Cybernetics

 

I.                  As we know, contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s. It was N. Wienner who has combined the main cybernetics perspectives which have been developed by many and various people over the past two thousand years. He defined the principles of regulating and responding tomechanical and electrical systems, social and governmental systems, human and animal nervous systems, and human and animal social systems. The cybernetics concept is relevant to the modern development of management and one’s own role and potential within systems of all kinds. The organization in which we work, the world in which we live, the people around us – these are all systems. Cybernetics is central to our understanding of life, organizations and the way we relate to our world.

The first law of cybernetics is considered to be the following: “The unit within the system with the most behavioral responses available to it, controls the system”. This law has great significance especially in understanding and developing greater individual self-determination; and greater understanding, tolerance and variety of responses to situations and people around us. And this all is essential for our ability to interact and respond effectively within work and beyond. The first law of cybernetics is one of the most powerful maxims for living a happy productive and successful life. And while ‘successful’ is of course a matter of individual interpretation, cybernetics provides the key to achieving it, whatever your interpretation might be. It’s a very powerful concept – in a way cybernetics is the source of thoughtful choice over unquestioning instinct.

II.               Thus, as we see, cybernetics is the science of general principles of control, means of control and human society. The subject matter of cybernetics is a cybernetic system, including a variety of interconnected elements which are able to store, process and exchange information. The examples of cybernetic systems may serve an automatic regulator, a computer, a human brain and the human society.

Any control process, to be used on a cybernetic system, implies continuous information exchange between the controlled object (a machine or a human muscle) and the control unit (an automatic regulator or the brain of a living organism. The control process represented on the scheme below involves the transmission, accumulation, storage and processing of information about the controlled object. The laws governing control processes are based on such fundamental concepts as feed-forward and feedback. The controlled object receives information from the control unit through the feed-forward and modifies its behavior. The information transmitting process about the effects or results of the control operations is achieved through the feedback.

 

Feed-forward

 

 

 

 

Feedback

 

Cybernetics can be subdivided into theoretical cybernetics and technical one. The cornerstones of theoretical cybernetics are information theory, the theory of algorithms and the theory of automatic systems which investigates the methods of building data-processing systems. Technological cybernetics is concerned with design and operation of technical control systems and computer hardware. The applied cybernetics is associated with the use of theoretical and technological cybernetics for solving specific control tasks to be found in industry, power supply, transport, communication, etc.

Cybernetics studies human thinking to create algorithms for computer programming. It also studies the automata design principles and investigates the possibilities of using them to mechanize human mental processes. The main goal of cybernetics is to achieve maximum automation of control processes in various spheres of human activity.

 

15. Look through the text and answer the questions using the information from the text:

1) Why can cybernetics be called an interdisciplinary science? 2) What fields does contemporary cybernetics connect? 3) Who is considered the founder of cybernetics? 4) What did he do to develop the science? 5) What kind of science is cybernetics? 6) What is the main law of cybernetics? 7) What is the subject matter of cybernetics? 8) What does any control process used in a cybernetic system imply? 9) What fundamental concepts govern control processes in cybernetics? 10) What do theoretical and technological cybernetic deal with?

 

16. Find in the previous texts the English equivalents for:

Саморегулирующееся устройство; следить за уровнем воды; искусственная система автоматического регулирования; бак-сборник; водяные часы; регулировать скорость потока воды; соответственно; поддерживать постоянный уровень воды; работать всухую; обратная связь; самоуправление; рулевой; буквальный перевод; социальная причастность; регулируемый паровой двигатель; заложить основу; иметь значение; занимать умы великих умов; нельзя не упомянуть.

Понятие «кибернетика»; теория электрических сетей; междисциплинарная наука; машиностроение; правительственные системы; определять принципы регулирования и отклика; в пределах возможных систем; понимание жизни; самоопределение; процесс передачи информации; разнообразие реакций; взаимодействовать; эффективно реагировать; мощные (сильнодействующие) правила; плодотворная и успешная жизнь; средства управления; предмет «кибернетика»; запоминать и обрабатывать информацию; человеческий мозг; человеческое общество; непрерывный обмен информацией; объект управления; управляющее устройство; прямая связь; обратная связь; модифицировать поведение.

 

17. Translate the text and think of its title:

There are many definitions of cybernetics and many individuals who have influenced the definition and direction of cybernetics. Norbert Wiener, a mathematician, engineer and social philosopher, coined the word "cybernetics" from the Greek word meaning "steersman." He defined it as the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Ampere, before him, wanted cybernetics to be the science of government. For philosopher Warren McCulloch, cybernetics was an experimental epistemology concerned with the communication within an observer and between the observer and his environment. Stafford Beer, a management consultant, defined cybernetics as the science of effective organization. Anthropologist Gregory Bateson noted that whereas previous sciences dealt with matter and energy, the new science of cybernetics focuses on form and pattern. For educational theorist Gordon Pask, cybernetics is the art of manipulating defensible metaphors, showing how they may be constructed and what can be inferred as a result of their existence.

Cybernetics takes as its domain the design or discovery and application of principles of regulation and communication. Cybernetics treats not things but ways of behaving. It does not ask "what is this thing?" but "what does it do?" and "what can it do?" Because numerous systems in the living, social and technological world may be understood in this way, cybernetics cuts across many traditional disciplinary boundaries. The concepts which cyberneticians develop thus form a metadisciplinary language by which we may better understand and modify our world.

Several traditions in cybernetics have existed side by side since its beginning. One is concerned with circular causality, manifest in technological developments--notably in the design of computers and automata--and finds its intellectual expression in theories of computation, regulation and control. Another tradition, which emerged from human and social concerns, emphasizes epistemology--how we come to know-- and explores theories of self-reference to understand such phenomena as autonomy, identity, and purpose. Some cyberneticians seek to create a more humane world, while others seek merely to understand how people and their environment have co-evolved. Some are interested in systems as we observe them, others in systems that do the observing. Some seek to develop methods for modeling the relationships among measurable variables. Others aim to understand the dialogue that occurs between models or theories and social systems. Early work sought to define and apply principles by which systems may be controlled. More recent work has attempted to understand how systems describe themselves, control themselves, and organize themselves. Despite its short history, cybernetics has developed a concern with a wide range of processes involving people as active organizers, as sharing communicators, and as autonomous, responsible individuals.

 

18. Translate the text into English in the written form: