The Human Use of Human Beings: A Brief Introduction to First-Order Cybernetics
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), “the father of cybernetics”
As with so many other things that the modern westerner might take for granted, cybernetics has its origins in Plato. While today the word might conjure up images of flashing circuit boards and intelligent robots, in Plato’s day kybernḗtēs – the word we derive cybernetics from – referred to the steersman of a ship. If this seems odd, consider that kybernḗtēs is also an ancestor of our word “governor.” Put simply, this is because cybernetics is – and always has been – concerned with the management of society.
Though the field of cybernetics is vast and has undergone a great many changes in just the past few decades, it is generally agreed that, in its modern sense, it was the brain-child of an ex-child prodigy MIT professor unfortunately named Norbert Wiener. In his 1948 book, Cybernetics, Wiener defined it as “the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.” Due to the highly technical nature of this book, Wiener wrote a follow-up two years later, meant for layman audiences. This book introduced cybernetics to the world, and was titled The Human Use of Human Beings. In it, he explained that this new field of his merged the sciences of physics, chemistry, biology, and others, to create, in Wiener’s words, “a tentative new theory of scientific method.” [Wiener, 23]
In order to formulate this new scientific method for the machine age, a knowledge of the rudimentary elements of communication was required. Wiener considered this to be so important that the thesis of The Human Use of Human Beings was that communication is the key to understanding human society,
and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever-increasing part. [Wiener, 25]
Whether animal or machine, individual or collective, to Wiener, the transmission of information was everything. This goes far deeper than abstract philosophical bloviation; the communication of data concerning an ever-changing environment is a matter of life and death.
However, merely sending information from one system to another is useless if action is not affected based on that information. This process of behavior modification (this can include the maintenance of the status quo) by way of communication is known in cybernetic terms as feedback.
Wiener had worked with automatic aiming systems in World War II, and doing so had helped him to understand the concept of feedback. Feedback occurs in a system when the output is re-inserted as input, thus modifying the behavior of the system based on past action. This is a very basic form of learning that was being used by machines (most notably military hardware) all the way back in the 1940’s.
There are two different types of feedback: positive and negative. The former is associated with chaos; it occurs when a system’s input exacerbates its output, and the output in turn exacerbates the input. Simply, A makes more B, B makes more A, and so on. Positive feedback within a system is not stable, and if left unchecked, the system may collapse. Conversely, negative feedback loops are associated with order and stability. In a negative feedback loop, the system’s output corrects or regulates the subsequent input, maintaining the equilibrium of the system.
For a simple example, imagine a person who wishes to get a basketball through a hoop. Making the shot is their desired or expected performance. The person misses, throwing the ball a little too far to the right. This is their actual performance. After comparing the latter to the former, the person corrects their aim and shoots again and again, each time modifying their shot based on this comparison. The same thing occurs in conversations, as each person bases what they say on what has previously been said. This process is so fundamental to human experience that we might not even realize how common feedback is in our day-to-day lives; it often occurs unconsciously; in the “background.”
In The Human Use of Human Beings, Wiener explains that, if feedback is to take place, the machine or organism in question must be able to compare its desired action with its actual action, then correct itself accordingly. For this to occur, both sensory organs (or mechanisms) and memory are necessary.
This control of a machine on the basis of actual performance rather than its expected performance is known as feedback, and involves sensory members which are actuated by the motor members and perform the function of tell-tales or monitors – that is, of elements which indicate a performance. It is the function of these mechanisms to control the mechanical tendency toward disorganization; in other words, to produce a temporary and local reversal of the normal direction of entropy. [Wiener, 36]
Entropy is, of course, the natural propensity toward degradation; all systems – everything – breaks down. Life, says Wiener, might understandably be defined as “all phenomena which locally swim upstream against the current of increasing entropy.” [Wiener, 46] If we accept this definition of life, and consider that feedback in a machine can also reverse the direction of entropy,
the problem as to whether or not the machine is alive or not is, for our purposes, semantic and we are at liberty to answer it one way or the other as best suits our convenience. […] By its ability to make decisions [a machine, like a living organism] can produce around it a local zone of organization in a world whose general tendency is to run down. [Wiener, 46 & 49]
As I said at the beginning of this article, cybernetics has always been about society. Remember that the word comes from the ancient Greek “steersman,” taken from the sixth book of Plato’s Republic. Using a ship as an allegory for the state, the philosopher posits that the shipowner and the sailors (the wealthy and the citizenry) would vie for the position of pilot (or ruler) of the ship (society or the state). They will argue, fight, kill, and bribe to gain this power, though none of them are skillful in the art of piloting. The true pilot, Plato says, will be a stargazer; a philosopher. It will be the one who can read the skies and the seas and steer the ship effectively along its proper course. In other words, the true pilot would be a master of communication and feedback. Likewise, the ideal society would be governed (or “steered”) by philosophers.
The science of cybernetics is concerned with the regulatory or controlling element of a given system; most importantly, society. It is about steering the society and those within it toward a stable, “sustainable” future; a closed system and a negative feedback loop. I believe that the science of cybernetics has much to offer us; indeed, if not for cybernetics, this form of communication we are engaging in right now would be impossible. However, nothing is just black or white. I think that it is wise to beware of anybody who believes they know how to govern society (a euphemism for running other people’s lives). For this reason, I believe that cybernetics is the science of utopianism.
Referenced:
- Wiener, Norbert. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Avon Books, 1967.
- Bloom, Allan, translator. The Republic of Plato. Allan Bloom, 1991.
