines and the World about” - Norbert Wiener http://21stcenturywiener.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Men-Machines-and-the-World-About-by-N.-Wiener.pdf

- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility - http://cpsr.org/

- “Between Human And Machine: Feedback, Control and Computing Before Cybernetics”, Video, accesed Feb 10, 2014. http://video.mit.edu/watch/between-human-and-machine-feedback-control-and-computing-before-cybernetics-9858/

- Cybernetic Serendipity (ICA) - Late Night Lineup (1968) - Accessed Feb 10, 2014 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8TJx8n9UsA

- “The Construction of Change”, Roy Ascott, Accessed feb 16 2014 - http://www.manovich.net/vis242_winter_2006/New%20Media%20Reader%20all/10-ascott-03.pdf