Norbert Wiener and CyberneticChapter 10

Norbert Wiener• Norbert - Prodigy• Norbert and Cybernetic• Cybernetic and Theory of Communication

A Robert Browning “On A Balcony”

Let it be now, Love! All my soul breaks forth.How I do love you! give my love its way!A man can have but one life and one death,One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my fate

ProdigyIt was a traumatic experience for him to self-realize of his ethnic identity.

His doctoral dissertation at Harvard was entitled “A Comparison of the Algebra of Relatives of Schroeder and of Whitehead and Russell”.

“Tell me, am I slipping?”

1919 after the military service Wiener joined the Department of Mathematics at MIT.

Absent-mindedness, He was famed at MIT for his so-called

Wiener-wegs on which he wandered in a random path

through the institute buildings, dropping unannounced into offices and laboratories to

encounter a surprised professor or doctoral student

In 1934 after his collaboration with former

doctoral student from China, YUK Wing Lee, Wiener

became interested in the concept of feedback, the key

building block in the cybernetic theory that was to

make him world famous.

Yellow Peril• 1941-1942 in MIT Radiation Laboratory he set to

work on the mathematics of antiaircraft gun control

• Cybernetics is so broad that it probably cannot be viewed as a mainly mathematical theory…

• Questions 3,4,5

Q?• Why did Everet M. Rogers claim that Cybernetics

Theory is communication theory rather than mathematics?

• Do you think that communication study has been influenced by Cybernetic Theory? Can Communication theories influence any other theories in other fields of study?

• Can Mathematical Theories apply for Communication Theory?

The Philosophy of Science Club

Norbert, Rosenblueth,

Walter Pitt and Warren

Walter + Macy Foundation Conference

Gregory Bateson + his wife Margaret

Mead

In 1949 Warren invited Heim von

Foerster, who suggested to name

the conference “Cybernetic”

If you can read this, you have a strong mind!

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“Cybernetics” Greek word for “steersman” (1942)

“Cybernetics” was chosen by Wiener from the Greek word for “steersman”

(1942)

The word was first used by Plato

(424/423 BC[a] – 348/347 BC) in the sense of "the art of

steering" or "the art of government

".

André-Marie Ampère (1775 –1836) used the word cybernetics to denote "the study of ways of governing."

Q?• How did Norbert Wiener’s insecurity motivate him

to even greater intellectual accomplishments?• If the feedback system existed prior to Norbert

Wiener’s wartime work, why did Cybernetics come late?

Systems TheoryA Systems Theory Framework for Careers Development

Systems theory is actually not a theory in a strict sense but a broad paradigm, a response to the problem of reductionism, and a reaction against growing scientific specialization

Karakurihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqd4MqtFduA&feature=related

Ortekehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGaBuPNa-RQ&feature=related(3.44)

Q• Feedback is seen in nature. For example, ice –

water – vapor. Could you give any example for Cybernetic?

• Is communication study in a closed system or in an open system? Is System theory is appropriate to use in Communication Study?

• What type of communication do you think can be studied by System Theory?

• How is Cybernetic is integrated into System Theory, if it is at all?

Annotated Bibliography• Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth • Systems theory and research in the study of

organizational communication: The correspondence problem

• Developmental systems theory: An integrative approach