Cybernetics and systems theory are both about the same thing, which is to say nonlinear causality, so you're right to observe a similarity. The difference is pr

Cybernetics and systems theory are both about the same thing, which is to say nonlinear causality, so you're right to observe a similarity. The difference is primarily that cybernetics focuses on the ground up modelling (often mathematically) of casual loops whereas systems theory (and systems thinking) typically focuses on the behaviour of the system as a whole and its teleological (in this article, called purposive) behaviour, as well as things like stable states (called attractors in the literature). To use a software analogy, they're like white box and black box analysis respectively.