cibernetic

Cibernetic, sometimes used as a transliteration of cybernetic in some languages, refers to the interdisciplinary study of regulatory and communication processes within and between complex systems. It focuses on how systems use feedback to maintain stability, adapt to change, and achieve goals, through the flow of information, control mechanisms, and communication. The field spans biology, engineering, computer science, and social sciences, and emphasizes modeling, control theory, and the role of information in system behavior.

Origins lie in mid-20th-century work led by Norbert Wiener, who in 1948 popularized cybernetics as the study of regulatory and communicative processes in machines and living beings. W. Ross Ashby's ideas on the law of requisite variety helped formalize how systems respond to environmental variety. Later, second-order cybernetics, associated with thinkers like Heinz von Foerster, emphasized the role of observers in defining systems. Core concepts include feedback loops, homeostasis, open and closed systems, self-organization, and adaptive regulation.

Applications appear across robotics and automatic control, information networks, neural and artificial intelligence, organizational theory, economics, and ecology. In engineering, cybernetic principles underlie feedback control and adaptive systems; in biology and neuroscience, they inform models of regulation and learning. In social and organizational contexts, cybernetics contributes to systems thinking and the study of governance, communication, and coordination in complex networks.