The History and Development of Cybernetics
The things a person had to understand to get through life were relatively uncomplicated.
Every object or process, which we shall refer to as a system, was relatively simple.
In fact, up until the last few hundred years, it was possible for some people to master a significant portion of man's existing knowledge.
Leonardo Da Vinci was a leader in the fields of painting, sculpture, anatomy, architecture, weapons engineering, and aeronautical engineering. This is his sketch for a 16th century flying machine, and for a parachute in case the machine broke down.
Complexity
As time passed, the systems that humans were concerned with became more and more complicated.
Transportation systems alone have become more complex and more complex, as have energy systems.
Some people have suggested that technology is advancing so rapidly it is outpacing our ability to control it.
Clearly, it is no longer possible for one person to keep up with developments in all fields, let alone be a leader in many of them, as Leonardo Da Vinci was.
Specialization has become a necessity. How then, do we live and work effectively in a technically advanced society?
Is there a way that you, the modern man or woman, can sort through the complexity, formulate a set of principles underlying all systems and thereby enhance your ability to regulate the world in which you live?
Cybernetics = Regulation of Systems
This question was of interest to a handful of people in the 1940s who were the pioneers in a field that has become known as Cybernetics, the science of the regulation of systems.
Cybernetics is an interdisciplinary science that looks at any and all systems from molecules . . . to galaxies, with special attention to machines, animals and societies.
Cybernetics is derived from the Greek word for steersman or helmsman, who provides the control system for a boat or ship.
This word was coined in 1948 and defined as a science by Norbert Wiener, who was born in 1894 and died in 1964. He became known as the Father of Cybernetics.
Wiener was an applied mathematician, biologist, and electrical engineer. He worked during World War II on the radar-guided anti-aircraft gun.
He connected a special radar to the gun so that it was aimed automatically at the enemy aircraft. After the gun was fired, the radar quickly determined the changing location of the plane and re-aimed the gun until the plane was shot down.
The system imitated human functions and performed them more effectively.
The anti-aircraft gun demonstrates the cybernetic principle of feedback. Feedback is information about the results of a process which is used to change the process. The radar provided information about the changes in location of the enemy airplane and this information was used to correct the aiming of the gun.
A more familiar example of the use of feedback to regulate a system is the common thermostat for heating a room.
Room Temperature Rises to 700
If the heating system is adjusted, as is common, to allow a maximum of 2 degrees variation, when the thermostat is set at 68 degrees the temperature will rise to 70 degrees . . .
Furnace Turns Off-. . . before a temperature sensor in the thermostat triggers the furnace to turn off.
Room Temperature Falls to 660
The furnace will remain off until the temperature of the room has fallen to 66 degrees . . .
Furnace Turns On then the sensor in the thermostat triggers the furnace to turn on again.
Self Regulating System
The sensor provides a feedback loop of information that allows the system to detect a difference from the desired temperature of 68 degrees and to make a change to correct the error. As with the anti-aircraft gun and the airplane, this system – consisting of the thermostat, the heater and the room – is said to regulate itself through feedback and is a self-regulating system.
The human body is one of the richest sources of examples of feedback that leads to the regulation of a system. For example, when your stomach is empty, information is passed to your brain.
When you have taken corrective action, by eating, your brain is similarly notified that your stomach is satisfied.
In a few hours, the process starts all over again. This feedback loop continues throughout our lives.
The human body is such a marvel of self-regulation that early cyberneticians studied its processes and used it as a model to design machines that were self-regulating. One famous machine called the homeostat was constructed in the 1940s by a British scientist, Ross Ashby.
Just as the human body maintains a 98.6 degree temperature the homeostat could maintain the same electrical current, despite changes from the outside.
Homeostasis
Another scientist, Grey Walter, also pursued the concept of imitating the self-regulating features of man and animals.
His favorite project was building mechanical 'tortoises' that would, like this live tortoise, move about freely and have certain attributes of an independent life.
Walter is pictured here with his wife Vivian, their son Timothy, and Elsie the tortoise. Elsie has much in common with Timothy. Just as Timothy seeks out food, which is stored in his body in the form of fat, Elsie seeks out light which she 'feeds' on and transforms into electrical energy which charges an accumulator inside her. Then she's ready for a nap, just like Timothy after a meal, in an area of soft light.
Although Elsie's behavior imitates that of a human, her anatomy is very different. This is what Elsie looks like underneath her shell.
She looks a lot more like the inside of a transistor radio .
. . . the inside of a human body. But as a cybernetician, Walter was not interested in imitating the physical form of a human being, but in simulating a human's functions.
Cybernetics does not ask “What Is This Thing?” “What Does it Do?”
Grey Walter did not attempt to simulate the physical form of a human, as does a sculptor, but to simulate human functions.
In other words, he viewed humans Not as Objects,. . . but as
Processes
For centuries, people have designed machines to help with human tasks and not just tasks requiring muscle power.
Automata, such as the little moving figures of people or animals that emerge from cuckoo clocks and music boxes, were popular in the 1700's and machines capable of thinking were a subject for speculation long before the electronic computer was invented.
Macy Foundation Meetings 1946 - 1953
From 1946 to 1953 there was a series of meetings to discuss feedback loops and circular causality in self-regulating systems.
The meetings, sponsored by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, were interdisciplinary, attended by engineers, mathematicians, neurophysiologists, and others.
There were heated arguments that were so exciting that Margaret Mead, who was in attendance, once did not even notice that she had broken a tooth until after the meeting.
The later meetings went somewhat more calmly as the members developed a common set of experiences.
These meetings, along with the 1948 publication of Norbert Wiener's book titled 'Cybernetics,' served to lay the groundwork for the development of cybernetics as we know it today.
Here is a photograph taken in the 1950s of the four prominent early cyberneticians that you have already met. From left to right they are: Ross Ashby of homeostat fame; Warren McCulloch, organizer of the Macy
Foundation meetings; Grey Walter, creator of Elsie, the tortoise; and Norbert Wiener, who suggested that the field be called ‘Cybernetics.'
Warren McCulloch was a key figure in enlarging the scope of cybernetics. Although a psychiatrist by training, McCulloch combined his knowledge of neurophysiology, mathematics, and philosophy to better understand a very complex system . . .
He believed that the functioning of the nervous system could be described in the precise language of mathematics.
For example, he developed an equation which explained the fact that when a cold object such as an ice cube touches the skin for a brief instant, paradoxically it gives the sensation of heat rather than cold.
McCulloch used not only mathematics and neurophysiology to understand the nervous system but also philosophy – a rare combination. Scientists and philosophers are often considered miles apart in their interests – scientists study real, concrete, . . . . physical things, like plants, .. animals,. and minerals, while philosophers, . .. . study abstract things like ideas, thoughts, and concepts.
McCulloch could see that there is a connection between the science of neurophysiology and a branch of philosophy called epistemology, which is the study of knowledge.
While knowledge is usually considered invisible and abstract, McCulloch realized that knowledge is formed in a physical organ of the body, the brain.
The mind is, in fact, the meeting place between the brain and an idea, between the physical and the abstract, between science and philosophy.
McCulloch founded a new field of study based on this intersection of the physical and the philosophical. This field of study he called 'experimental epistemology,' the study of knowledge through neurophysiology. The goal was to explain how the activity of a nerve network results in what we experience as feelings and ideas.
Why is McCulloch's work so important to cyberneticians? Remember, cybernetics is the science of the regulation of systems.
The human brain is perhaps the most remarkable regulator of all, regulating the human body as well as many other systems in its environment. A theory of how the brain operates is a theory of how all of human knowledge is generated.
Whereas an anti-aircraft gun and a thermostat are devices constructed by people to regulate certain systems, the mind is a system that constructs itself and regulates itself. We shall say more about this phenomenon in a few minutes.
One important concept is the law of requisite variety. This law states that as a system becomes more complex, the controller of that system must also become more complex, because there are more functions to regulate. In other words, the more complex the system that is being regulated, the more complex the regulator of the system must be.
Let's return to our example of a thermostat.
If a house has only a furnace, the thermostat can be quite simple – since it controls only the furnace.
However, if the house has both a furnace and an air conditioner, the thermostat must be more complex – it will have more switches, knobs, or buttons – since it must control two processes – both heating and cooling.
The same principle applies to living organisms. Human beings have the most complex nervous system and brain of any of the animals. This allows them to engage in many different activities and to have complex bodies.
In contrast, some animals such as the starfish, .. . . sea cucumber, . . . and sea anemone have no centralized brain, but only a simple nerve network, which is all that is required to regulate the simpler bodies and functions of these sea animals. In summary, the more complex the animal, the more complex the brain needs to be.
The law of requisite variety not only applies to controlling machines and human bodies, but to social systems as well. For example, in order to control crime, it is not necessary or feasible to have one policeman for each citizen, because not all activities of citizens need regulation . . .
. . . just illegal ones. Therefore, one or two police for every thousand people generally provides the necessary capability for regulating illegal activities.
In this case a match between the variety in the regulator and the variety in the system being regulated is achieved not by increasing the complexity of the regulator, but by reducing the variety in the system being regulated. That is, rather than hiring many policemen, we simply decide to regulate fewer aspects of human behavior.
Self Organizing Systems
The self-organizing system is another cybernetic concept, which we all see demonstrated daily. A self-organizing system is a system that becomes more organized as it goes toward equilibrium. Ross Ashby observed that every system whose internal processes or interaction rules do not change is a self-organizing system.
For example, a disorganized group of people who are waiting to take a bus will fall into a line, because of their past experience that lines are a practical, fair way to obtain service. These people constitute a self-organizing system.
Even a mixture of salad oil and vinegar is a self-organizing system. As a result of being shaken as shown here, the mixture changes to a homogeneous liquid – temporarily.
As the salad dressing is allowed to go to equilibrium, the mixture changes its structure and the oil and vinegar separate automatically. We could say that the mixture organizes itself.
The idea of self-organization leads to a general design rule. In order to change any object, put the object in an environment where the interaction between the object and the environment changes the object in the direction you want it to go. Let's consider three examples .
First, in order to make iron from iron ore we put the iron ore in an environment called a blast furnace. In the furnace, coke is burned to produce heat. In the chemical and thermodynamic environment of the blast furnace, iron oxides become pure iron.
As a result of interacting with teachers and other students in the school, the child learns to read and write.
A third example is the regulation of business by government. To regulate their affairs the people of the United States adopted a Constitution that established three branches of government. By passing laws, Congress creates an environment of tax incentives and legal penalties which are enforced by the Executive Branch.
These incentives and penalties, which are adjudicated by the courts, encourage businessmen to modify their behavior in the desired direction.
Each case – the iron smelting furnace the school with its teachers and students and government regulation of business can be thought of as a self-organizing system. Each system organizes itself as it goes toward its stable equilibrial state. And in each case the known interaction rules of the system have been used to produce a desired result.
The recent work on cellular automata, fractal geometry, and complexity can be thought of as an extension of the work on self-organizing systems in the early 1960s.
So far we have talked mainly about how cybernetics can help us to build machines and to understand simple regulatory processes. But cybernetics also can be helpful in understanding how knowledge itself is generated.
This understanding can provide us with a firmer foundation for regulating larger systems, such as business corporations, nations, and even the whole world.
Role of the Observer
In the late 1960's cyberneticians such as Heinz Von Foerster of the United States, . . . Humberto Maturana of Chile, Gordon Pask and, Stafford Beer of Great Britain . . .
Second Order Cybernetics
. . . began extending the application of cybernetics principles to understanding the role of the observer. This emphasis was called 'second-order cybernetics.'
Whereas, first-order cybernetics dealt with controlled systems, second-order cybernetics deals with autonomous systems.
Applying cybernetic principles to social systems calls attention to the role of the observer of a system who, . . . while attempting to study and understand a social system, is not able to separate himself from the system or prevent himself from having an effect on it.
In the classical view, a scientist working in a laboratory takes great pains to prevent his own actions from affecting the outcome of an experiment. However, as we move from mechanical systems, such as those the scientist works with in the laboratory, to social systems, it becomes impossible to ignore the role of the observer.
For example, a scientist such as Margaret Mead who studied people and their cultures, could not help but have some effect on the people she studied.
Because she lived within the societies she studied, the inhabitants would naturally, on occasion, want to impress her, please her, or perhaps anger her.
Mead's presence in a culture altered that culture and, in turn, affected what she observed.
A conscientious news reporter will always be affected by his or her background and experience and hence will necessarily be subjective. Also, one reporter is unable to gather and comprehend all the information necessary to give a complete, accurate report on a complex event.
For these reasons, it is wise to have several different people study a complex event or system. Only by listening to descriptions of several observers can a person form an impression of how much a description of an event is a function of the observer and how much the description is a function of the event itself.
Whereas, in the early days, cybernetics was generally applied to systems seeking goals defined for them, 'second-order' cybernetics refers to systems that define their own goals.
It focuses attention on how purposes are constructed. An interesting example of a system that grows from having purposes set for it to one that defines its own purposes is a human being. When children are very young, parents set goals for them. For example, parents normally desire that their children learn to walk, talk, and use good table manners.
However, as children grow older, they learn to set their own goals and pursue their own purposes, such as deciding on educational and career goals, making plans to marry and start a family.
To review what we have learned, cybernetics was first noted for the concept of feedback.
The human body is a rich source of examples of how feedback allows systems to regulate themselves, causing scientists to be interested in studying and simulating human and animal activities, from walking to thinking.
Cybernetics studies self-organizing properties and has moved from a concern primarily with machines to include large social systems.
Although we shall never be able to return to the times of Leonardo Da Vinci and master all fields of existing knowledge, we can construct a set of principles that underlie the behavior of all systems.
Also, as cybernetics tells us, because the observer defines the systems he wants to control, complexity is observer-dependent.
