Norbert Wiener and the origins of cybernetics Alberto Boem Interface Culture Master Course Thomas-Mann Str. 5 Leondin, OÖ, AT +39 3355213244 boem.alberto@gmail.com ABSTRACT This essays wants to draw the origins and the fundamental concepts about cybernetics. We will rely to the considerations of Norbert Wiener who is mentioned as the founder of this discipline established in the second half of the twentieth century. In this paper we can refer about the chapter intitled “Cybernetics in History” which is a writing of Norbert Weiner taken from the book “Multimedia. From Wagner to virtual reality” edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan, firts published in 2001 [1]. Keywords Cybernetics, feedback, control, communication, human, machine, entropy. 1. INTRODUCTION Norbert Weiner (b. 1894, d. 1964) was an american mathematician and scientist the known as the founder of the Cybernetics. Wiener explain his theory in "Cybernetics" (1948), the first book that gave a definition of the topics of this research field. But Weiner considered this book a sort of technical book and for this purpose he wrote "The human use of human being" to respond to the need to communicate his new theory to a more wider audience. He published two editions of this work: the first in 1950 and the second in 1954. 2. A NEW DISCIPLINE We live in an era where the life of the human beings is increasingly populated by ever more complex machines, Norbert Weiner states that a better knowledge of the communication process between human and machine could be able to influence the quality of man's life, and cybernetics ameid at this result. Weiner believed that his findings could contribute to improve the knowledge of the life in the technological society, not only by scientists but also by the 'average man'. In this except Weiner focuses on the basic ideas of cybernetics as a new science, its developments and characteristics. 3. THE ORIGINS OF CYBERNETICS Weiner says that for us it's possible understand society only through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong that and allow us to indentify the future development of these two aspects. In particular this is the case of the technological society. Starting from the theory of messages Weiner comes to define a larger field, not limited only on engineering but borders on sociology, physiology and cognitive science. Weiner pointed that this complex and wide set of ideas needed a definition, and he first coined the term 'cybernetics' derived from the greek word 'kybernates', that means 'steersman' and 'governor'. He said that some years later the publication of his works he discovered that this terms was used by some mathematician of the past centuries like Ampère. 3.1 Characteristics of cybernetics Weiner defined Cybernetics as an interdisciplinary filed of research that have primaly the aim to study the structure of communication in the living systems: human and machine as well. For the american scientist the central issues is the analysis of the problems related to the mechanisms of control and the communication. In Weiner's research became central the study of the characteristics of communication in general, between men and with men and their environment. He said that these system should be a model for understand better the communication process between man and machine but also between machine and machine. Weiner define as control the continuous man's fighting the nature's tendency to degrade the organized and destroy the meaningful. In other words, this concept concern the control of the entropy of the natural world by the humans, especially in the society of the second half of the XX century that the men has the possibility to interact with machines with a large number of devices. For this reason the fundamental concept that Weiner identify in Cybernetics is the mechanism of feedback. 4. THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS Weiner describe this process of communication like a continuous interaction between living systems. He started from the analysis of the communication issues between people and between people and their environment. For Weiner the informations that comes from the external world are perceived by the sense organs, then passed through a process of storage, collation and selection inside Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Nime’05, May 26-28, , 2005, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Copyright remains with the author(s).