4 ms·

Control systems are not cybernetics. They are mathematical models. You can look it up.

shaunxcode 7y ago
To be fair cybernetics is directly name checked in the article though: “Norbert Wiener proposed that regulatory systems in both animals and machines should be studied together, in a field he named cybernetics”
carapace 7y ago
Cybernetics is the original "control systems math", which was then forgotten/ignored in the West (the Soviets messed with it some I think) and re-invented as "Control Theory" by people trying to control factories and such. As the article states, Cybernetics as originally conceived makes no distinctions about the physical (or otherwise) nature of the underlying processes it models, and it was explicitly expected to unify the math of feedback and control in biological as well and mechanical systems. The fictional "Bionic Man", et. al., was an exploration in the popular imagination of how this might result in e.g. artificial limbs and organs that worked like the real thing and, in the stories at least, even improved on them. In any event, what this article describes could be called cellular bionics.
- plausibilities 7y ago
  greybeard spotted :P
- amatic 7y ago
  Nit pick - The "original control systems math" is Bode, Black, Nyquist.. 1930's. Cybernetics is the application of control theory (branch of mathematics) to biology; Norbert Wiener, Ashby, etc, 1950's.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Nit pick to a nit pick: from what I can gather from the title of Wiener's book[0], it was never about biology. It was just about applications of control theory to physical mechanisms, be it biological or man-made. -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:_Or_Control_and_Communication_in_the_Animal_and_the_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:_Or_Control_and_Co...
    - amatic 7y ago
      Looks like wikipedia is the source of confusion in this case. "The book laid the theoretical foundation for servomechanisms (whether electrical, mechanical or hydraulic), automatic navigation, analog computing .." Servomechanisms existed way earlier than 1948, so did analog computers - navy ships in WWII extensively used both in gun control, to move the guns and calculate balistic trajectories, etc. Wiener merely wrote down existing knowledge, and suggested it could also be applied to humans.
      - carapace 7y ago
        > navy ships in WWII extensively used both in gun control, to move the guns and calculate balistic trajectories, etc. > Wiener merely wrote down existing knowledge, and suggested it could also be applied to humans. A little more than that. > During World War II, his work on the automatic aiming and firing of anti-aircraft guns caused Wiener to investigate information theory independently of Claude Shannon and to invent the Wiener filter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#During_and_after_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#During_and_afte... But you're absolutely right that "original control systems math" is older than cybernetics, well met.

To be fair cybernetics is directly name checked in the article though: “Norbert Wiener proposed that regulatory systems in both animals and machines should be studied together, in a field he named cybernetics”

carapace 7y ago

Cybernetics is the original "control systems math", which was then forgotten/ignored in the West (the Soviets messed with it some I think) and re-invented as "Control Theory" by people trying to control factories and such. As the article states, Cybernetics as originally conceived makes no distinctions about the physical (or otherwise) nature of the underlying processes it models, and it was explicitly expected to unify the math of feedback and control in biological as well and mechanical systems. The fictional "Bionic Man", et. al., was an exploration in the popular imagination of how this might result in e.g. artificial limbs and organs that worked like the real thing and, in the stories at least, even improved on them. In any event, what this article describes could be called cellular bionics.

plausibilities 7y ago
greybeard spotted :P
amatic 7y ago
Nit pick - The "original control systems math" is Bode, Black, Nyquist.. 1930's. Cybernetics is the application of control theory (branch of mathematics) to biology; Norbert Wiener, Ashby, etc, 1950's.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Nit pick to a nit pick: from what I can gather from the title of Wiener's book[0], it was never about biology. It was just about applications of control theory to physical mechanisms, be it biological or man-made. -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:_Or_Control_and_Communication_in_the_Animal_and_the_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:_Or_Control_and_Co...
  - amatic 7y ago
    Looks like wikipedia is the source of confusion in this case. "The book laid the theoretical foundation for servomechanisms (whether electrical, mechanical or hydraulic), automatic navigation, analog computing .." Servomechanisms existed way earlier than 1948, so did analog computers - navy ships in WWII extensively used both in gun control, to move the guns and calculate balistic trajectories, etc. Wiener merely wrote down existing knowledge, and suggested it could also be applied to humans.
    - carapace 7y ago
      > navy ships in WWII extensively used both in gun control, to move the guns and calculate balistic trajectories, etc. > Wiener merely wrote down existing knowledge, and suggested it could also be applied to humans. A little more than that. > During World War II, his work on the automatic aiming and firing of anti-aircraft guns caused Wiener to investigate information theory independently of Claude Shannon and to invent the Wiener filter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#During_and_after_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#During_and_afte... But you're absolutely right that "original control systems math" is older than cybernetics, well met.