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Short reference pages on the thinkers, ideas and communities of cybernetics. Articles link here whenever they mention one; hover a link (or press and hold on a phone) for a quick summary.
People
W. Ross Ashby 1903–1972 English psychiatrist who built the homeostat and formulated the Law of Requisite Variety. His Introduction to Cybernetics (1956) remains the field's clearest textbook. Gregory Bateson 1904–1980 English anthropologist and thinker who carried cybernetics into anthropology, psychiatry, communication and ecology. Known for the double bind and for defining information as "a difference which makes a difference". Stafford Beer 1926–2002 British theorist who founded management cybernetics. He created the Viable System Model and directed Project Cybersyn, Chile's attempt to run its economy in real time under Salvador Allende. Julian Bigelow 1913–2003 American engineer who worked with Norbert Wiener on anti-aircraft prediction, co-wrote "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" (1943), and was chief engineer of John von Neumann's IAS computer. Heinz von Foerster 1911–2002 Austrian-American physicist who directed the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois and became the leading figure of second-order cybernetics, the cybernetics of observing systems. Karl Friston born 1959 British neuroscientist who developed the free energy principle and active inference, a theory of how living systems maintain themselves by minimising surprise. He also created the standard methods for analysing brain imaging data. Ranulph Glanville 1946–2014 Anglo-Irish architect and cybernetician, a student of Gordon Pask, who argued that design and second-order cybernetics are two views of the same activity. He was president of the American Society for Cybernetics. James Lovelock 1919–2022 British independent scientist and inventor who proposed the Gaia hypothesis: that life and its environment form a self-regulating system that keeps the Earth habitable. Niklas Luhmann 1927–1998 German sociologist who rebuilt social theory on cybernetic and biological foundations, describing society as a system made of communications that reproduces itself (an autopoietic social system). Lynn Margulis 1938–2011 American biologist who showed that complex cells arose from the merger of simpler organisms (endosymbiosis), and who developed the Gaia hypothesis with James Lovelock. Humberto Maturana 1928–2021 Chilean biologist who, with Francisco Varela, developed the theory of autopoiesis and a biology of cognition in which knowing is something living systems do, not a picture of an outside world. Warren McCulloch 1898–1969 American neurophysiologist who, with Walter Pitts, wrote the 1943 paper that founded neural network theory. He chaired the Macy Conferences on cybernetics. Margaret Mead 1901–1978 American cultural anthropologist and a core member of the Macy Conferences. Her 1967 address "The Cybernetics of Cybernetics" helped launch the turn to second-order cybernetics. John von Neumann 1903–1957 Hungarian-American mathematician whose 1945 report defined the stored-program computer. An early participant in the Macy Conferences, he later developed the theory of self-reproducing automata. Paul Pangaro American cybernetician, designer and educator, a student of Gordon Pask, who presents cybernetics as the science of purpose and conversation. Former president of the American Society for Cybernetics. Gordon Pask 1928–1996 British cybernetician who built some of the first adaptive teaching machines and interactive artworks, and developed conversation theory, an account of learning and understanding as conversation between participants. Walter Pitts 1923–1969 Self-taught American logician who co-wrote, with Warren McCulloch, the 1943 paper that founded neural network theory. A central figure of early cybernetics whose career ended in isolation after a rift with Norbert Wiener. William T. Powers 1926–2013 American engineer and independent scientist who developed perceptual control theory: the idea that living things act to control what they perceive, not what they do. Qian Xuesen 1911–2009 Chinese aerospace scientist who wrote Engineering Cybernetics (1954) in the United States, then led China's missile and space programmes and championed systems science in China. Arturo Rosenblueth 1900–1970 Mexican physiologist who co-wrote "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" (1943) with Norbert Wiener and Julian Bigelow, and whose talk at a 1942 New York meeting helped start the Macy Conferences. Claude Shannon 1916–2001 American mathematician and engineer who founded information theory in 1948, defining the bit and the limits of communication over noisy channels. He took part in the Macy Conferences. Stuart Umpleby born 1944 American cybernetician and professor of management at George Washington University, a student of Heinz von Foerster and W. Ross Ashby, known for work on reflexivity and second-order cybernetics in the social sciences. Francisco Varela 1946–2001 Chilean biologist and philosopher who co-created the theory of autopoiesis with Humberto Maturana, and later helped found enactive cognitive science and neurophenomenology. W. Grey Walter 1910–1977 American-born British neurophysiologist who advanced EEG brain recording and built the robot "tortoises" Elmer and Elsie (1948–1949), early autonomous robots that showed complex behaviour from very simple circuits. Norbert Wiener 1894–1964 American mathematician who named cybernetics in 1948 and defined it as the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine. He later became one of the first scientists to warn about automation and autonomous machines.
Concepts
Algedonic signal Stafford Beer, 1972 In Stafford Beer's Viable System Model, an alarm signal of pain or pleasure that bypasses the normal chain of reporting and reaches the top of an organisation directly when viability is at risk. Autopoiesis Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, 1972 Self-production: the property of a living system that continuously produces the components that make it up, and so maintains itself as a distinct unity. Defined by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Behavior, Purpose and Teleology Rosenblueth, Wiener and Bigelow, Philosophy of Science, 1943 The 1943 paper by Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener and Julian Bigelow arguing that purposeful behaviour, in machines and animals, can be explained by negative feedback. One of the founding texts of cybernetics. Black box Wartime electronics; developed as a method by W. Ross Ashby, 1956 A system studied only through its inputs and outputs, without access to its inner workings. Cybernetics turned this from a limitation into a method. Circular causality Macy Conferences, 1946 Causation that loops back on itself, so that an effect becomes, through the loop, a cause of its own cause. The organising idea of cybernetics. Conversation theory Gordon Pask, 1960s–1970s Gordon Pask's theory that understanding is constructed in conversation between participants, who agree on concepts by explaining them to each other and showing that they can be reproduced. Cybernetics Named by Norbert Wiener, 1948 The study of control and communication in animals, machines and societies: how systems use feedback to pursue goals, adapt and maintain themselves. Feedback Control engineering, 1920s; generalised by cybernetics in the 1940s The return of a system's output to its input, so that what a system has done shapes what it does next. Negative feedback stabilises; positive feedback amplifies. First-order cybernetics Term from Heinz von Foerster, 1970s, describing work from the 1940s on The cybernetics of observed systems: the original programme of the 1940s and 1950s, which studied feedback, control and communication in systems treated as if seen from outside. Free energy principle Karl Friston, 2005 onwards Karl Friston's theory that any self-maintaining system, from a cell to a brain, must act so as to minimise the surprise of its sensations, by updating its model of the world (perception) and changing the world (action, or active inference). Gaia hypothesis James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, 1970s The proposal by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis that life and its physical environment form a single self-regulating system that keeps the Earth's surface habitable. Good Regulator Theorem Roger Conant and W. Ross Ashby, 1970 The theorem, proved by Roger Conant and W. Ross Ashby in 1970, that every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system. Homeostasis Walter Cannon, 1926; building on Claude Bernard The ability of a living system to keep its internal conditions, such as temperature or blood chemistry, within the limits it needs to survive, through negative feedback. Homeostat W. Ross Ashby, 1948 A machine built by W. Ross Ashby in 1948 that restored its own stability after any disturbance by randomly reconfiguring itself, demonstrating adaptation without a designer. Information theory Claude Shannon, 1948 The mathematical theory of communication founded by Claude Shannon in 1948, which measures information as the reduction of uncertainty and sets the limits of transmitting it over noisy channels. Law of Requisite Variety W. Ross Ashby, 1956 Ashby's law that only variety can absorb variety: a regulator can keep a system stable only if it can produce at least as many distinct responses as there are disturbances to counter. Perceptual control theory William T. Powers, 1960–1973 William T. Powers's theory that behaviour is the control of perception: organisms are hierarchies of feedback loops, each acting to keep a perceived quantity at a reference value. Project Cybersyn Chile, 1971–1973 Chile's 1971–1973 attempt, led by Stafford Beer under Salvador Allende's government, to coordinate the nationalised economy in near real time using telex, statistics and the Viable System Model. Second-order cybernetics Margaret Mead (1967), Heinz von Foerster (1970s) The cybernetics of observing systems: the turn, from the late 1960s, to including the observer in the system being described, so that cybernetics applies its own ideas to itself. Viable System Model Stafford Beer, 1959–1985 Stafford Beer's model of the five functions any organisation needs to survive in a changing environment, repeating at every level from team to nation.
Communities
American Society for Cybernetics Since 1964, Washington, D.C. Professional society founded in 1964 in Washington, D.C., to advance cybernetics. Since the 1970s it has been the main home of second-order cybernetics. ANU School of Cybernetics Since 2021, Canberra, Australia A school at the Australian National University in Canberra, launched in 2021 under Genevieve Bell, that treats cybernetics as a new branch of engineering for building and governing AI-era systems. Biological Computer Laboratory 1958–1975, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Research laboratory at the University of Illinois, founded and directed by Heinz von Foerster from 1958 to 1975, and the main centre of cybernetics research in the United States in that period. CYBCOM Since 1993, Online The main mailing list of the cybernetics community, running since 1993. For three decades it has carried debates on observers, autopoiesis, ethics and the future of the field. International Society for the Systems Sciences Since 1954, International Founded in 1954 as the Society for General Systems Research by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard and Anatol Rapoport. The main society of the broader systems tradition alongside cybernetics. Macy Conferences 1946–1953, New York Ten meetings held in New York from 1946 to 1953, sponsored by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, where mathematicians, engineers, biologists and social scientists developed cybernetics as a shared field. Metaphorum Since 2003, International A community of practice founded in 2003 by close collaborators of Stafford Beer to continue developing his work on the Viable System Model and Team Syntegrity. Ratio Club 1949–1958, London An informal British dining club (1949–1958) of young neurophysiologists, engineers and mathematicians, including Alan Turing, W. Ross Ashby and W. Grey Walter, who met to discuss cybernetics. The Cybernetics Society Since 1968, London The UK's professional society for cybernetics, founded at King's College London in 1968. Today it is one of the most active venues for new cybernetic research, from the free energy principle to the Viable System Model. World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics Since 1969, International An international umbrella body founded in 1969 by John Rose to connect systems and cybernetics societies worldwide. Its official journal is Kybernetes.
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