Cybernetics

1943

Norbert Wiener (1894–1964)

Mathematician Norbert Wiener coined the term cybernetics to describe the study of self-regulating systems. During World War II, Wiener was working on a military project on the guidance and control of aircraft fire when he came to the conclusion that to solve the self-correcting tracking problem, he would need to employ the notion of feedback, both in the plane and in the human gunner, as an integrated system. In 1943, his scholarly paper “Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology” brought together ideas from physiology, behavioral psychology, and engineering to describe a cybernetic organism, or one that was both man and machine. This paper became the manifesto for cybernetics and led to a series of annual conferences that were crucial for the postwar development of what is now referred to as cognitive science.

From the beginning, cybernetics was an interdisciplinary research area in which psychologists, biologists, mathematicians, engineers, and others studied the interaction of brain and machine. Three concepts are crucial in cybernetic theory: feedback, information, and purpose. Feedback relies on an information flow about the organism or machine in order to regulate the activity of the organism or machine. Self-regulating systems have a purpose or goal, such as maintaining a constant temperature.

An event that took place at the Macy conference of 1952 illustrates these concepts. Information theorist Claude Shannon brought along a mechanical maze-running rat equipped with an electrical contact “finger,” which it used to detect the walls of a maze made up of twenty-five squares. Using feedback from these contacts and programming that allowed it to avoid blind alleys, the rat successfully navigated the maze.

The ways these ideas were deployed in combination with information theory to encompass both human systems (biological and social) and machine systems led to a period of innovative scientific discovery. With parallel developments in computer science and neuroscience, the new field of cognitive science was born, which has gradually changed the field of psychology.

SEE ALSO Turing Machine (1937), Logic Theorist (1956), Center for Cognitive Studies (1960)

A map generated from Portland, Oregon, resident Aaron Parecki’s GPS logs between 2008 and 2010 shows just how monitored our every movement has become. According to cybernetic theory, which indirectly encouraged the advent of cognitive science, gathering detailed, computerized feedback such as this can be used for the more beneficent purpose of developing a self-regulating system that helps us to avoid future navigation errors.