ilinx/text_base/txts/cybernetics.txt

CYBERNETICS
kybernetes
40s-50s

whether in the machine or inliving tissue

computing machines
stored-program computer


nervous system

communication
control theory
statistical information theory
statistical mechanics
neurophysiology
biology
behaviorism

Macy conference 1946-1953



what makes behavior?
thinking about machines



feedback mechanisms

biology
circular causal system 


Norbert Wiener
<i>Cybernetics; or, Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine</i>
definition cybernetics

Dr. Rosenblueth



John Von Neumann
complexity barrier


WWII
new weapons system
radar
rapid calculating machines

machines 
automata

self-regulating
stability
feedback loops 
environment

shift in understanding the living organism
19th century

a heat engine, burning glucose or glycogen or starch, fats, and proteins into carbon dioxide, water and urea (41)
the [organism’s] body is very far from a conservative system, and that its component parts work in an environment where the available power is much less limited than we have taken it to be. 
the newer study of automata, whether in the metal or in the flesh, is a branch of communication engineering, and its cardinal notions are those of message, amount of disturbance or ‘noise’— a term taken over from the telephone engineer quantity of information, coding technique, and so on

nervous system
organs
little amount of energy

regulating 
passage of information 
from body's sense organs 
to effectors
perform actions
vacuum tube
electronic circuit 

theory of sensitive automata
the newer study of automata, whether in the metal or in the flesh, is a branch of communication engineering, and its cardinal notions are those of message, amount of disturbance or ‘noise’— a term taken over from the telephone engineer quantity of information, coding technique, and so on

environment
sensory stimulation
equivalent of nervous system
transfer information
effectors
perform action

We are scarcely ever interested in the performance of a communicationengineering machine for a single input. To function adequately, it must give a satisfactory performance for a whole class of inputs, and this means a statistically satisfactory performance for the class of input which it is statistically expected to receive. Thus its theory belongs to the Gibbsian statistical mechanics rather than to the classical Newtonian mechanics. (44)

the modern automaton exists in the same sort of Bergsonian time as the living organism.

time of becoming
creative evolution

vitalist-mechanist

to the limbo of badly posed question

Claude Shannon 
quantitative theory of information
overcome engineering problems in electronic communications
reduce noise in telephone lines
communication of information in any medium
statistical theory
formal theory


Ludwig Boltzmann
formula computing entropy
amount of randomness
thermodynamic system
uncertainty of molecular states
statistical distribution
missing information