# Cybernetics ## The Idea in Brief Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of systems, regulation, and communication. It explains how living beings, machines, and organisations use feedback to maintain stability, adapt, and reach goals. Emerging in the mid-20th century, it shaped early computing, artificial intelligence, and systems theory. While the term is less used today, its influence persists across disciplines ranging from neuroscience to management science. --- ## Key Concepts ### 1. Feedback - **Negative feedback**: stabilises a system by counteracting change (e.g. a thermostat keeping room temperature constant). - **Positive feedback**: amplifies change, sometimes leading to growth or instability (e.g. viral spread on social media). ### 2. Control and Regulation Cybernetics studies how systems regulate themselves and maintain order despite external disturbances. This applies to machines (autopilots), bodies (homeostasis), and economies (policy adjustments). ### 3. Communication and Information Information transfer is central. Cybernetics treats messages, signals, and commands as essential for coordination and adaptation. ### 4. System Boundaries Any cybernetic analysis requires defining the “system” under study and its interaction with the environment. ### 5. Self-organisation Later developments in cybernetics explored how systems can evolve structures without central control, laying foundations for complexity science. ### 6. First-Order and Second-Order Cybernetics - **First-order**: focuses on systems observed from outside, with an emphasis on control and prediction. - **Second-order**: emphasises that the observer is also part of the system, making observation itself a feedback process.