Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

1.The Evolution of Cybernetics from the Beginning to our Days

2.Definitions of Cybernetics. The Main Contributions to the
Progresses of Cybernetics

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

- Cybernetics is based on two underlying concepts information and the

system - which are fundamental to all natural and social processes.
- One fundamental insight is that it is not the material and energy in a system
that are the decisive factors, but the information that orders and organizes
the basic elements.
- The component elements only become a system through the information.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

The central discovery of cybernetics was that there are natural laws
that define and determine the control of all systems (Malik 1998).

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Cybernetics conducts research into the same phenomenon in all areas,

whether in nature or society, that is, the creation and directing of
states.
The behavior of a system can be described as a sequence of states

It concentrates on one aspect of the behaviour of dynamic systems:

steering and regulation processes.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

The circuit as a steering process describes a self-regulating system

(e.g. a company) in which a target value - an objective - is set. The
central characteristic of this concept is the existence of a regulator
that assesses the state of the system using certain target parameters.

In the case of differences (from the normal states), the system

autonomously sets previously defined corrections in order to restore
the programmed target state.

This feedback leads to the permanent maintenance of a state of

stability in the system.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Example: One frequently cited analogy for a self-regulating system is

the human body. The body temperature of a human being is defined as
normal within a relatively narrow range between 36 C and 37 C. lf the
temperature rises above the critical mark, the organism reacts by
sweating, which cools the surface temperature by evaporation and
ideally brings it back within the normal temperature range.
Conversely, if the organism falls below a critical temperature point, it
causes increased physical movement in the form of shivering, as a
result of which the body temperature rises again.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

The described processes of steering, regulation and adjustment have

one thing in common: the intake, processing and communication of
information.
Information is the crucial factor for the activity of an element or a
system. To ensure that the elements of the system receive purposerelated knowledge, processes for the transmission of information are
required.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Since cybernetics is focused on complex, dynamic systems that

cannot

be

accurately

described

and

whose

behaviour

is

unpredictable, the black box theory' is often applied

-

With the help of the black box technique, the behaviour of real
systems can be simulated on the basis of models; this enables
complex reality not only to be explored, but also actuaIly to be
shaped (Beer 1962).

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Example: An Enterprise's strategic options

The more complex an enterprise is, the greater are its strategic options,
and the more varied are the ways in which it can respond to
environmental changes in the market, or with customers or suppliers.
At the same time, it is a more difficult and demanding task to keep the
system under control and to choose and use the optimum options from
the many possibilities available.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

It is a logical conclusion that complex systems can be brought under

control only by complex means.

The law of requisite variety developed by neurophysiologist and

cyberneticist W.R Ashby supplies the answer to this critical question.
In order to bring a system under control, at least as much variety
(complexity) is needed as the system itself possesses

- Complexity can be controlled only by complexity, or as Ashby puts it:

only variety can absorb variety.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

-

The law of requisite variety demands that the variety available for
directing the intended objectives has to be at least as high as the
variety of the system to be directed.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

First order cybernetics, early cybernetics

Norbert Wiener founder of cybernetics (1948)
During World War II, Wiener worked on guided missile technology, and
studied how sophisticated electronics used the feedback principle -- as when a
missile changes its flight in response to its current position and direction. He
noticed that the feedback principle is also a key feature of life forms from the
simplest plants to the most complex animals, which change their actions in
response to their environment. Wiener developed this concept into the field of
cybernetics, concerning the combination of man and electronics, which he first
published in 1948 in the book Cybernetics.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

First order cybernetics

- the systems sciences
- Cybernetics had from the beginning been interested in the similarities
between autonomous, living systems and machines
- an engineer, scientist, or "first-order" cyberneticist, will study a
system as if it were a passive, objectively given "thing", that can be
freely observed, manipulated, and taken apart.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Definitions
Ampere: the science of government
Norbert Wiener: the science of control and communication in
animal and machine
Stafford Beer: the science of effective organization

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

First order cybernetics

- The law of requisite variety

- Self-organization
- Regulation

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

The law of requisite variety

Information and selection
The amount of selection that can be performed is limited by
the amount of information available
Regulator and regulated
The variety in a regulator must be equal to or greater than the
variety in the system being regulated

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Examples

- A quantitative relationship between information and selection:

admitting students to a university
- The variety in the regulator must be at least as great as the variety in
the system being regulated: buying a computer

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Ashbys theory of adaptation

- A system can learn if it is able to acquire a pattern of behaviour that is

successful in a particular environment
- This requires not repeating unsuccessful actions and repeating
successful actions
- A system can adapt if it can learn a new pattern of behaviour after
recognizing that the environment has changed and that the old
pattern of behaviour is not working

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Ashbys principle of self-organization

Any isolated, determinate, dynamic system obeying unchanging laws
will develop organisms that are adapted to their environments
Organisms and environments taken together constitute the selforganizing system

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Stefan Odobleja- contribution to the foundations of cybernetics

https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Comp/CompJurc.htm

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Second order cybernetics (early 1970)

- exploring the "cybernetics of cybernetics", the "cybernetics of
observing systems", or "reflection on reflection on cybernetics"
- second-order cybernetics studies how observers construct models of
other cybernetic systems
- observer and observed cannot be separated, and the result of
observations will depend on their interaction.
- the observer too is a cybernetic system, trying to construct a model of
another cybernetic system - the philosophy of constructivism

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Second order cybernetics

- the recognition that all our knowledge of systems is mediated by our

simplified representations-or models-of them, which necessarily ignore
those aspects of the system which are irrelevant to the purposes for
which the model is constructed.
- a biological view of epistemology ("theory of knowledge"): how
the brain functions

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela)

- The origin of the term was in biology: how to distinguish living from
non-living systems
- Refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself
- Autopoiesis means self production: the biological processes that
preserve life or the processes that maintain a corporation

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Third order cybernetics

in principle, represents the current state of the cybernetic science

the observer is understood to be part of a coevolving system - the
focus is on how observers and systems co-evolve across different
social systems.

in the enterprise as a system, all subsystems can be structured as

cybernetic control circuits

the total system is a multi-level integrated control circuit with varying

degrees of complexity.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Third order cybernetics

- When cybernetic principles are transferred to a business system, the states of
a system must first be assessed. According to cybernetic thinking, target
values are needed for this purpose.
- Social and economic systems can survive for a long time only if they react
and adapt successfully to the disturbances (disasters, crisis, wars, radical
technological innovations, etc.) and threats
- Every social system: (i) is composed of a number of agents with different
individual features, social roles, economic motivations, different group
memberships, and so on, (ii) represents a complex entity, capable of adapting
to disturbances (which do not overwhelm the system).

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

Definition A CAS consists of inhomogeneous, interacting adaptive
agents. Adaptive means capable of learning.
- An emergent property of a CAS is a property of the system as a whole
which does not exist at the individual elements (agents) level.
- Therefore to understand a complex system one has to study the system
as a whole and not to decompose it into its constituents.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

-

CAS approach studies how complex systems interact and exchange

information with their environment in order to maintain over time
their internal structure and the network of vital processes

The term CAS refers to a system (not exclusively of a social or

economic nature but of an organizational one as well) with the
following properties:
o

It is composed of a large number of primitive components, or

agents different in nature (men, animals, plants, robots,
scientific theories, neurons, etc.);

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

o

Their number is not always fixed, so that the system can often be
considered open; thus, it may be difficult or impossible to define
system boundaries;

It produces many types of different interactions among the

agents and between the agents and their environment; these
interactions are in the form of reinforcing and balancing loops,
which make the interactions nonlinear since, as we know, small
actions can produce significant changes in the system;

The agents are structurally coupled to other agents and to the

environment, and they are subject to many environmental
constraints;

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

o

As a consequence of the interactions among the agents, the

systems behaviour evolves over time;

Unanticipated global properties or patterns emerge as a result of

often nonlinear spatialtemporal interactions among a large
number of component systems at different levels of organization

The Third Order Cybernetics is the cybernetics that studies societal

systems, that are the society, the economy, the population etc

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

The Main Contributions to the Progresses of Cybernetics

W. Ross Ashby
- psychiatrist; one of the founding fathers of cybernetics; law of requisite
variety,principle of self-organization, and law of regulating models.
Stafford Beer
- management cyberneticist; creator of the Viable System Model (VSM)
Gordon Pask
- creator of conversation theory: second order cybernetic concepts and
applications to education.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
- biologist; founder of General System Theory.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

John von Neumann

-

mathematician; founding father in the domains of, game theory

Heinz von Foerster is well-known for many contributions of the Second

order Cybernetics:
The mechanism of memory
An equation describing population growth
A thought experiment illustrating self-organization
Gregory Bateson
- anthropologist, he looked at parallels between mind and natural evolution.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Jay Forrester
- engineer; creator of system dynamics, applications to the modelling of
industry development, cities and the world
Humberto Maturana
- biologist; creator together with F. Varela of the theory of autopoiesis.
-

Maturana and Varela are considered the main leaders of the second
order cybernetics.

Warren McCulloch
- neurophysiologist; first to develop mathematical models of neural networks.
Ilya Prigogine
- Nobel Prize in chemistry; studied thermodynamical self-organization,
irreversibility and dissipative structures.

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

Claude Shannon
- founder of information theory: Information is that which reduces uncertainty

Herbert A. Simon:
- Nobel prize in economics, made fundamental contributions to Artificial
Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, Management, philosophy of science, and
complex systems.
Stuart Anspach Umpleby- helped to create social cybernetics

Fundamentals of cybernetics, 27 february 2015

The variables and their variations are what interest the

systems thinker!