Cybernetics as a Scientific Discipline

Cybernetics is the science of control processes in dynamic systems, which is based on the theoretical basis of logic, mathematics, and the widespread use of computer technology for this purpose .

Andre Marie Amper about two hundred years ago completed the work entitled "Essays on the Philosophy of Sciences." In his work, the French mathematician and physicist sought to bring all existing scientific knowledge into the system. In a separate column, the scientist placed science, which, in his opinion, was supposed to study the ways of managing society. The name of this science, he formed from the Greek word "cybernetus", meaning "helmsman", "helmsman".

The science of cybernetics was placed by Amper in the section "Politics". For a long time, the term was not used at all, essentially forgetting about it.

Only in 1948 Norbert Wiener , an American mathematician, published the work Cybernetics, or Management and Communication in Living Organisms and Machines. The book aroused keen interest of the public.

The cornerstones of cybernetics were the theory of information, automata theory and the theory of algorithms, which studied ways of constructing systems intended for information processing. The mathematical apparatus of the science of cybernetics is very wide. It includes the theory of probability, the theory of functions, mathematical logic and other branches of mathematics.

In the development of scientific approaches to cybernetics, a great role was played by biology, which studies the management processes inherent in living nature. Decisive in the development of cybernetics was the growth of automation and electronics, which led to the emergence of computers with high speed. This opened up unprecedented opportunities for processing information and modeling control systems.

The services of the new science began to be used by physics, mathematics, biology, psychiatry, physiology, economics, philosophy, engineering of various directions.

Since cybernetics studies management processes, these sciences have sought to develop management processes in the spheres of their own interests. As a result, the closest attention was drawn to the living organism - the man himself, who was a super-type control system, whose functions scientists and engineers sought to reproduce with the help of automata.

Cybernetics explores the general properties of various control systems that are inherent in living nature, the organic world, and the collective of people.

The control object (machine, automated line, living cell, symbol set) and the control device (brain or machine) are constantly exchanging information.

Management is associated with the transfer, storage, accumulation, processing of data, information that characterizes the object, external conditions, the course of processes, the work program.

Different systems differ from each other in the nature of information carriers (light, sound, chemical, mechanical, electrical signals, documents). But in any case, these processes obey the general laws. All of them are characterized by the presence of feedback. Also, all control devices include elements and functions that share similar characteristics to living organisms and artificial machines. They are capable of perceiving information, accumulating it, remembering it, etc.

Cybernetics developed extremely rapidly. About a quarter of a century, it has become one of the leading disciplines, received scientific recognition and universal significance.

Today cybernetics is a full-fledged science of the principles of management in certain spheres of science and society (economic, technical, nuclear cybernetics, etc.). Cybernetics develops concepts and builds management models.

Cybernetic is a type of management that considers an organization as a system whose elements are interrelated; Provides an optimal solution to dynamic tasks; Uses specific methods of cybernetics (feedback, self-organization, etc.); Applies automation and mechanization of management work on the basis of control and computer technology and computers.