cybernetics

via google: the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things

via wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics]:

Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system’s actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with general principles that are relevant across multiple contexts,  including in engineering, ecological, economic, biological, cognitive and social systems and also in practical activities such as designing, learning, and managing. Cybernetics’ transdisciplinary  character has meant that it intersects with a number of other fields, leading to it having both a wide influence and diverse interpretations.

The field is named after an example of circular causal feedback—that of steering a ship (the ancient  Greek κυβερνήτης (kybernḗtēs) refers to the person who steers a ship). In steering a ship, the position of the rudder is adjusted in continual response to the effect it is observed as having, forming a feedback loop through which a steady course can be maintained in a changing environment, responding to disturbances from cross winds and tide.

Early focuses included purposeful behaviour, neural networks, heterarchy, information theory, and self-organising systems. As cybernetics developed, it became broader in scope to include work in design, family therapy, management and organisation, pedagogy, sociology, the creative arts and the counterculture

to me.. one of these things is not like the others.. ie: legit self org systems would find the rest irrelevant cancerous distractions

One of the best known definitions is that of the American scientist *Norbert Wiener, who characterised cybernetics as concerned with “control and communication in the animal and the machine“. Another early definition is that of the Macy cybernetics conferences, where cybernetics was understood as the study of “circular causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social systems”. **Margaret Mead emphasised the role of cybernetics as “a form of cross-disciplinary thought which made it possible for members of many disciplines to communicate with each other easily in a language which all could understand”.

*norbert wiener – human use of human beings et al

**margaret mead (was married to gregory bateson.. had daughter mary catherine bateson.. et al)

Other definitions include: “the art of governing or the science of government” (André-Marie Ampère); “the art of steersmanship” (Ross Ashby); “the study of systems of any nature which are capable of receiving, storing, and processing information so as to use it for control” (Andrey Kolmogorov); and “a branch of mathematics dealing with problems of control, recursiveness, and information, focuses on forms and the patterns that connect” (Gregory Bateson).

yeah.. this paragraph is probably why i’ve never had a page of it before.. all the forms of people telling other people what to do

The French word cybernétique was also used in 1834 by the physicist André-Marie Ampère to denote the sciences of government in his classification system of human knowledge.

intellectness as cancerous distraction.. graeber can’t know law.. et al

According to Norbert Wiener, the word cybernetics was coined by a research group involving himself and Arturo Rosenblueth in the summer of 1947. It has been attested in print since at least 1948 through Wiener’s book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. In the book, Wiener states:

After much consideration, we have come to the conclusion that all the existing terminology has too heavy a bias to one side or another to serve the future development of the field as well as it should; and as happens so often to scientists, we have been forced to coin at least one artificial neo-Greek expression to fill the gap. We have decided to call the entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal, by the name Cybernetics, which we form from the Greek κυβερνήτης or steersman.

yeah.. we need a ‘communication’.. sans control.. ie: need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs

again.. intellectness as cancerous distraction we can’t seem to let go of.. there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental expo labeling).. to facil a legit global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it

Wiener motivates the choice by steering engines of a ship being “one of the earliest and best-developed forms of feedback mechanisms”

aka: forms of voluntary compliance.. manufacturing consent.. et al

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adding page because of nika dubrovsky‘s fb post [https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10236617897404189&set=a.1386428257552]:

Tired, sick, logged into fb to read something in messenger and found this text. I’m going to have to read this. [links to 2025 article by Alex Taek-Gwang Lee (I’m a writer moonlighting as a philosophy and cultural studies professor in South Korea. Basically, I get paid to overthink things and confuse students in two languages.) – Lévi-Strauss and Cybernetics

notes on that here: lévi-strauss and cybernetics

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one of the reasons didn’t include a cybernetics page before: anarchism & cybernetics of self-org systems

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